So, I need to lose some weight, maybe 2 stone, mainly in the form of belly. My job is probably 75% sat down, the remainder mooching about building sites.

I’m fairly active besides, ride bike on weekends, evening when weather permits, live on a farm, so generally doing physical work at least one day a weekend and some evenings. Also try to go the gym for 1 or 2 hours a week.

I don’t eat a great deal – cereal for breakfast, 3 pieces of fruit during the day, yogurt, sandwiches. Normal evening meal. Drink very little fizzy drinks or alcohol, and crisps/biscuits/chocolate are banned from the house generally, so not a great deal of unhealthy snacking.

What do people recommend as a healthier alternative to sandwiches, cheese, ham and the like for snacks/lunches? Things that are good value, and quick to prepare?

I can easily do more physical activity, but controlling what goes in is the hard part for me, any advice appreciated!

Just “ticking” so I can keep an eye on this as I’d also like to trim my paunch. I reckon the amount of bread I eat in sandwiches is not helping so suggestions for alternatives that are easy to prepare would be great

Sounds like you eat ok, maybe it’s portion size instead? Keep an eye on that especially on days without excercise.

Ham sandwiches are fine, but on days when you’re not riding try cutting out the bread for lunch and having a Tupperware box full of veg and then sandwich meats or tinned fish on their own with it. Get plenty of water in, keep an eye on the sugar going into teas and coffee and make sure you have a no added sugar breakfast cereal.

I would recommend dropping the starchy carbs and cereal.

Cut out or reduce potato, bread, pasta etc.

You do realise what you have started with this thread? It won’t end well!

iDiet is worth a try. The one from STW not the other one published online.

May I be the first to offer to take your money for a personalised diet whilst having no intention of delivering it?

3 pieces of fruit during the day, yogurt, sandwiches

Lose the sandwiches; cutting bread out of your diet is a great first step.

you could try myfitnesspal.com? log all your meals/calories, and then youll see exactly how much youre consuming per day? whatever it averages out at, knock it down a couple of hundred per day til you see the weight drop.

very effective for keeping an eye on what youre eating/drinking.

chicken is your friend. 8)

Portion Control get some scales – first big step, most meals are way above what you need and think you do. The calorie log will help. Plan your meals have something always there for when your willpower is crap.

Cut out all the fizzy drinks and if your serious the beer too.

the word diet is wrong, it implies temporary, something you will eventually stop and this is the failing.

You need to cut the crap out the your food intake, less carbs might be good but not all, look at what is in the sandwiches – cheese? spread? mayo?

If you want to get rid permanently of the belly fat then you need to change from doing weights and do core exercise and do it 2 or 3 times a week. also, keep up all your other activities.

finally dont expect overnight success, these things take time, making it a habit is essential if you are serious.

the word diet is wrong, it implies temporary

Not really. But he is asking for long term food eating (aka diet) changes, not a quick fix.

If you want to get rid permanently of the belly fat then you need to change from doing weights and do core exercise and do it 2 or 3 times a week

You can’t target belly fat with specific exercises. Not possible.

I should have mentioned – take away food is a weakness, usually have one a week, occasionally two, chinese or indian, and a fair bit of it. That really needs to go, and become a fortnightly, or monthly treat I guess!

One problem for me is that the oh isn’t very adventurous when it comes to food, strange for a farmers daughter really, so have to factor that in, although packed lunch not affected.

I eat (and like) pretty bland cereal – all bran, weetabix, cheerios etc, never really checked added sugar, but stay away from anything obvious like honey nut versions.

Mainly drink water (2-3 pints a day), and maybe 1/2 of pint a milk a day. No fizzy drinks generally, and maybe only 2-3 pints of lager/cider weekly (at most).

Don’t drink tea or coffee.

I have tried one of those calorie tracker apps, but found it a right faff, and it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?

Portion control is a good one, I guess you can train yourself to eat less and feel full on smaller portions over time?

I do eat a lot of eggs, usually poached or in an omlette, guess I’ll have to eat more…….

