Hello - I lost 26lbs - 20 to go

Coldcitytoo

I made myself a goal in March 2022 to lose 45 lbs after slowly getting bigger and bigger over the last 11 years (all menopause years).. and I am over half way. I logged everything I ate and drank for first 3/4 months... then stopped when the new shopping/cooking habits became embedded. I have the luxury of living alone, makes dieting easier. BUT struggling with knowing when to stop, knowing what's a healthy calorie count for each day and getting out in the rain/wind to exercise.
My BMR is 1324 and I eat 2/3 meals per day - all cooked from scratch - mostly veg/fish/chicken/eggs/salad and 🍷 not sure how many calories per day anymore and plateau frequently.. weight loss has been over 6 months so 1lb per week, exercise is very uneven some days 23k steps, others 23. Routine is hard when you live alone and work from home 🏡

TatianaMichelle276

That's amazing! Living alone has got to be top tier for weight loss and meal prepping. I share my fridge with 4 others and it's always a mess so it makes staying on my diet harder. Even if I prepped breakfast lunch and dinner for the week, where would I put it?

dreamweaversguild

Ive hit menopause too and gained 15 lbs in a year. Thank you for sharing. Your story is very encouraging!

BartBVanBockstaele

Coldcitytoo wrote: »

I made myself a goal in March 2022 to lose 45 lbs after slowly getting bigger and bigger over the last 11 years (all menopause years).. and I am over half way. I logged everything I ate and drank for first 3/4 months... then stopped when the new shopping/cooking habits became embedded. I have the luxury of living alone, makes dieting easier. BUT struggling with knowing when to stop, knowing what's a healthy calorie count for each day and getting out in the rain/wind to exercise.
My BMR is 1324 and I eat 2/3 meals per day - all cooked from scratch - mostly veg/fish/chicken/eggs/salad and 🍷 not sure how many calories per day anymore and plateau frequently.. weight loss has been over 6 months so 1lb per week, exercise is very uneven some days 23k steps, others 23. Routine is hard when you live alone and work from home 🏡

Our situations are not dissimilar: I live alone and work from home. Ten years ago, I was about 60 kg heavier than I am now. Exercise situation is similar. When the situation allows it, I can easily do 20-30thousand steps, other days, no steps are recorded at all.
As for food, I use frozen vegetables, almost to the exclusion of anything supposedly fresh. My sources of protein are sardines, soybeans and lupini flakes, because they are extremely convenient. Sardines and soybeans are very tasty, lupini not so much, but they are quite pleasant in combination with vegetables.

As for routine, exercise routine is impossible in my case, food routine is, at least to an extent. Because I am always hungry, I wear a second watch with a timer to keep me regular. It works. I also have no satiety and fullness cues. I solve that by careful weighing and portioning.

BartBVanBockstaele

TatianaMichelle276 wrote: »

That's amazing! Living alone has got to be top tier for weight loss and meal prepping. I share my fridge with 4 others and it's always a mess so it makes staying on my diet harder. Even if I prepped breakfast lunch and dinner for the week, where would I put it?

Those are good points. That said, living alone does come with its own set of difficulties. For example, try to go to a store and buy portions for one. If you want cabbage, for example, you'll quickly learn that it lasts for several meals, and that it spoils. Eating cabbage for a whole week is not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes, portions for one can be bought, but a quick look at the prices will tell you that this is not much of a solution.

Even kitchen necessities/devices can be tricky. Try to buy a pressure cooker for one. Or a quality bread maker, food processor, rice cooker and others. If you find them, you'll find they are often so junky, of low quality, they are like toys and often barely work if at all. It seems that companies still think in terms of big-bigger-biggest, not realising that a large part of the population cooks for a single person, not for the army.

Storage is not necessarily easier. My bachelor suite fridge is too big and almost empty because most everything spoils in there, while my freezer is filled to the brim, and there is not nearly enough space. Shopping for one takes essentially just as much time as shopping for four, as does cooking. I solved that problem by almost eliminating cooking altogether, but that also means missing out on a lot of things "normal" people take for granted.

snowflake954

So glad everything is working for you. Great loss!

Coldcitytoo

I feel your pain with regard to appliances portions and my fridge freezer situation is the same. The answer I have gone with is find a good quality fresh ready meal company and buy 2 per week, then buy fresh food for two and makes 2 x 2 meals and eat out on the 7th day. It means eating everything twice in one week and takes careful planning tho..

metaphysicalstudio

Great job! And living alone has it's benefits. You have a lot more potential for control.

