How I Lost Weight - Hormones And Diet What I Eat

Hi my lovelies, it's Nisha. So I look a bit extra. I've put my bright lipstick on today and this is the Charlotte Tilbury Electric Poppy. I haven't worn at all this summer my bright lipsticks. Anyway, I just filmed a video about my new anti-aging skincare heroes. You will see it at some point, probably not this week, maybe next week, but I will look the same. So I thought for this week's Monday video I will talk about me losing weight because since I've lost weight a lot of you keep asking me if I could do what I eat in a day and stuff like that. So for those of you who don't know, I started suffering with bloating terribly for months and it was getting worse and worse and I didn't know what it was. So I started experimenting with cutting out some stuff and then I started drinking the Actimel which is the friendly bacteria that helped. I bought some digestive enzymes and that helped. I stopped eating bread, that sort of helped but I was getting bloated by even eating a salad. And also I felt like I've put weight on and you know I've been working out for quite a few years now. I only do it twice a week but it is a very intense hour with a personal trainer so I work quite hard for those two hours a week. But obviously this helps me to build muscle and get a bit leaner but this is not enough to lose weight. If you want to lose weight just by exercising I reckon you would have to do it every single day or run every day, which I'm not prepared to do. So I was getting so annoyed and I was chatting with my personal trainer, he's great, he actually calls himself health coach because I can talk to him about you know hormones, periods, he knows about the things, he adjusts the workouts for your age, for where you are in your life obviously and also gives you advice on nutrition, which I don't often take. But I was complaining to him, I said you know I feel so bloated and I'm not losing any weight, I seem to be slowly putting weight on. So he worked out for me calorie intake, daily calorie intake. There are websites where you can go, I will find one and leave it for you in a description box, where you can put your weight, height, your sex and how much physical activities you do, so be very honest in there and how much you want to lose and you will give you and how quickly you want to lose it and you will give you the amount of daily calories you should have to lose that weight. So I think mine was about 1350 calories a day to start losing weight. But that wasn't all, I felt like the bloating and maybe some weight gain was to do with my hormones. So I have been on HRT for about seven years now and at first I was on progesterone tablets and estrogen patches and I was on 25 milligrams twice a week and I was doing well for a couple of years like that and then my symptoms sort of came back, especially the night sweats. So that time I went back to my GP because the originally the HRT was prescribed to me by hormone clinic, by private hormone clinic. So the GP just said, well, let's up your estrogen. So instead of 25 milligrams twice a week, I was on 50 twice a week and I was fine. But then two years ago, I had the Mirena coil put in and obviously that is progesterone, like a slow release progesterone. So I had to stop progesterone tablets because I was getting progesterone from the coil. But what I think happened, obviously when you take progesterone in tablets, you know exactly the amount you're taking, therefore you adjust the estrogen to balance it. But with the coil, obviously you don't know how much that releases into your bloodstream, how much progesterone. So I reckon that at that time, my hormone balance went out of whack. Also my periods, I never lost my period after having the coil in. It just got much, much better. Very, very light. But my periods were lasting like two weeks. So I thought to myself, it must be something to do with this imbalance. And that's when the bloating started. So what I started to do at the same time when I've decided to do something about this bloating and my weight gain, I started cutting my, because I still have quite a few left, cutting my estrogen patches in half. So I'm back to 25 milligrams twice a day. And that helps straight away. My periods are now just few days. The bloating is gone, but obviously I was still using the digestive enzymes and the friendly bacteria drinks. That helps straight away. And I started doing this calorie controlled diet, which I hated because I've never lasted on any diet for longer than a week. If I didn't see the results after two days, I'm not interested. I'm that sort of person. I'm after instant gratification. So that's what I've been doing. There is nothing better than the old fashioned calories in, calories out. It just makes sense. Obviously, if you eat more than you spend, then you will put weight on. If you eat less than you spend, then you will lose weight. And all these diets, intermittent fasting, I will get back to that. Keto and all this. I feel, please hear me out before you start typing, that I'm talking