It’s time to admit that I’ve had a minor hop off the weight-loss bandwagon recently. In all honesty, I’ve been struggling to eat under 2000 calories since Christmas, and am thus not losing as much weight as I’d like. Overall, I’m only 2lbs lighter than 1st December, which is not where I should be, especially as I still have at least 10 (possibly 15/20) pounds to lose.
I think my eating is best described as erratic. There’s absolutely no consistency to my food consumption, and thus no consistency to my weight loss. I’ll eat too little some days (yesterday I had 1350 calories and did 1.5 hours exercise), then other days I’ll eat 2500 calories and do no exercise. I think getting into a pattern is needed, but first I’m going to show you what I’m ‘working’ with.
Although the banner says love your veggies, I’ve only had one serving of vegetables so far today, shameful! I haven’t had dinner yet, so I will fudge some vegetables into my tea, but here is what I’ve had so far today.
Breakfast – greek yogurt with fruit, muesli, lemon curd and peanut butter
Snack – ginger bread nakd bar (unpictured)
Lunch – pasta with avocado, banana
Snack – slices of quorn, cup-a-soup, 1 crackerbread with nutella (all eaten on the go and thus unpictured!)
Clockwise from Top Left – mixed breakfast, unmixed breakfast, pasta with avocado, banana
As you can see, that’s a pretty average amount of food for a normal person, and (aside from the crackerbread/cup-a-soup) it’s all relatively healthy. The issue is that, right now, I’m trying to lose weight, and even without dinner, I’ve put away 1269 calories, and only 60g of protein. I’m aiming for a daily calorie count of 1500 on rest days, and a 250 calorie dinner is probably not going to happen if I want to get enough veg/protein for the day.
Aside from the food, my Wednesday has been pretty boring. A seminar on Much Ado About Nothing, a lecture on Paradise Lost, 2×250 word mini-projects done (one in Italian, one on Paradise Lost) and 3 hours of Italian class. I’ve started annotating the poetry of the Earl of Rochester (he’s one kinky so-and-so!) and later I need to re-read Macbeth for next week. My reading list for next week is pretty hefty – on top of the aforementioned, I have to read Aphra Behn poetry, A Tale of the Tub Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind, Private Lives, Against Interpretation and (ideally) Taming of the Shrew. Anyone who can complete an English Literature course and still enjoy reading is a saint, I tell you!
Your reading list looks almost identical to mine as an Undergrad
or 
depending on your affinty, or lack of, with the material! We also had to study Chaucer in both the second and third years. Fun!
I’d highly recommend The Libertine for ultimate Earl of Rochester raunchiness. Plus, it’s Johnny Depp being saucy (err, until his nose falls off…) Win-win
It’s difficult to know what to recommend in terms of calories – some people as active as you can actually lose on around 2000, and the yo-yoing calories might even fit in with calorie-cycling, which some people recommend! Weight loss is so tricky, and I empathise a lot. What you have is very healthy though, even with the odd cup-a-soup – slow and steady will win the race, I am sure <3
xxx
You’ll figure out what works for you =) I personally am calorie-cycling right now and it’s working very very well. Of course I’ve been eating a high-protein diet for a long time (almost 3 years!) so I have a lot more practice getting my protein in, and it definitely is something that gets easier over time!
Your breakfast sounds delicious! I did find that having some consistency was helpful when I was loosing weight, even just a pattern of eating which made it much easier to pick up again whenever I fell off the wagon (as I often did!). Have a good week!
That yoghurt with all the add-ins sounds lovely. Losing weight is so hard, and I think what works for one person does not work for another- otherwise the NHS would have found the “perfect” solution by now. But I agree with the others about getting into a routine- after a while it does get easier.
Love your yoghurt mess! I think maintaining weight is as much of an achievement than loosing weight. I think you are doing really well in your progress.
I love Much Ado About Nothing! One of my favourite Shakespeare plays!
I know how you feel about losing weight- sometimes it’s just more bother than it’s worth.
BUT give yourself a few weeks and I’m sure you’ll ease yourself back into it. It’s all about making small changes that can add up to a big change.