Need to lose weight. Am I eating too much?

[Schnauzy]

I know this question has been asked time and time again but I want to be sure I am not overeating fruits. I also wanted to get feedback on my meals. Thank you.

 

Some background:

I ate sweets all the time before my whole30. I did not eat fruits often because I was already satisfied/full from all the cakes, chocolate I ate. With that said, I think I enjoy fruits now because of its natural taste and don't think it's feeding my sugar dragon.

 

Example template: 

Meal 1: 2 hardboiled eggs, 1 sweet potato, chai tea

 

Pre-workout snack: 1 hardboiled egg (sometimes eaten with Meal 1)

 

Workout: 40 minutes elliptical

 

Meal 2: 1.5-2 palm sized protein (usually marinated with spices and oil and/or curried w/ coconut milk), sauteed vegetable (sometimes topped with tahini sauce or marinara), bowl of fruits with about 3 medium strawberries, 12 small grapes, 6 cherries, 1 small apricot

 

Meal 3: same as Meal 2 excluding fruits 

[TrayS]

Hi there. My non-moderator opinion: Your breakfast looks a bit small. I'd add another egg in there and perhaps some more vegetable matter depending on the size of your sweet potato. Looks like your breakfast needs a fat source too.

 

The amount of fruit you're eating doesn't seem excessive to me (seems to fit within 1-2 servings) and it's good that you're eating it with a meal. Particularly if you're just starting out with the Whole30, it seems fine to stick with a reasonable amount of fruit, unless you feel compelled to exclude it at this point (you aren't required to eat it) then perhaps give it some time and decide later if you want to cut back or eliminate. If you're coming to Whole30 having been eating cake, etc. I'd be surprised if you didn't experience some weight loss just from eliminating that and replacing with nutrient dense food, fruit included.

[jmcbn]

I've been reading your log and have noticed the daily bowl of fruit but haven't commented because people seem to take offence to any food log comments unless they're made by a mod, so now that you've asked here's my tuppence worth...

Fruit is not compulsory on a whole30, and if you DO choose to have it the recommendation is for 1-2 fist size servings of fruit per day, with, or as part of a meal. I'd say that you're eating over that amount on a daily basis, and whilst that is not a lot on a daily basis over the course of the month that's a lot of fruit. I'd also comment that you're eating it at meal two, after you've had a work out (albeit I'm not sure how long after your work-out - although you don't appear to be having a postWO), when you should really be restoring your body's muscle glycogen with starchy veg in order to become fat adapted, rather than restoring liver glycogen with fruit.

I'd suggest upping the quantity of your meal one (you're particularly low on protein - eggs when they're your sole source of protein should be the number of whole eggs in one hand which is 3-4 for most people), add some more fat & more veg to get you through to your WO without taking a preWO, then focus on taking a postWO meal of some protein & starchy carbs, switch your fruit from meal two to meal three & reduce the quantity by maybe half.

This may not help you lose weight, but it should help you lose fat - which is preferable.

[Schnauzy]

Jmcbn, thanks for the advice. I workout during my work lunch so I eat immediately after. I eat my savory food then eat my fruits (I definitely enjoy them!). I don't eat starchy carbs with meal 2 because I eat it already in meal 1 (I prefer eating a sweet potato than green veggies in meal 1 cause it's less messy..). My workout is not too intense - I go on the elliptical for 40 minutes at a moderate pace. So, I'm not sure if it changes the scenario of what you are suggesting, though I will cut down on my fruits and eat my 3 eggs for meal 1  

[AmyS]

I'd like to ask you to seriously reconsider your first statement in this thread title: I need to lose weight. You are so extremely young. You describe yourself as having tried to lose weight for ten years. That means you started thinking you needed to lose weight when you were 14. At age 14, girls naturally blossom. We naturally develop curves. We naturally develop a very healthy layer of fat under our skin, in our breasts, on our bellies, on our thighs, and on our tushies. We go through puberty, and we need that fat and those curves in order to complete puberty, grow appropriately, and establish hormonal balance as we continue through our teen years and into our twenties. Now, at 24, your brain needs lots of fat because (this so SO IMPORTANT) your brain is going through its final growth spurt, and it's a huge one. It sets you up for life.

