Hi :)

Sounds like a lot, and a good candidate for a simple portion control ;) If
you cut all these by 1/3 or 1/2, that would do most of the work for your
diet, without really changing what you eat. I mean, except for the total
amount, your diet is not *that* unbalanced.

That's actually a lot of calories there, probably close to a full meal...

That's what I meant by portion control ;)
When did you start to feel hungry after that? Or did you still feel hungry
after eating these? 1 weetabix+soy milk is about all I can manage to eat for
breakfast. lol

No lunch??? Weetabix are rather medium glycemic index. I would have expected
you to have been hungry at lunch, or even before...
Be careful with protein intake also, it looks like the veg burger was the
only source of them for the whole day. If so, it's pretty low (especially
since some veg burgers are actually more carbs than proteins).

They still don't come for free ;) Maybe they're the reason for no lunch?

That's a *lot*! Most of it is probably water (do you drink enough?), but
still... 3-4lbs/week is a good rate, for a man (women tend to be slower).
7lbs is not something you want to keep for several weeks.

By not starving yourself too much, and not skipping meals. If you're very
hungry, you will start thinking about food all the time. Four things are
sure ways to make you think about food all day long :
- severe caloric restriction
- cutting off completely something you really love, that can cause real
craving
- cutting off proteins (because your body *needs* them and will complain) or
cutting food that brings high long term satiety (like fats).
- skipping meals (unless you're *really* not hungry)
This can also happen if you eat only high glycemic index food (like, only
fast carbs, no fat, no protein), the food just doesn't last long...

See above.
You don't deal with these. You deal with slight hunger or the idea that it's
ok to be hungry a short while before starting the next meal. You're not
supposed to ignore hunger when it gets to the point where it hurts, you're
just supposed to eat (a reasonnable amount of food).
The point of dieting is not to starve yourself. It's to find a way of eating
*less* that you can keep doing for the rest of your life. Can you imagine
having hunger pangs, groans and gurgles for the rest of your life? Nope?
Then, you will have to find a middle ground between over-eating and
starving.

2. sounds a lot like real hunger. The usual advice is to skip one meal or
two, then what you are feeling *is* hunger. Hunger is the kind of thing you
can feel after exercising for long. Also, hunger doesn't depend on food
being in front of you, it's an internal state. Hunger comes from the belly,
craving from the mouth, if the metaphors speaks to you.

Replace the fries in the evening with veg.
You aren't getting a wide enough variety
of veg for good health.  You need to
eat that instead of so much weetabix.

Pardon the American...  I don't know what weeabix are....  

Fruit juice and fruit are packed with additional sugar.  Juice is
concentrated sugar.   Because of this, fruit juice is very high in
calorie.   Drinking 1 liter a day is a huge amount of calories and
sugar.

One way to help with this is to try watering down your fruit juice.
Start with a glass half full of juice and fill the rest with water.
This will cut that calorie consumption in half, but still give you
alot of flavor.    Once you've satisfied that, then try to substitute
half your drinking with only water and not juice.    Eventually you'll
find that you have cut that 1lt of fruit juice down to 1/4 lt juice
and 3/4 water.

Are you working on physical therapy to help recover from your back
problems?

What I can see so far is that you have cut your calorie intake
dramatically.

Your constant thinking of food is because you are so used to eating so
much.   You can either 1, increase food intake a bit.   When you do,
try to do it in the form of protein and a bit of fat.  This will help
satisfy your hunger longer, and not cause additional cravings.    and
2.  give it a couple weeks.   Fight thru the thoughts and hunger pangs
for a couple weeks.  Give your body a chance to get used to your new
eating and your tummy will stop with all its nonsense

2 ways
1.  see my above comments.
2.  cut back on the carbohydrates  (sugars, flours and starches).
They tend to cause your body to crave more food.  

a couple tips when you feel "hungry"

1.  drink a large glass of water and wait 20 mins.  If you are still
hungry, have a small snack and another glass of water.

2.  Ask yourself this question.   Am I so hungry that I would eat
plain unlevened crackers?   (boring, little flavored food)   If the
answer is yes, then have yourself a small snack and water.

Hope that this reply one reply doesn't upset you good  people as I thought
that I can just combine the responses so far :)

Agree that was my thought. The foods aren't "that" bad it is just excessive.
My initial weight loss does not seem "that" big to me considering the volume
of calories and sedentary lifestyle that I had compared to the fraction that
I'm now consuming and physically using. My thoughts are is that I have a two
stage approach to my weight loss...

1. Diet to get to my "ideal" weight
2. Diest as a way of life.

When stage 1 is complete I can then look to increase with sensible balanced
food and move to stage 2. My urgency is the goal that I have set of three
months to my 44th birthday and to get to my "ideal weight" - whatever that
should be...?

for

After being used to the amounts that I eat hunger (or desire / craving to
eat beyond hunger) kicks in pretty soon.

Might read a little silly but I'm having to relearn the difference from
hunger to that of a craving or desire to eat when not hungry...!!!

