Soooo Frustrated!!!

[Ophelia105]

Hi - I'm in a similar situation to you. Not huge amounts to lose and not needing a huge change in diet.

I did green days for six months and lost about 4lb. Now I am doing red/original days - this meant my carbs are limited.

I felt like you in terms of not willing to give up my carbs.

However it became clear that I cannot lose weight and eat carbs freely.

My choice was simple - if I wanted to lose weight I had to lose the carbs!

Red days are harder for me as I am veggie but like anything I have got use to it. My weight loss has increased to about 2lb a week.

You don't have to cut carbs out completely - you still get 2 x heb which can be used for specified bread, potatos or whole wheat pasta. And of course syns there to be used.

And you don have to do red all the time. If I am particularly hungry or know I'm going out to eat ill switch to green. Probably once or twice a week.

I have a food diary that you might find useful.

And remember its only a temporary measure. Once I'm at goal I am planning on switching to green or ee as a maintenance plan so will let limitless carbs back in my life once again!

 

[JulesyR]

The lady that posted the question is from America and following American SW. They don't have red or green plan in America, only EE.

So I think she would find it very hard to do red or green days, as she wouldn't be able to check or workout the red or green day syns for American food products as they only publish EE syn values for them.

Even foods with the same brand names can have different ingredients or different nutritional values from country to country, as they change the food to suit the local tastes, so looking up UK red/green values wouldnt even be that helpful.

Well that depends on whether relying on processed foods or cooking form scratch....you can get minced meat with fat % on in the states, and fish, dried pasta, rice, fruit and veg are all the same. Yoghurts etc would already be listed under extra easy as they don't differ in syn values in any plan.

It would definitely be harder (or impossible) if pre-packaged things were being used.

 

[JulesyR]

ahhh I see what you mean - I didn't think of that as I tend not to use my syns that way - it's alcohol, ketchup, mustard in the most part for me

 

[jen3]

Must be very disheartening. I dont lose weight as quick when I exercise but would rather keep fit so definitely wouldnt reduce my exercise - kind of defeats the "staying healthy" logic to me! BUT measurements show more than weight loss when combined with exercise

Also - try putting sugar free squash in the water - just takes that "nothing" taste away. I can do straight water in the summer but not when I,m cold. Or even drink sugar free squash with hot water for a change

Hope you can get sorted

 

[libelule]

Thanks for all of your helpful advice.

I think what I need to do is increase my water, reduce my carbs a little and keep plugging away.

I'm not prepared to give up my exercise as I'm enjoying it and consider it 'me' time. As I said, I'm also training for a 10k so if I stop running for a few weeks, I will be crawling across the finish line.

Unfortunately I didn't measure myself before starting this plan and I think I should have - my husband says I definitely look thinner. I should do that this week and then at least I can have a starting point.

Jen3 - Squash is something that doesn't exist here - you can sometimes find the full sugar version in English specialty stores but that's no good for SW! I really miss it, the US equivalent is some nasty powder that you add to the water.

Will keep you updated after my weigh in next week - fingers crossed!

 

[jen3]

What do kids drink over there if you dont get cordial? You could try some fresh lemon juice in it - or like a jif lemon thing.

If its inches you're maybe losing do your clothes feel different? I can always tell by my jeans (whether or not I get a red ring round my belly at the end of the day!!!)

 

[libelule]

What do kids drink over there if you dont get cordial? You could try some fresh lemon juice in it - or like a jif lemon thing.

If its inches you're maybe losing do your clothes feel different? I can always tell by my jeans (whether or not I get a red ring round my belly at the end of the day!!!)

Seems to me that most kids over here drink soda (hence the obesity epidemic). My kid drinks mostly water or sparkling water with the occasional soda sneaked in by grandparents when I'm not looking!!! I did find some Robinson's sugar free on Amazon - way overpriced and also out of stock but I think I will order some when it is back in stock.