rubbish. I'm not rubbish in these diets. I think they work and they have health benefits and they are better for some people than others. But I feel that the hoo-ha made rounded is just for making money. I mean, how many people have written books and diets for keto and intermittent fasting? Diet industry is huge. So again, I think they work while you're using them, while you own them. And there are health benefits, like intermittent fasting has a lot of health benefits. And if you can do it, do it. But at the end of the day, even if you do intermittent fasting and say, you've got five hours window that you eat and you eat more than you spend, you will still put weight on. That's what I mean. I'm not rubbish in these diets. I'm just saying that at the end of the day is, you know, you need to eat less and move more. Basically, basic science. I do sort of intermittent fasting. And that is because I am never hungry first thing in the morning anyway. And I can go for a long time in the morning just on a cup of coffee. But the real reason I'm doing intermittent fasting is that the smaller the window of eating, the less you can pack into it. So you're obviously going to eat much less in five hours than if you were eating over 12 hours. So I have a little book where every day I write my calories. And at the beginning, it's a nightmare because you have to Google calorie of everything. And now I sort of know more and less how many calories is in what. And when I look here, like one day, I will just have over 1000 calories I manage. Because it depends what you eat. If you eat things that are more filling, then I would eat less. So I see that one day I did 1065 calories, then one day I would do 1124. Then one day I would go a bit over like I've got one day that I've done 1400 calories and 1416 calories. But that sort of evens out because on another days I had less. So I just stay around that 1300 more or less. And even though I hate calorie counting so much, for me, this was the best because I didn't want to exclude any food groups. I'm not for it at all. I love my bread, but obviously I really limited the amount of bread that I eat. If I fancy something, I'm going to have it. So at least if I count the calories, I can save it for something else and so on. So that's the reason I couldn't go on keto. Because there is no way I'm going to get rid of carbs completely. I couldn't do like the carnivore diet. I don't mind meat, but I'm not a big meat eater. I like fish. I like fillet steak, chicken. Chicken would have to be in some sort of sauce or something. I'm not a big fan of chicken or pork. So yeah, but I couldn't be carnivore and just eat meat. And a lot of people do so well on that sort of diet. But like I said, I cannot be on any diet that restricts me, that I have to eliminate groups of food, especially the ones that I really like. So whatever works for you. And I'm probably not doing the intermittent fasting very religiously. I'm basically doing it so I've got a smaller window of less hours of eating. That's basically it. Sometimes, you know, I'm supposed to stop eating at six, but sometimes at seven o'clock, I will have a little snack. So that's breaking your fast. But that's the idea of my fasting is just to give myself less hours of stuffing my face. So I didn't want to do a video on what I eat in a day because it's so boring. So to count calories, you have to eat really boring stuff. Because if you have something with different sauces and some condiments, it's very difficult to work out the calories. So for example, if I make my own like a meatball spaghetti, and I make a big batch because I make it usually that we have it one day, then I freeze the rest and we have it another day. So you know, I have to work out calories for the whole thing with the sauces and everything I've added to it, then whatever portion I'm having, it's a nightmare. So I sort of guess things like this. But if I kept guessing like that every day, I probably wouldn't have stayed within that 1300 calories. So you have to eat really simple things that are easy to determine calories off. So I start my day with black tea with slice of lemon. And I do use one sweetener, I use stevia. Some people say that even that breaks your fasting, because I don't know if there is any calories in stevia. But I can't have black tea without having some sweetness to it. The same with coffee. So I start my day like this upstairs, when I'm putting my makeup on, I have a cup of tea. Then about 10 o'clock, I have black cup of coffee again with some sweetener. And that keeps me going. Coffee sort of fills me up. I don't have any milk. So that keeps me going till one o'clock. And that's when I have my first meal. So all I will have two hard boiled eggs, which I cut into quarters, I squirt a bit of mayonnaise on it and sprinkle cayenne pepper on it. So my breakfast are usually eggs and bread. I still eat bread, but I limit myself to two slices a day. It doesn't matter if it's in the evening or at lunchtime. And I've started buying from a bakery proper sourdough bread, not from