Weight Loss

Greetings all.

I'm a 60 year old Australian male living in northern Thailand, been retired for five years and have been gaining weight ever since.

I don't own any scales but estimate my weight was about 115 to 120kg four weeks ago. The significance of the four weeks is that I gave up beer then, an estimated immediate daily drop of 1500 calories.

Feeling virtous I also went on a diet and my clothes have become a lot looser. (I'm eying off those tan slacks and black silk shirt I bought for a wedding seven years ago that are hanging in the wardrobe).

My normal diet consisted of large English breakfast... fried eggs, bacon, toast and the previous nights left over boiled potatoes fried up.

Lunch; two large sandwiches, cheese or ham and salad, no dressing.

Dinner was standard meat and three veg. Usually pork or chicken.

So I've cut back to boiled or poached eggs, grilled bacon (not every day) and dry wholemeal toast.

Lunch is fruit and salad... grapefruit, cucumber, tomato, no dressing, with a small serve of cheese every second or third day. Sometimes a large slice of dry wholemeal bread.

Dinner is less meat, more lean meat like trimmed steak with salad. Salad consists of a whole cucumber and two or three large tomato. No desert, I never eat desert anyway.

Snacks are dry crackers, low fat and low sugar, and more grapefruit. I eat a local variety called pomelo that I can't find a calorie count for. It's not as bitter as normal grapefruit but appears very low in sugar... no sticky finger while eating it.

Once a week I have a break, usually sausages, french fries, some baked beans and more salad. This meal is still about half the size I used to eat.

Drinks are soda water with a dash of 100% OJ and Chinese tea, unsweetened. One can of diet Coke a day.

A calorie count today was around 1500, not counting salad. . It's hard to estimate, a lot of the stuff isn't in the counter.

What I'd like to hear from members is what they think of this diet... it's not a regime, I'm quite enjoying it, and a few ideas for snacks and recipes. Keep it simple please, remember I live in Thailand. Bear in mind my body's adjusting to that huge alcohol intake no longer coming in. I'm not interested in goals just getting my body back in shape and being healthy.

I currently walk about 2km a day with the dog, it used to be double that but injury related arthritis in both ankles has flared up with the weight gain.

Hello there...  That sounds like you're doing the right things.  Eliminating some of the bad food/drink habits like the fry-ups and the beers and replacing them with better ones is a really good way to play it.  Much better than trying to shoehorn yourself into someone else's idea of what a good diet should be.  As long as you're getting plenty of fruit and veggies, you're off to a good start!!

My only concern would be the calories.  I've had to guess a little about your height but on your stats you'd expect to maintain your weight on around 2700-2900 cals a day.  So to lose weight, try not to dip your intake below 1900.  As you lose weight you'll need to either trim the calories or increase the exericse.  If you start too low you risk running out of energy, feeling miserable, eating a lot on weekends.... plus you'll have nowhere to go.

Fresh foods should be in the calorie counter.  A Thai cabbage is still a cabbage.  Pomelo (delicious!) is essentially a white grapefruit.  It doesn't have to be decimal point precise either way.   Best of luck

I was going to echo what jane said -- sounds to me like you are on the right path -- and here's the link for your pomelo -- it's just spelled differently on this site.

Welcome to Calorie Count and to the Weight Loss forum!! Have you checked out the Weight Loss Forum Reources thread at the top of this forum? Also have you seen that we have a New Members forum which has a great thread The Unofficial Guide to Calorie Count? Good luck and let us know if there is anything we can help you with!

Welcome to CC, I was thinking too, that you are not eating enough.  ON the other hand have you put your daily food into the calorie counter?  It may be more than you think, especially portions size.  Eating enough will keep you losing.

Thailand sounds like a great place to retire.  Good luck and enjoy the site!

Carol

Hooray for you!!! Congrats on making such an improvement.

One tip that I have is if you can't find something in the database, try searching in more broad terms. For instance, if you can't find "merlot" for a glass of wine, try typing in "wine" and look through the list. I know you said you cut out alcohol but that's the only thing I can come up with off the top of my head.

Also, check out the recipe analyzer. It's a great tool to use when you're making a dish. I made a chili the other night and I plugged all the ingredients in and adjusted the serving size and TA DA, now I know how many calories I can expect.

Good luck...Keep up the good work!

Thank you everybody, I'm really looking forward to being part of your community.

I'm still working out my way around the forum and website and will no doubt get to everything I need eventually with help from you all.

I'm a big guy, well over six foot, 180cms, and have always been fit through working hard but just let myself go over the last few years. I lived on my own for a few years after my first marriage broke up and it was just too easy to start throwing things in the fry pan at meal times even though I'm not a bad cook; I was the main cook for my family for most of my marriage.

I suspect I may be under estimating my calories, I need to get used to calculating the food portions. I'll keep away from alcohol for now, I don't want it so I won't bother with it. I live in a fairly isolated area so there's no social pressure to drink, which helps a lot.

What do you think of packet rice porridge (congee/khau tom) as a breakfast cereal substitiute? It's high in salt... is that a bad thing if you're drinking lots of fluids?