4Phoenix

Congratulations! You are doing great! You mentioned that you weren't always aware of the amount of calories you are eating (we know that is critical). I come here to Fitness Pal (which I love) for support, and I use Chronometer (free) to log daily dairy...it gives me not only the calories I'm consuming but all the the nutritional information regarding the food that I log. It has really helped me understand my nutritional requirements and keeps me on track. Your portions sizes will be easier to track as well as being alerted to any deficiencies in your food program. Wishing you the best!

BartBVanBockstaele

Coldcitytoo wrote: »

I feel your pain with regard to appliances portions and my fridge freezer situation is the same. The answer I have gone with is find a good quality fresh ready meal company and buy 2 per week, then buy fresh food for two and makes 2 x 2 meals and eat out on the 7th day. It means eating everything twice in one week and takes careful planning tho..

It seems we are doing similar things. I have a limited set of "meals" that I rotate. I often call it "pragmatic food". I was painstakingly precise and careful in the planning, but I am essentially no longer planning at all. I know exactly what to do, and almost never deviate, except for days I am more hungry than usual, and on the days I go somewhere, which is exceedingly rare, thanks to COVID-19.

For example, I use 250 g of vegetables as a "portion" because all vegetables I buy come in bags with multiples of 250 g, except for spinach that comes in bags of 300 g, but since the difference is so small, I use the whole bag as a portion.

I also use soybeans, sardines and lupini flakes. The advantage of these is that I can stock up on them outside the freezer and that they are very compact, so even a year's worth doesn't take much space.
Just as an example, this is my freezer. It hold about 15-21 days' worth of vegetables:

What I do, is not necessarily acceptable for everyone, but it does work very well for me. If all goes well, I should be on my ideal weight sometime in the first quarter of 2023, but since I don't really know what that weight is, it remains to be seen.

BartBVanBockstaele

Fit2btied2016 wrote: »

One of the best suggestions I have for single persons is to invest in a small chest freezer, or an upright one (whatever would work best for size and cost). You can then stock up on whatever you like when it is on sale, and you will not have to grocery shop as often.

That is indeed what I have been contemplating for a while mainly because my favourite vegetables are hard to get in my neighbourhood and also because I would love to buy frozen sardines again, instead of the canned stuff. They are hard to get, but so much tastier than the canned variety.

You can also control the ingredients! This is especially true for sodium and sugar, etc.

How true. I use *no* salt, *no* sugar and *no* oil in my cooking.

I almost forgot. One of the best gifts my Mom ever bought me was a small crockpot.

Athough I have become lazy now and am mostly using the microwave, I also use a small rice cooker. When I stopped eating rice, I started using it for making soup, essentially the same way a crockpot would be used. For a bachelor like me, the automatic keep-warm setting is a great feature.


https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/npgbc

Zojirushi is really an exceptional brand since it is the only one I am aware of that makes small appliances directed at people living alone or as a couple while still maintaining high quality standards. The only problem is that it can be hard to obtain. I was unable to find it in Toronto, which is kind of surprising, one would think that Canada's largest and economically most important city would have some possibilities.

I also have their small breadmaker:

https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/bbssc
It came with a recipe booklet, but those recipes are made for the North American market and all have sugar, oil and lots of salt. I follow a more traditional recipe that has no added sugar or oil and only about half the salt. Good bread does not need sugar and oil.

The only regrettable thing about Zojirushi is that they have so much more choice in Japan than in North America.

But you are right. A second freezer would be great. I will have to make some hard decisions and get rid of some stuff to find space for one. Especially now that winter is there, trips to No Frills to buy my favourite okra and oriental-style vegetable blends will become difficult or impossible and I will have to do with other good, but less-favoured vegetables that are also almost twice as expensive at my local Loblaws.

6nynjty6ng

Coldcitytoo wrote: »

I made myself a goal in March 2022 to lose 45 lbs after slowly getting bigger and bigger over the last 11 years (all menopause years).. and I am over half way. I logged everything I ate and drank for first 3/4 months... then stopped when the new shopping/cooking habits became embedded. I have the luxury of living alone, makes dieting easier. BUT struggling with knowing when to stop, knowing what's a healthy calorie count for each day and getting out in the rain/wind to exercise.
My BMR is 1324 and I eat 2/3 meals per day - all cooked from scratch - mostly veg/fish/chicken/eggs/salad and 🍷 not sure how many calories per day anymore and plateau frequently.. weight loss has been over 6 months so 1lb per week, exercise is very uneven some days 23k steps, others 23. Routine is hard when you live alone and work from home 🏡

l
You're doing so well! Don't be hard on yourself, the progress is amazing and you WILL reach your goal.