I get a couple of bags of Baby Spinach, a few packs of fresh beetroot and one of those four packs of tuna and make up a salad each morning with various guest appearances from whatevers lurking in the fridge.

That sees me through Mon-Thu, Friday lunch I leave to fate.

If you want to get rid permanently of the belly fat then you need to change from doing weights and do core exercise and do it 2 or 3 times a week.

wot molgrips sez ^^^

weights, cardio, core, do whatever training you want to do. diet is the key so less calories consumed will be the key.

EDIT:

I have tried one of those calorie tracker apps, but found it a right faff, and it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?

they can be, you ever tried myfitnesspal? for the first few meals might be a bit of faff logging, but you can save what youve already done as ‘meals’ so then its just a mouse click to repeat it. also if you tend to have the same breakfast (or any meal really), you can ‘copy meal from yesterday/2 days ago/whatever’

You can’t target belly fat with specific exercises. Not possible.

I agree the appraoch needs to be holistic, a combination of better foods, less calorific foods and good exercise regime. Muscle weighs much more than fat, strengthening core and not doing weighted gym sets will help as part of a holistic approach.

Muscle weighs much more than fat, strengthening core and not doing weighted gym sets will help as part of a holistic approach.

sorry, without wanting to sidetrack the thread, i think thats rubbish. have you any idea how hard it is to put lean muscle on? you dont accidentally start adding muscle (and hence weight) by lifting a few weights, and i dont think OP has mentioned anything about a dedicated bodybuilding routine. he just wants to lose a bit of weight.
the increase in heart rate from lifting weights (or any exercise) will be more beneficial for his metabolism than the ‘accidental’ gain of too much ‘heavy’ muscle.

+1 on chicken being your friend instead of cheese/ham

Snack on/drink stuff that has zero/low cals (water/carrots/celery etc)

Check your portion sizes – stuff like myfitnesspal allows you to calculate cal value based on weight.

Restrict bread/pasta

I am just sat with a whole roast chicken in front of me.

nom nom nom nom………chicken is your friend… 8)

I’m not that worried about losing weight for the sake of it, just the wrong sort of bulk I want rid of, I’m 6ft, broad shouldered and have always been ‘well built’, played football/rugby, cycled sporadically, and reasonably muscly, mainly in legs/shoulders.

I’m no weightlifter, and don’t have aspirations of being a body builder, just need a good, balanced exercise regime, and healthy, sustainable diet.

I found my fitness pal to be pretty pish if you make food from scratch. Frinstance, I’ve just made a big batch of tomato sauce for portioning off into the freezer, and I have no clue what measurements of each I have out in, apart from a tin of tomato and a carton of passata. The rest, garlic, basil, salt, sugar etc is just all added by taste. Pretty impossible to measure what’s in it, unless you start faffing about measuring all ingredients and portion sizes.

Seems a lot easier if you eat ready prepared stuff, which I generally don’t.

I should have mentioned – take away food is a weakness, usually have one a week, occasionally two,

Oho!
Treat yourself once a fortnight.
You’ll probably save the equivalent of a day’s calories a week.

Takeaways don’t have to be a huge binge btw.

you dont accidentally start adding muscle (and hence weight) by lifting a few weights

Depends on the person.

Drop the takeaways. Salad instead of sandwiches. No cheese. Chew food for longer. Don’t eat after 6pm.

If only I could take my own advice!

Where are you “snacking” on 3 peices of fruit a day out of interest?

I think that it’s a big part of why people are over weight, loads of people think they need to have a snack in the morning and afternoon. Really you don’t

What she said.

– molgrips, snack free since 7am.

I’ve heard good things about this

Fat Secret

Available for Android too. As has already been mentioned, you need to get your head around portion sizes and where the calories are hiding- it’ll blow your mind when you find out how many calories are in things like oil (olive or otherwise) and how easy it is to avoid them.

The fruit, is normally part of my lunch, normally an apple & a clementine say, and I usually have a banana around 10-11am.

