Find out more about this project and my weight loss goals here

I’m officially 1 stone down! While I was slightly over my calorie goal this week on average – thanks to going a bit mad at the work beige buffet on Tuesday – I almost hit my water goal after struggling with it for a few weeks, and still exceeded my weight loss goal. In fact, I actually felt quite ill for a couple of days after the blowout – I wonder if it was eating lots of processed and sugary food, which I’m not used to?

Anyway, let’s get into week nine’s ups, downs, learnings and statistics…

This week’s stats

Weight loss goal: 0.5kg
Weight lost this week: 0.9kg
Current weight: 92.8kg
Weight lost total: 6.2kg

Daily calorie goal: 1,750
Average daily calories consumed: 1,767
Water goal: 14 litres
Water consumed: 13 litres

Step goal: 35,000
Steps achieved: 54,956
Distance walked: 32.44km
Heart points achieved: 309
Longest walk: 5.36km

8 tips to cut calories misery-free

Now I’ve been doing this for 9 weeks and consistently lost weight – without feeling hungry or miserable – I feel like I’ve built up quite a lot of knowledge that helps me hit my goals. Going into this, I didn’t want to eat the same thing every day or deprive myself of great-tasting food, and I’m pleased to say I feel I’ve managed to do just that! Anyway, here are 8 tips I’ve been using that cut calories, without making you miserable…

1. Be conservative with oils, butter and mayonnaise

While pretty much integral to a lot of dishes, oils, butter and mayonnaise add a TON of calories to your food. Did you know that 1 tablespoon of oil or mayonnaise adds a whopping 100 calories to a dish? Wowza. For oils in cooking, I use a good non-stick pan and reduce the amount of oil stated in a recipe to 1/2 or 1/4 teaspoon. For oil-based salad dressings, I will often reduce the portion size by at least half. For mayonnaise-based dressings and sauces, I replace half with greek yoghurt – giving the mayo taste without all the calories (this really works, my husband had no clue I’d swapped the sauce in his prawn sandwich, and he hates yoghurt). I still cook with butter, rapeseed and olive oils and full-fat mayonnaise, but I’m just really wary about how much I use, and will ALWAYS measure or weigh what I’m putting in.

2. Don’t eat things straight from the packet

When we eat things like crisps straight from the sharing bag, there’s no clue for our brains to know when we’re satisfied. I’ve found that since I’ve been weighing out my portions of crisps into a bowl, putting the bag away in the cupboard, and eating the crisps from the bowl, I am satiated when the bowl is empty. It’s like magic! Depending on the crisps, one portion can be anywhere between 90 and 160 calories for 20-30g. I don’t have them every day by any means, but I can still enjoy them a few times a week without going off track… and I don’t feel guilty after either!

3. Prioritise quality protein

Being consistently hungry while dieting isn’t sustainable – it will end up in you binging and feeling guilty. The thing that will STOP you feeling hungry is eating more protein, and it’s also key for muscle repair, growth, and body recomposition, so it goes hand in hand with any exercise you’re doing on your weight loss journey. I aim to have at least 100g of protein per day, including some in every meal and snack where I can. Salmon, prawns, white fish, mackerel, tuna, chicken, eggs, lean beef, pork, ham, and bacon are all great high protein food sources – you can also find protein in milk, cheese, yoghurt, pasta, jerky, mushy peas and even potatoes. I try to get the majority of my protein from lean sources like chicken, lean beef, white fish and prawns, because you don’t want to be overloading on fatty cheese and bacon – though some fat in your diet is important, which is why I get a variety. Although many swear by it, I actually haven’t tried adding in protein powder to my diet yet, since I find adding processed powders to my meals a bit weird – I try to get everything I need from whole foods. If I’m going to miss my protein goal for the day, I’ll usually add in a protein yoghurt for an easy 20-25g protein boost at 100-150 calories.

4. Treat flavour equal in importance to nutrition

I hate bland food. GOD I hate it. I could NOT have followed a weight loss plan for this long eating bland chicken and rice! I also feel somewhat personally responsible for bucking the “white women can’t cook” trope. It’s true most of us can’t, but honey – I season all my food, create my own spice mixes, and we make all our own sauces and dips in this house. In fact, a lot of flavour comes from ingredients that are very low calorie indeed. Here’s a few of my faves:

• Fresh garlic
• Pickles
• Hot sauce
• Salt
• Pepper
• Fresh ginger
• Chillies
• Dried spices
• Fresh herbs
• Vinegars
• Fresh fruit

5. Reduce the refined carbs (but don’t remove them completely)

We love pasta and rice in this house – most of our meals have been based around them for as long as I can remember. So I knew a low- or no-carb diet was never going to work. Instead, we’ve reduced the portions of rice and pasta in dishes – they taste pretty much the same, but this easily saves 100+ calories per portion. My go-to amounts now are 50-75g of either per portion, depending on the meal, but you can also increase the vegetables to balance the volume in a dish. To stop us going back for seconds when we don’t need it – as well as accurately portion meals – I portion out both our meals and the portions for future meals when I dish dinner up. When you know you’ll be depriving your future self of enjoying the same delicious meal for lunch tomorrow, it’s much easier not to pick at the leftovers.