supermarkets where it can be just not the real one. They add vinegar to it and other stuff. This is just simple bread made from the starter, you know, just flour and water. Then I sometimes will have two slices of bacon and I cut them to little pieces and I fry them without any any butter. And then I add a couple of eggs and I scramble it together. And now I have that with a slice of bread. So I eat mostly eggs for lunch. Or if I don't fancy that, I will just have a sandwich. I will have those two slices of bread with ham or cheese. Again, easy to work out the calories. So I will just have that. Then for dinner, I will have any piece of meat like piece of steak or fish. Fish is really good. So I will have like a big cod fillet, you know, that I just fry in little oil or dover sole. And I will have few new potatoes and some vegetables with it. Fish is brilliant, especially that cod fillet because it's so filling. It's quite dense. So it's like eating fillet steak, but it's very low in calories. So you can then eat some more of other stuff. So I will have piece of meat or fish with potatoes and vegetables. Or I will have jacket potato with a small tin of tuna, which is very low in calories with a bit of mayonnaise and salad cream. And sometimes I have spaghetti or cottage pie if I make that. So plain food like this that I can weigh my potatoes, I can weigh my fish. I know I'm not adding any sauces to it. Mayonnaise is easy to work out as well. So just plain things like this. And I'm not a big foodie. But if I really enjoy something, I can eat lots of it. But I'm not, I don't look forward to eating. I just eat to live basically. I don't live to eat. So I suppose this helps that I can eat really boring plain things and I could eat the same thing every day. I don't enjoy cooking either. I can cook, I do cook, but it's not something that I enjoy. I don't have a very sweet tooth. I feel like something sweet, you know, that time of the month. So that is what I would have for dinner. Really simple, plain things that are easy to count the calories. And if you are a big foodie and like different things, it could be a bit more complicated. That's why a different diet might work for you. I count also fruit. I don't eat too much fruit now because fruit can blow through as well. My watermelon, I will have an apple, strawberries or blueberries. But again, now I measure them, weigh them to know how much I eat. I've told you before, I love blueberries and strawberries. I can sit and then once sitting, eat a whole big planet. And all this adds up. The same with watermelon. Believe me, I can eat whole watermelon in a day, in few hours. Just keep picking at it. So now I write it all down. And that's basically what I eat. Now, if I fancy something sweet, if I really fancy something like a cake, I just have it. I just have one slice and then I make up. I take some calories off for the next two days and that will be fine. Basically, as long as you, at the end of the week, so if you add that 1300 calories for seven days, that's what you should have in a week. So it doesn't matter if one day you have a bit more, as long as the next day you don't, you have a bit less. You know what I mean? Just as long as at the end of the week, the calories are the same. If I really fancy something sweet, I buy the McVitie's Rich Tea Biscuits. They are very boring, but I'm not bothered. I just feel like I'm having a treat and they are very low in calories. They are 38 calories per biscuit. So I might have two biscuits, whereas any other biscuit is probably near 100 calories. I buy another Rich Tea, which are maybe Tesco Zone or I don't know. They are like little rectangles. So each biscuit is smaller than this. They're very thin and they are only 24 calories per biscuit. So if I have four biscuits, that's only 100 calories. So that's what I use if I really want something sweet. But again, like I said, when we had barbecue, I still had everything that was at the barbecue. I just made sure that my portions were a bit smaller than normal. And I had a cheesecake as well, a piece of cheesecake. And that day I didn't even count those calories. I thought I just will be a bit better and conservative with my calories the next day. So I started this in the middle of May. And now is, what date is it today? It's the middle of August. So three months. And I've lost now, I reckon about 11 pounds because I never weighed myself at the beginning. For the first four weeks, I didn't know how much. I knew I lost weight because I could feel it with clothes and everything. But I didn't know in weight. But I sort of guessed. After a while, I weighed myself and I sort of guessed. I reckon I've lost about 11 pounds by now. So it's very, very slow. I would lose like two pounds a week or a pound a week. And we went away to Yorkshire for a week. I didn't work out that week. When we came back, my personal trainer was on holiday. So didn't work out that week. Didn't work out for two weeks and still sort of counting calories. But with being away, it wasn't that good. And I think in those two