Change your exercise. More interval training, sprints, short bursts, and bodyweight exercises or weights, if you want to lose fat.

Lose the bread and cereal, more protein and fat, and watch sugar intake (including fruit) so perhaps switch fruit yogurts (sugary) for natural yogurt. If you are like me a fruit addict, go for lower carb ones like citrus, berries, or kiwi fruit, and add a few nuts or a piece of cheese to slow the absorption of the energy. And obviously, don’t snack unless you’re hungry, but if you’re hungry, you should eat, IMO. I don’t subscribe to deprivation diet mentality, willpower will get you so far but eventually most people crack and binge and that becomes an unhealthy cycle.

I also got a fitbit which helps me track how many steps I take a day and has encouraged me to do more incidental daily activity (more walking, using stairs etc).

Drop the fruit replace it with Veg.

Try cous-cous or quinoa as a carb or just have salad, nuts and chicken or fish.

I’ve found it’s best to cut out anything remotely tasty or interesting, and substitute it for tasteless boring stuff that you feed your average rabbit on.
Maybe I should trademark that diet?
“The Eat All You Like But It Must Be Tasteless And Miserable Diet”

I tried cutting out the heavy food ,peanut butter sandwiches etc just for one day.
It made me really ill. Took me 2 days of non stop troughing to get back up to speed.
Not sure why im such a delicate flower but feed me or face the consequences.

Go vegan. Watch the weight drop off you. No really.

Drop the fruit replace it with Veg

Just stop snacking. don’t replace one snack with a different one!

breakfast, lunch, tea. simple.

I’ve managed to lose about 3kg from about August to December last year just by cutting out breakfast and snacking between meals. I realised I’m never hungry as soon as I wake up and don’t get peckish till mid-morning but was still having breakfast. I cut out breakfast and had a mid-morning small Latte/cappuccino (about 50 calories) to get me through to lunchtime then have a normal lunch. On day’s where the mid-morning munchies were not curbed by a milky coffee then a banana/apple/soreen snack bar, something of that nature was enough to get me through, especially in light of the fact I usually do a spin / abs blast or circuits class at lunchtimes so didn’t want to get too hungry.

Not sure how many calories i’m having a day, maybe 1500 or so, so its no rocket science, i’m just eating less calories.

The only downside to this is that I do find i’m hungrier at tea time so end up having a bigger tea, but i eat tea early – about 5:30pm so there is a good 16hrs to 18hrs or so before I eat again, 8hrs of that i’m asleep. But i’ve now found that my stomach has shrunk so i’m actually eating less at tea time too. Still got about 100,000 calories round my belly to go at though!

I’ve dropped off the wagon over and since Christmas and into the New Year, so my weight plateau’d, but got back onion the last 2 weeks and have dropped almost a further 1kg straight away.

Apparently you feel full sooner if you eat slowly. Try that with your evening meal.

Simple:

Breakfast: something with eggs/protein;
lunch: tupperware tub with chopped up chorizo, baby sweetcorn, sugar snap peas, mange tout, salad leaves dressed with olive oil/balsamic;
tea: meal from Hairy Dieters book.

Started as I mean to go on last night, in the gym.

Lasagne for dinner.

No breakfast this morning (wasn’t hungry), so a glass of milk only.

Lunch consists of tuna, boiled eggs, cucumber, lettuce, green pepper, small amount of balsamic.

Have got a banana in case I get hungry.

We’ll see how it goes………..

Use my fitnesspal as above. Swap everything you can to whole grains/whole wheat, give up beer, eat vegetables and go heavy on proteins

Hairy dieters book is a great help also, even if you just get to “see” what goes in your food (ie I use less sugar in the Bircher muesli than recommended) and can adjust accordingly.

Blueberrys are ace.

That and intervals have lost me 16lbs.

Have got a banana in case I get hungry.

Sorry to go on, but no…that’s why you’ve got 2 stone to loose. Get used to the feeling of being hungry, it won’t kill you, promise. Amazed by the fact that people can’t accept a teeny bit of discomfort in their lives to get what they want