Advice on my diet, stuck on a plateau

[Fab Foodie]

Too many carbs and free-sugar things.
Eggs for brekkie are a wonderful thing and keep you full for hours.
Eat a lot more veg (not fruit) and some lean proteins especially beans and pulses.

 

[Blue Hills]

Sounds like you’re in balance with your intake and output so the whole ‘lose weight’ thing has ground to a halt. Remember fat doesn’t weigh as much as muscle, but if your body fat is constant ( use ‘fat scales’ and take the results as a reference but only to trends not actual scorers they are notoriously inaccurate) I’d be trying to kick start your body to target fat burning, and break your diet routine.
So my advice, for what it’s worth, would be to go onto 5+2 for a while to challenge your body with really low intake days. Careful of your exercise levels on the fasting days, and concentrate on training your body to ignore the hunger cravings, distraction techniques worked for me during massive steroid (medical) induced sugar cravings.

Can you tell us more about these distraction techniques?

 

[Scotty55]

heres todays photo of me mid frame skin headas you can see i could do with losing a bit as the last few weeks have been very stressful so i have been hitting the cake and booze as a comfort im afraid to say and only commuting .im more happy around 150 llbs
View attachment 535466

Sorry - struggling to see which one needs to lose weight here....

 

[Drago]

Lees sugar for sure. Watch the carbs - complex carbs (oats, pulses, etc) aren't a problem, but the rest of them need careful monitoring. Bread is also one to avoid. Cheese is the Devil's own work - i love the stuff, but if you eat cheese you may as well cut out the middle man and have a reverse liposuction. Very, very occasional cheese for me

I'm a fat big, tall, hunk of a man and don't eat as much as you on a typical day - I have T1 diabetes and can be prone to thickening round the middle so I'm fairly careful with carbs as they can cause me more problems than sugar, but don't eat so much as you.

I typically do these days:

Brekkie - black coffee no sugar, oat bar (Mrs D shops around to find ones with an acceptable sugar content.

Mid morning - black coffee, hard boiled egg or raw carrot as a snack.

Lunch - small portion of pasta, or half a tine of beans, maybe with some veg on the side (veg is eaten under sufferance)

Mid afternoon - tea or coffee, hard boiled egg or raw carrot. That's it for caffeine drinks, never more than 3 a day, never later than 4pm.

Regular evening meal, portion size carefully controlled.

On a Saturday evening before bed I'm allowed a small choccie bar as a treat.

Very little alcohol.

I'm 6'4", fairly steady at about 116kg, 54" chest, 36" waist. I lift 6 days a week and cycle virtually every day, feel fine for energy etc.

 

[Gazjacko]

Can you tell us more about these distraction techniques?

Ok, right you’re probably going to recognise some aspects of ‘hunger pangs’ like when they occur and how you deal with them. For me, it was the work induced mid morning energy lull. Prior to lockdown and working from home, I’d habitually have a cuppa and biscuit(s) around 10:30-11:00am, perked me up, quick ‘sugar rush’ then back to work. I have replaced with this with a 10:30 I go and ‘make’ a coffee. Full on grind the beans, tamp down, adjust pressure on machine barista double espresso! Distracted for 10 mins, then back to work, ( no biscuits).
Other strategies included during home working have been when really important to have a break from screen time, I have a jigsaw on the go. Target set ( maybe 5 pieces no matter how long, there’s still less calories than a snack) then back to work.
Teach your brain that your body has the energy stored it just has to ‘find’ it (fat) rather than you top it up without thinking ( sugary snacks)

 

[davidphilips]

Can you tell us more about these distraction techniques?

For me i have 3 things that i use for distraction, first would be to drink lots, no sugar water if you can, second and very similar no caffeine coffee will be some calories but better than hitting junk food, perhaps the best of all for me is just to get on a bike i have set up and do 30 minutes in zone 1 (very easy cycling) even if i am really tired after a hard cycle an easy recovery cycle same day can take my mind of eating and does not seem to make tired mussels etc any worse.

 

[Drago]

A hard boiled egg, or less often a raw carrot, are my distraction nibbles.

 

[Blue Hills]

A hard boiled egg, or less often a raw carrot, are my distraction nibbles.

Thanks for egg idea.
A quick online search says 78 calories, not too bad.
As a northern kid was warned about the perils of becoming egg-bound, but suppose forcing it out would burn a few calories.

Edit, another search seems to say that a single egg contains 124 percent of your daily cholesterol allowance.
Hell this is complicated, maybe i'll stick to beer, chips and cycling.

 

[Drago]

Eggs are funny things. They are high in cholesterol, but by some quirk the body doesn't absorb it and it doesn't raise the blood serum cholesterol level significantly. Its cholestrol in saturated fatty acids that clogs you up.

The British Heart Foundation are pretty cool with eggs.

 

[Globalti]

Don't they say that muscle weighs more than fat?

 

[Drago]

It does indeed, by volume it's about 17-18% denser than lard.

 

[Globalti]

So as you build muscle you'll gain weight.

 

[Drago]

That's what I've been telling Mrs D

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

So as you build muscle you'll gain weight.

And should still look better

 

[Globalti]

I've lost about 7 kilos in the last couple of months, some due to muscle loss as I haven't been cycling and lots due to fat loss as we've been eating only small pre-prepared supermarket meals. Lockdown stress followed by neighbour stress then the move into temporary accommodation here in Scotland, selling the house and sorting out a thousand things I haven't the will to sort, depression, boredom, retirement regrets, the list is endless. It all contributes.

So my conclusion is that people who gain weight must be settled and contented.