I have noticed I have less of a 'muffin top' when i have my jeans on so maybe I'm losing inches.

thanks for your help

 

[Ophelia105]

Just to add to the red day thing.

90% of my food is cooked fresh and apart from yoghurts, cottage cheese and quorn products I don't really eat pre packaged food. I eat a lot of stir fries, salads and chunky casseroles which don't take long to prepare.

Red days are easy to follow - its mainly meat with vegetables. 2 x hea and 2 x heb. and superfree of course. My difficulty is trying to sub the meat! I eat a lot of eggs and always make sure i get my HEA - usually cheese.

One of my favourite meals is spagless Bol. Which isn't hard to work out is quorn mince spag Bol without spag! But with 2 x HEA of cheese on top it makes it very filling and definitely a comfort food.

I find BNS a good sub for baked or mashed pot. And last night I experimented with cauliflower 'rice' . In America you can buy a spiral cutter which some people use to make spaghetti or noodles out f vegetables.

There is lots of info on the Internet once googled if you are interested in red days.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

 

[Shirleen]

For a sugar free substitute for cordial buy some fruit or flavoured tea bags make a strong brew leave to steep for as long as you can (drinks need to be stronger when cold). But beware flavoured black teas like David's Tea as it may get bitter with tannin.
Store in the fridge and add sparkling or still water and sweetener to taste.

lemon cordial recipes are available over the web just substitute sugar for sweeteners, add less sweetener though.
Here's one I fancy making perfect for winter days and ginger is a powerful anti bacterial, and will give you some zing!
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11590/ginger-lemon-fizz

I echo what others have said though, it'll be the exercise, keep at it, what happens is that tiny micro fissures caused by new exercise fill with fluid to support your muscle whilst it heals and stores energy it feels you may need due to increased demand (glycogen), at around six to 8 weeks your body adjusts to the new demands and it will release the stores from the muscle.
So keep it steady for the next couple of weeks and the loss WILL show.

Be careful you aren't eating back the calories, if you're feeling extra hungry after exercise chances are its thirst. So drink, eat an apple or bowl of superfree homemade soup.

Hope that helps x

 

[peacelily]

Also if you love your potatoes, rice and pasta try to stick to the serving suggestion amounts. I know we shouldn't have to measure free food at all but I seriously overeat these and when I weighed out what a 50g portion of dry rice looked like as someone else suggested, it was a heck of a lot less than I would normally eat. So I tend to overeat these things and get bloated as a consequence. For some suggestions, slimming eats by Britmum in Canada is a blog by a slimming world member in Canada, so may have more relevant items that you could also find in the US, plus her suggestions are so tasty. I have tried a number of her recipes and they are great. Other ways of getting fluids in might be to have some herbal teas or if you can find them, the flavoured green teas as some people find green tea really helps with losses. Good luck and keep posting

 

[purpleboots]

Thanks for all of your helpful advice.

I think what I need to do is increase my water, reduce my carbs a little and keep plugging away.

I'm not prepared to give up my exercise as I'm enjoying it and consider it 'me' time. As I said, I'm also training for a 10k so if I stop running for a few weeks, I will be crawling across the finish line.

Unfortunately I didn't measure myself before starting this plan and I think I should have - my husband says I definitely look thinner. I should do that this week and then at least I can have a starting point.

Jen3 - Squash is something that doesn't exist here - you can sometimes find the full sugar version in English specialty stores but that's no good for SW! I really miss it, the US equivalent is some nasty powder that you add to the water.

Will keep you updated after my weigh in next week - fingers crossed!

A slice of lemon in water helps give it a bit of taste, squeeze a little bit of lemon juice into the water too. I know juice counts as syns but a few drops of lemon juice isn't going to even be 1!

 

[purpleboots]

Good news is that lemon juice is exempt from the synning fruit juice rule (I'm guessing because you couldn't drink any big quantity of it!) so it's listed as a free food.

That's good to know!! Lemon juice over salad is quite nice (in a diety kind of way)