I have had alot of personal pressure and work stress (but enjoy/love what I do. its part of the job stress at times) and this causing me to eat junk food.

I want to lose weight however I am not sure exactly how. Since my job entails me sitting down all the time - I dont get much excersize. I've also had a problem with my left knee for a couple of years and only got worse within the last year.

So my question is, what can I do to lose weight? I need to start eating healthy but here is the problem: I do not know what to eat. I know, sounds wierd right?

I am a vegetarian. I do have healthy soup from time to time, cereal or toast for breakfast (most days I dont eat breakfast, just lunch/dinner).

I have totally cut down on my intake for sodas/fizzy/gassy juice which is a step in the right direction. Also totally cut down on sweets/crisps.

But what things should I buy and eat? I am commited to this but need guidence to start with and follow that through until I can find my feet.

any help and advice is appreciated. I really want to lose weight.

I am a Jean size 36-38 and want to drop down as much as possible and with some quick results rather than waiting months for results.

Thank you

I'm not a vegetarian so my advice is limited but you're doing good by cutting out the sweets. I'd cut out all processed foods, also, vegetarian or not because processed foods usually have a lot of junk and often have HFCS which isn't helpful for us when we're trying to lose weight. I wouldn't avoid fat, so you might look at nuts/avocados in moderation to ensure you get enough dietary fat. Are you full vegan or do you eat eggs/dairy? Do you eat fish?

There is a vegetarian section on this forum that you probably can get a lot of great advice from.

Good luck on your goals!

A starting place for a lot of people here, as well as myself, is to count calories. I do not count calories religiously anymore, but it took me counting calories to realize how much is appropriate to eat in a day. I believe it's a good starting point to becoming more informed about the food you put in your body. After I started counting calories, I became more interested in what foods are healthy foods to eat.

If you go to the calorie counting section of the forum, there is a lot of information there. First, you would need to find out how many calories you need to eat in a day. There are a lot of calculators out there. One I have used in the past is here: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

After that, there are plenty of user friendly apps and websites that will help you keep track. Myfitnesspal is a really good app where you can just punch in what you have eaten for the day (they have tons of calorie information in their database), and it will tell you what the calories are and add up your daily caloric intake for you. Very nifty.

Hope this helps!

I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I don't eat a whole lot meat. It just isn't my preference. I agree with cutting out processed food as much as possible.

A couple of points that I think are crucial:
1. Eat breakfast! This will get your metabolism going and give you energy!!
2. There is no quick fix for weight loss. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, it takes time. It can be very discouraging at times, but well worth it.

I've gone up and down over the years, but usually I gain it back because of some specific reason (baby, surgery, etc.) I don't do calorie counting because that doesn't work for me, but it is helpful in order to get an idea of how much you should be eating. I did Weight Watchers for a few months, and I've also tried Atkins. While plans like that may or may not work for you, they can give you an idea of what and how much to eat because they have guidelines to follow. I don't know anything about South Beach Diet or Ideal Protein, but they seem to be popular, too. So if you're really stuck on what to eat, maybe look at the guidelines for one of the structured diet plans just to get an idea. It could also be beneficial to talk to your doctor or a nutritionist.

I don't agree that eating breakfast makes a difference, but kurbain is not alone in backing it. And while cutting out processed foods is healthier, that doesn't always equal weight loss. It is possible to maintain or even gain weight on a "healthy" diet. The bottom line for me is burning more calories than I'm eating. I sit alot too, so I have to eat less. Exercise is not mandatory for losing weight though it is a good idea for a healthy body and allows you to eat more and still lose weight.

As for what to eat I tend to favor low cal foods simply so I can eat more of them. Here in Ontario, most packaged food has a calorie and nutrition guide on it. Do you have that where you are? If not, you can find a lot of calorie counts on MyFitnessPal, LoseIt, and other sites. Try not to eat foods that you know will tempt you to eat more and more. But nothing says you can't have the occasional treat. I don't have any off limit foods, just foods that I don't eat often because they take up too much of my daily calorie allotment.

You may not like counting calories and prefer a different approach but from what I know, the only thing that loses you weight, no matter how you come at it is burning more than you eat.

Vegetarianism would make me hungry, as I'm carb sensitive and too much even from fibrous veggies notably increases my hunger and fatigue.

That said, pick a plan and stick with it. Let someone else do the legwork of balancing your macros. Research it, find out what diets are out there that are vegetarian/vegan for weight loss.

