[Closed] New Year Diet Re-Boot, advice and ideas needed.

I always liked Werner Herzog's dismissive take on dietry advice: "eat less, move more".

"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating

Seems simple enough to me.. 🤷‍♂️

I liked the IDave diet doing the rounds rounds few years ago. Not low carb at all, all the carbs came from beans/legumes etc.

I just try to eat cleaner, cut out the shite, cut down on meat, dairy, eat plenty veg, home made soups etc. Cut down on bread too.

Thai/viet style broth based meals are awesome and great for this kinda thing, and generally far nicer to eat than the over processed shite we end up grazing on.

Meal plan, batch cook, and drink plenty water. 🙏

Thanks nobeerinthefridge, the Thai/Viet suggestion is exactly the sort of thing I am looking for.

The ultra-processed food studies done in recent years are worth reading. Probably won't tell you anything you didn't know already -eating bad food begets eating more bad food. But really brings into focus how eating clean / simple food you prepare yourself (exactly as you said) is the name of the game.
How you divide that up wrt foodgroups etc is less important.

stop eating so much sugar, reduce process food in take and exercise more.

He's not a chef, or anything like it Gav, but Joe Wicks books are pretty good for simple ideas, I pretty much lived off those ideas (tarted up a wee bit!) For a year and lost nearly 4 stone.

I took up running again too, which helped massively but also means avoiding eating yourself out if house and home after long runs 😆

I know how to lose weight, I was fat all my life, despite being very active, and 10 years ago started on a route that lost me 5-6 stone.

What I am looking for are food/diet orientated suggestions so I can research and plan an easy to cook day to day menu for the new year.

👌🏻

Big thing I would say is listen to your body, are you really hungry, are you thirsty, but you have to be honest with yourself.

I've been using my fitness pal since Jan 20 and aimed for slow weight loss of about 1/2lb a week. The important thing was knowing how much I was eating and should be eating. That knowledge was invaluable.

From there started to make small changes that can be kept to to get calories under control. I stopped eating a bowl of cereal at about 10pm,i wasn't hungry and only had evening meal few hours before. Had hungry feeling before bed but that went away after a week or two and kept that habit going.

From there you can change to other types of foods and meals.

For me it's more mental than anything else.

I'll be doing the Dialed Health shred challenge as of the 3rd January - it worked well. Five workouts a week, 400 kcal deficit, 3 litres of water daily and 1.5g of protein per kg bodyweight.

The aim is to track everything you eat, weigh in everyday and take photos of your progress.

I’ve lost 17lbs since August simply by cutting DOWN on carbs. Very little beer, few spuds, rice & pasta, no pastry, bread or refined sugar. Not quite keto.
Lots of tinned fish for snacks, chicken etc, & what Wordnumb said.
Keeping track of everything sounds like a right fart on.

I would definitely like to learn some more tasty, easy veg dishes.

BBC Good Food 3 bean chilli is a triumph of the genre, so good we don't bother with meaty chilli any more, batch cooks well, easy clean up because no grease, etc.

Would like some more recipes of that ilk. Stir fry is usually a winner.

I just calorie counted and found that removing snacking and the worst calorie dense foods resulted in a very slow weight loss...your diet is long term so any diet you choose should be sustainable long term to avoid yo-yo weight changes.

However I found a stressful job removed the motivation to maintain that pretty sensible/achievable diet and of the 10kg I lost over a year, I've put about 8 back on.

I have been doing a 'UPF free December' which has been nice. Partly because of the mentioned studies on ultra processed food/scary stats from the Dr Xand podcast, but I also wanted to cut out a lot of the single use plastic. And because basically anything sealed in a packet has things added to stop it going rank, two birds one stone. Makes shopping easier too as you can only use about four isles. We eat a lot of veg, pulses, tiny bit of meat and an even smaller amount if cheese. Can still have crisps if you buy plain tortilla chips, so easy snacks still available.
P.s you know that veg is carbs right? And you should eat veg? No sensible diet involves not eating veg.

Cut out beer with alcohol, Nanny State is drinkable and only 29Kcal per can. Exercise 3 times a week, even if you don't feel like it - either a 20 mile ride or a 1 mile swim so not exactly running a marathon.

These are the results for me so far

Big drop in the last couple of days is dehydration caused by a fever - not a recommended diet approach

Home cooked, simple foods, lots of veg / pulses, with protein from fish / eggs / small amount of dairy. Batch cooking and freezing meals is the way to go for convenience.

Snacking - fruit, nuts, dried fruit.

Cut right down on alcohol. Moderate caffeine (more to promote good sleep than anything else).

But most importantly, as has been mentioned above, eat less + move more.

If you are a drinker then cutting down or stopping is an easy option. Not only from the beer but the crap tend to eat when had a few.

I pretty much drink the odd good beer or glass of wine now - cut down under lick down as drinking was not helping mental state. But lost weight without consciously changing diet on the back of it

I’ve been on and off diets all year in an attempt to find stuff that fits my lifestyle. I’ve settled on:
Prepare jug of lemon water night before and drink at least a pint when I get up. Have another glass of water with every tea/coffee throughout the day.

Breakfast of continental style, cold meats/cheese/bread. Yep that’s all the things you’re not supposed to eat but keeps me from snacking in the morning.

Lunch I get microwave meals (yep I know that’s bad as well) you can prep and cook a big pot and put it in smaller pots if you want to create the same effect. Website call cookfood.net is great for healthy food with good ingredients - order in bulk and fill up freezer. I find doing this means I get some variety, some veg and a known number of calories. Dinner, have a decent dinner as early as possible - ideally no later than 6pm. No pudding. Definitely do some exercise every day, preferably outdoor if you’re working from home.

Get grapes and satsumas and berries in all the time so you have something when you need that sugar hit.

Frozen falafel
Have salad makings (lettuce, Tom's, cucumber, pepper, red onion, celery, radish, red/white cabbage) in fridge all the time, big salad & falafel fills you up.

Soup esp. with beans / lentils (stick blender ftw)

Veg + stuff stew

A ****ton of veg, whatever your favorites are, get them, even if dearer. If in doubt lean protein & insane amount of veg ✔️

Make up your own muesli and have it with chopped banana & berries & Greek yogurt first thing

Get all the nice healthy things in, posh fizzy water, smoked salmon if that's your bag, eat like a film star. Is still much cheaper than lipo or a slimming club.

Be prepared to climb back on the wagon again & again 😉

Thanks all, great advice and comments, one pot vegetarian seems to be the way to go that interests me, that and finding the desire to exercise again.