 

At the same time, you, like all american teenage girls, have been bombarded with lies about your body. You have been told it's only OK if it's too skinny to sustain regular periods (that's what happens to the models, you know, even the fitness models - they don't have periods, their hair falls out, they can't concentrate, they are not at all well. Really.) You have been told how to lose thirty pounds in thirty days every time you went to the grocery store, with diet plans placed strategically next to the candy.

 

Everything your body needs to do in order to be itself has been called wrong. Everything you see in the grocery store magazines, diet plans, fitness crazed gurus who want your body fat below a number that can sustain proper bodily function, is a lie.

 

No, I know. I know. You don't weigh what you "should" weigh. I know. That voice in your head says if only you'd lose 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 pounds you'd be healthy, happy, in tune with yourself, able to attract a partner, and miraculously 5 feet 8 inches and blonde and with no difficulty maintaining something we are told is called a "flat belly" (a mysterious ailment that causes women no end of trauma, because IT DOES NOT EXIST). I know. I'm 48 and that voice still talks to me. I call it a liar these days, but it's there in the Oprah magazine and the latest edition of the South Beach Diet and the starting chapters of our otherwise beloved It Starts With Food where white men in their 50s report 30 pounds gone in 30 days and we women think that means this is something we should aspire to.

 

I'm asking you to turn around and tell that voice that it's lying to you. And here's another thing. Most of us who have spent years listening to that voice of abuse in our heads, have really not been feeding ourselves. We don't eat, and we don't eat, and we don't eat, and the ONLY way we can keep functioning at all in life is by eating sugar and caffeine. And then we blame ourselves for having poor self control, or sugar dragons, or being morally inferior, and we'll never attract a man (or in my case, Queen Latifah   ). So we're soooooo hungry all the time, and no amount of sugar and caffeine can fill us up, and we eat more and more, and we feel worse and worse.

 

The answer to this is two fold:

1. Remember that EVERY TIME you hear, see, or think that you need to lose weight (even/especially if you are hearing this from a doctor), it's a lie. I am so not kidding.

2. Eat. Then eat again. Then eat again. It will take time, for me it took more than a year of really feeding myself, but you'll actually start to feel strong, and you will understand that it's really, truly, madly, deeply OK to eat when you're hungry. Even if you're a woman.

 

Eat up.  And though this TED talk is more general, I highly recommend it to every twenty-something I come across these days, watch, enjoy, and make this decade count. You can do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhhgI4tSMwc

 

And eat. Your amazing fantastic wonderful body deserves all the food you give it. Really.

[ladyshanny]

 and you will understand that it's really, truly, madly, deeply OK to eat when you're hungry. Even if you're a woman.

 

I loved your whole post but especially this!  

 

We could change the world you know, women, if we could just stop spending so much time hating ourselves and allowing outside forces (doctors, insurance agencies, media etc) to keep encouraging our self hatred.  Every time we don't nourish ourselves when we're hungry and every time we say horrible things to ourselves out loud or in our heads, we fan the flames of self oppression.  

[ladyshanny]

I know this question has been asked time and time again but I want to be sure I am not overeating fruits. I also wanted to get feedback on my meals. Thank you.

 

Some background:

I ate sweets all the time before my whole30. I did not eat fruits often because I was already satisfied/full from all the cakes, chocolate I ate. With that said, I think I enjoy fruits now because of its natural taste and don't think it's feeding my sugar dragon.

 

Example template: 

Meal 1: 2 hardboiled eggs, 1 sweet potato, chai tea

 

Pre-workout snack: 1 hardboiled egg (sometimes eaten with Meal 1)

 

Workout: 40 minutes elliptical

 

Meal 2: 1.5-2 palm sized protein (usually marinated with spices and oil and/or curried w/ coconut milk), sauteed vegetable (sometimes topped with tahini sauce or marinara), bowl of fruits with about 3 medium strawberries, 12 small grapes, 6 cherries, 1 small apricot

 

Meal 3: same as Meal 2 excluding fruits 

PS, If you truly do have weight to lose, the best signal that you can give your body is that food is not scarce and that it can trust you.  And the best way to do that is to eat a proper breakfast.  Protein, lots of veggies and some fat.  Seriously, start your day fed and the rest comes easier.