OR

Stick with your normal diet or a whole foods/fairly unprocessed day, and jut calorie count. There are dozens of excellent free calculators to tell to what your daily target should be, and then after a few months of sticking with your plan you can adjust up and down accordingly if you need to.

Not true.

So for me the first step to stop eating junk food when i was stressing was to have a plan

As Artic mama said" pick a plan (weightwatcher, jenny..whatever) and stick to it!"

but some tips for the stress eating:

1) Get rid of it ! Dump the stuff that you go to town on.. I know that weightwatchers and some other good programs say that you can have the food you want in moderation, but if you are stress eating like i did/do.. moderation is not on the menu for stress eating. ( these are probably your "trigger foods" anyway)

2) Replace it- Stock up "good snack foods" fruit, cut up vegs, those little applsesauce cups, yogurt. rice cakes. How about those 100 cal snack packs (only if you can keep you self to eating one) I make hummus and pre-divide it into little mini-mini 3 oz tuperware bins.. and dip the vegs (2 TBS a serving) Stash 'em everywhere.

For me, this worked for awhile , but I don't like this stuff as much as Doritos. and I know find myself wanting to snacking less.

3) Gorge your self on "volume" foods during meals (i.e. vegetables). But don't forget the protein-Beans, Beans Beans!!!

Also for the injured knee, exercise dilemma: Is swimming an option?

Fire, you have received some wonderful advice here in the past. What you need is consistency. So...Come here and join the conversation. Login to 3FC daily. Participate in the threads. The accountability will help you make good decisions on a daily basis.

Also, you are not a failure.

All - I value and thank you so much for the input.

I live in the UK (um... another stress factor) and I can eat eggs/milk/fish.
Swimming isnt an option because... I just cant swim haha.

you are right lunarsongbird - I need to stick to it. The problem for me has been the timeframe. Even though I am more pushed than before in terms of what I do, I now are able to work from home most days which is a great thing so I can focus on other things in my life like this without having to come home late and throw something in the microwave to eat.

The other thing is this: I literally do not know what to eat at times because I can't cook. I should learn... but for me, time is always the enemy in this work work work world.

I did spend ALOT of money last month almost every other day on buying fruit and making myself mixed fruit salad with a little bit of cream and having that as a snack. Made me feel proud about that but obviously that is not the sole solution to losing weight. I need to start that again in terms of buying fruit every day....

I used to have onken fruit yoghurts for breakfast or whenever I woke up as my first meal. That was ok. I should probably do that again but not sure if it helped me or anything.

I usually eat frozen foods like quorn, which basically is from the fungi family. Its not processed or anything but an alternative to meat.

I guess I need a plan or something like you suggest but the plan including exactly what to eat (or variation of things to eat) and stick to it.

As for calories...hahah. good point, I think maybe I eat no more than 1200 per day but I could be wrong.

I do eat rice...love pasta too but dont eat it much but only when I go out for dinner or something.

hmm. need a damn plan

I've been vegetarian in the past (not vegan, I did eat dairy and eggs), and I can tell you that it's stupidly easy to consume excess calories while avoiding meat. Especially if you have an affinity for cheese (as I do). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's almost easier to overdose on calories if you're a vegetarian and eating out at a restaurant. Often times the only available vegetarian entrees are pasta or bread based dishes loaded with fat.

I second Arctic Momma when she suggests calorie counting. By doing so you'll find out which foods fill you up and which ones leave you hungry, and you can adjust what you eat from there. How long have you been vegetarian?

Also, I take a multi-vitamin along with fish oil daily. I don't know how others feel about vitamins, but I take mine religiously.

I don't know much about ideal protein, but they do have it in the UK- and I'm pretty sure they tell you exactly how to eat- http://www.idealnewyou.com/UK.html
I'm not sure if they have a vegetarian option?? I'm pretty sure most of the protein intake is based on whey. :: shrugs ::

You can get the weight off that way, however- you need to learn how to eat/and or cook to sustain that weight loss.

ETA: It looks like it can be done- http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/idea...l-protein.html

Also- men should be eating way more then 1200 calories a day. http://www.livestrong.com/article/30...r-day-for-men/

thanks again.

been a vegetarian my whole life. Since I left "the nest", been on my own and used to cook some things here and there even though my range of cooking is very limited.

hmm. what to eat, what to buy, what to cook. pfft.

One thing that helps me is making sure no single dish is more than 350-400 calories, and that I have no more than 2 (3 if you get more calories) of those "high-end" dishes a day. The rest is smaller-ticket items like fruit, veggies, or low-fat dairy. You can still have delicous food--you just have to be a little more conscious of the ingredients.