weeks lost only one pound. But it's still a loss. So I never expected to lose all this weight. And I'm quite happy with the way I look like now. Maybe I would want to lose another couple of pounds. So I get back to like 10 stone, which is 140 pounds. I'm quite happy at that weight. Like I've told you in one of my other vlogs, I don't want to lose too much because I don't want to start looking a bit haggard and like your face starts looking a bit droopy and hollow. So definitely, if you don't exercise, start doing something because this is really going to help. If you don't exercise at all, your calorie allowance will be so small that you will feel hungry. So even if you briskly walk three times a week for half an hour, anything will help. So if you choose things that you like eating, have a book like this, write calories of those things because then it's so much easier to go back. Oh, how many calories in that slice of bread? You know, so I have things that I eat all the time and now I remember the calories of it. Count your alcohol too because that's quite calorific. I'm not a big drinker. Yes, if we have friends around, I can drink over the course of the night a whole bottle of Prosecco. But I don't really drink in a week. If I sometimes fancy a drink, then I have a glass of red wine or double gin and tonic. That's it. I suppose spirits are better, especially if you have it with a sugar-free mixer. Spirits are a bit lower in calories than wine or beer. So that's what I eat. It's quite boring, you know, so just find something that works for you. So once I've achieved the weight that I want to be at, I will have my personal trainer work out for me amount of calories, which will be higher than to maintain that weight, not to put any more and not to lose any more. Right. Another really, really big tip I would give you. If you don't want to dive straight in, what I would advise for a month, stop all your snacking because I always used to say, I don't know why I'm not losing weight. I don't eat much because I would never sit and have a big meal. But I think I was a bit of a snacker and I think I've worked out what it was. So I absolutely love, if you are Polish, you will know what it is. Kabanos. Kabanos is like this long, thin sausage, a bit like pepperoni, but it doesn't taste anything like pepperoni. It's smoked and dried and I love it so much as a snack. Give me that any day of cakes and biscuits. So because I go to bed quite late, I would start getting peckish about 11 or midnight and I would go to the kitchen, butter two slices of bread, get a stick of kabanos and that was my snack. And I suspect that's quite calorific. And if I was doing that for a few years, that all adds up. So in Costco, they do a big, big pack of it and Paul always used to buy it for me whenever he went to Costco. And I would be snacking on it, not just in the evening. Sometimes I would have it between meals and not because I was hungry, because I like it so much. So I've told Paul, don't ever get me kabanos anymore. If you don't have it in the house, you're not going to eat it. You're not going to be tempted. So the things that you think are your sins, get rid of from the house. And I guarantee you, if you just stop snacking, whatever your snack of choice is for a month, I bet you will lose weight. So I think it's the little things that we don't think about when you've eaten it, you forget about it, but you have them quite regularly. And because they are little, but probably very high in calories, these are the ones that are the devil. So if you don't want to go straight on a diet, try to do that. Get rid of all the snacks that you know you have weakness for and just try for a month, even for two weeks first, and see if you lose any weight. Okay, so I think I've told you everything. It's not rocket science. It's nothing, you know, new and revolutionary. It's just plain calories in, calories out. And it's worked for me. I still don't like it. I still don't like counting it. But you know, I am happy that I've lost weight. It's better for your overall health as well, especially as you're getting older. I feel great in my clothes. So I'm glad I did it. And very soon I'm going to go on like a maintenance and just try to stay the weight that I am. I think if I started it as a diet to lose weight, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. Because like I told you, I've got aversion to diet and I want quick results. But for me, it was more about this bloating. And I thought, well, if I eat a bit less, the bloating will go down. And then I started noticing that I'm losing weight. So that excited me and I stuck with it. I don't think I would if I started this as a diet to lose weight, because I wasn't that unhappy about my weight before. It's always nice to lose some, but I wasn't that unhappy about my weight. It was just the bloating. So the most important thing is to choose something that is going to work for you. Okay, I think I've explained everything. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for watching and stay fabulous. Bye.