I hadn't listed my entire consumption re-reading my list but I always eat
around 5 to 8 potions of fruit and veg a day.

I have had numerous physiotherapy sessions and I'm trying hard not to go
back for another surgical procedure that is more invasive. I hope the weight
loss will help to take away some strain to the lower back as well.

Please see below.....

Yes those are them..!!! I would eat them in my wifes mixing bowl that she
uses for baking with around a pint or so of milk a time. When I got upto 14
at a go I realised that things needed to change.
My biggest issues (I think) has become too dependent on food beyond its
neccesity exaggerated through health issues following back surgery and a
more sedentary lifesytle.

Food has become a comfort to me.

Thank you to you all for your help :)

Bob

If your new plan is to eat only two meals a day, I think that's a
mistake.  It's better to eat smaller amounts more frequently to avoid
excessive hunger and to keep your metabolism running more smoothly.

I don't think you're eating nearly enough protein.  Are you a
vegetarian?  I'd recommend trying to include some protein with each
meal.  Like maybe for breakfast, have fewer Weetabix with some nuts
mixed in, or substitute some toast w/ peanut butter.  Do you put milk
on the Weetabix?  That will give you some protein.  And where's the
dairy in your diet?  How about some low-fat cheese or yogurt for some
of your snacks.  You're eating mostly carbs, which will not tend to
satisfy you as long as proteins or fats.  Adding more proteins and
fats to your diet will help control hunger.

Chris
262/153/ (145-150)

I can only say what has worked for me these past 3 months . . .

First, I cut the carbs (sugar and starch) down drastically, to the
bare minimum. Unless you've been very active immediately before
eating, carbs are just empty calories that WILL go to fat, AND make
you hungrier in the process.

I probably eat 30% of my calories as carbs, and I've been very happy
with this WOE, as even though I'm maintaining a 1000 kcal/day calorie
deficit, I am a lot LESS hungry than I was before. I've NEVER had a
growling stomach on this diet! Amazing!

Second, fructose is bad for you, and fruits are expensive. I
personally think a good A,C,E antioxidant vitamin taken with a meal is
a better deal (but I could be wrong here, since most vitamin pills
just get peed out). While it's tough to reach the 50g/day metabolic
limit (apparently any more than this and your liver runs out of juice
and just converts fructose to triglycerides and cholesterol) by eating
just fruit, fruits are also wonderful little sugar bombs that you
really don't need in a "balanced" 30% carb-30% fat -30% protein diet.

Third, the "balanced diet" thing. I've found great success not
avoiding fat in my daily diet. Fat in moderation is great -- I think
it really helps keep the body from getting distressed by the lack of
calories that are coming in. Plus things with fat taste REALLY good.

Fourth, don't go on a crash diet. I'm breaking this rule since I'm
shooting to lose ~50 lbs over 5 months, and I think everything over
1lb/week is a crash diet (but my target rate of 2 lbs/week is
considered the maximum safe rate loss, so it's not so bad). If you are
starving yourself you are doing something VERY VERY wrong.

Fifth. Eat smaller portions more often. Don't eat more than you are
consuming with exercise and your base metabolism. Eg. don't load up on
calories at night if you're just going to veg until morning.

Sixth, take a balanced regime of multivitamins. My regime, which I
make no claims as to being good, is:

Morning meal: Centrum-style full multivitamin with everything
Lunch meal: A,C,E antioxidants
Dinner meal: Omega 3-6-9 unsaturated fats pill and a B-complex
vitamin.

Altogether I'm taking in 400% or so for most vitamins. I'm hoping this
counter-acts the lost-in-urine effect.

No wonder you're so hungry. The sucrose and fructose in this is
overloading your system! Kill the fruit, and especially kill the
juice. It's still sugar water.

WTF? This isn't a diet. If you want to lose weight, get serious and
prove to yourself that you don't need chocolate to live. It's all
mental in the end, and everything unnutritious you put into your mouth
is just pushing your goal further out.

7lbs of something. Most likely water, as your body is going, "WTF is
happening?"

one week does not a trend make. Wait a month. 7lbs/month is a very
sustainable trend.

drop your sugar and starch intake, eat more protein and unsaturated
fat.

your body is telling you, hey how about some real food?

36" waist is pretty good, I'm  6' 1" and 40", and hope to get back
down to 34". 233lbs was my peak too, and it's taken me 10 weeks to get
down to 210, and dropped from 44" to 40". My goal is 180, but I think
190 would be about right for you.

couple more things:

Drink at least 1/2 gallon (64-oz) of water a day. Drink more. Drink as
much as you can. Fat loss requires water. Water through the kidneys
cleans out the gunk from fat burning.

One trick I use is eating 1oz (~28 nuts) of smokehouse almonds for
lunch. Gives me 200 kcal of protein and unsaturated fat, but more
importantly water tastes really good with the flavoring.

Also, measure your waist with a tape measure, not pants. I could
easily fit into 40" pants but the tape measure said 44" when I started
this diet thing.