6. Never only cook one meal at a time

This saves you calories, time and sanity. Pasta bakes, curries, rice dishes, traybakes, casseroles – these are all ideal to make double portions of and take to work as leftovers. We make big batches of marinara (with a ton of veggies in it) and use it for 6-8 meals – pastas, pizzas, and portions frozen for later. If I turn the oven on, I always try to have two things in it (even if they’re one after the other at different temperatures) to maximise the energy used to heat it up, as well as efficientise cleanup time. I’ll also use the time while something is cooking to prepare something else – even if it’s making sandwiches, boiling eggs or cutting fruit. I don’t have a whole dedicated meal prep day each week – I split it throughout the week, balancing more labour-intensive dishes with quick-to-make dinners so I don’t get overwhelmed. On the weekends I’ll often make two or three scratch-made meals a day – sometimes baked goods too – but weekdays usually see me only in the kitchen making dinner and one other meal, which could be lunch for tomorrow or a batch of breakfasts.

Breakfast is where this tip really shines. My husband leaves for work at 7.30 every morning, and I am not the type of wife to be up at 6am making bacon and eggs! Instead, I premake various batches of healthy grab-and-go breakfasts for us to have 2-3 times throughout the week. This way, I know he has a decent breakfast to enjoy when he gets to work, and I have something healthy to keep me going all morning too. These have included breakfast fruit muffins, egg bites, cinnamon rolls, and boiled eggs – which we have with ham and tomatoes.

7. Keep it fresh with new recipes

I’m pretty sure this tip is the one that has kept me sticking to my goals. Cooking and baking (and eating) has taken up a large part of my life for a very long time, so trying new stuff every week – even if it is healthy – is keeping me excited about food, and not cutting off one of my most time-intensive hobbies. Here are a few of my favourite sources for recipes:

• BBC Good Food is a great source if you are looking for a reliable recipe for a specific dish, and many of my most-made recipes originate here. You can also search recipes by ingredients, and they have many great curated lists of ideas to inspire you – try High Protein Recipes, Healthier Fast Food, or Healthy British Classics.
• When in store, I pick up the free Tesco Magazine which always has great recipe ideas for in-season produce (and all the recipes can be found on their website too). As a bonus, they always use ingredients that are easy to find in supermarkets.
• I love the Pinch of Nom recipes and currently have the Pinch of Nom, Quick & Easy, Everyday Light, Comfort Food and Enjoy books on my bookshelf. They are excellent sources of recipes and I already have the Express and Budget editions on my wishlist too. Some recipes can be found for free on their website, but not all – I try to get my new cookbooks when they are on offer for £5, but you can pick up older editions for £3-5 on eBay.
• The Without The Calories series by Justine Pattison is another great source for healthy recipes that don’t use weird ingredients – mostly whole foods and lots of vegetables. I currently have Takeaway Favourites, Comfort Food, and Cakes, Cookies and Bread and use them all regularly. Unfortunately these seem to be out of print, but there are plenty of secondhand copies available for a few quid on Amazon and eBay.
• Pinterest is another great source for ideas and recipes, which learns what you like the more you interact with it. I have a board for Healthy Recipes which is now my go-to, but I’ve been using it for years to save Affordable Meal Ideas, Easy Baking Recipes, Homemade Snacks and much more.

8. Measure and weigh EVERYTHING

If you cook from scratch a lot but want to accurately count calories, this is the only way to do it. Every ingredient in your meals needs to be measured or weighed accurately to ensure you’re tracking your calories and macros corrently. Every time I make a recipe, I enter all the ingredients and their measurements into the MyFitnessPal recipe calculator, which then tells me the total calories per portion. This also means that when I have the leftover portion the next day – or make the same or similar dish again in the future – I don’t have to enter all the ingredients from scratch again.

Even if you follow a recipe to the letter, there is likely a discrepancy between the ingredients you have used and those the recipe creator used, meaning your final dish could be more or less than the calorie amount stated. The breakfast muffins I made last week ended up 15 calories more each than the recipe stated – which is fine as I’m aware of it, but if I didn’t account for that over the batch of 12 muffins, that’s an extra 180 calories. Compound those extra hidden calories over 3 meals and a snack or two a day, and you could easily gobble up your calorie deficit without knowing!

On the menu

On my plate

I can’t say my food photography is getting any better, but I did remember to take some photos of my meals this week! There was quite a lot of new dishes on the menu this week, and generally they were a success.

How I’m feeling

I’m really jazzed to still be on this journey and seeing consistent results. I feel healthier, fitter, happier and am still enjoying lots of delicious food. Some of my clothes feel looser and I don’t foresee any issues with continuing to follow the rules of the weight loss plan. I guess that means I finally found a sustainable framework that works for me!

‘Til next time,

Alli xx