Losing weight and the low FODMAP diet – 5 tips
Losing weight is a struggle for most people. Let alone if you also have the limitations of a low FODMAP diet. I know the struggle myself and I have often cursed losing weight in combination with my low FODMAP diet, but I know that it is possible!
Because of that, I want to share 5 tips with you today that can help you with losing weight when you are on the low FODMAP diet.
1. Be loving towards yourself
This is probably the most important of the 5 tips. We are all human and we all make mistakes. Did you eat an entire bar of chocolate while you didn’t want to? Can happen. Did you eat a piece of non-low FODMAP cake, while you really wanted to stick to the diet?
Can also happen. What you really shouldn’t do when this happens is get mad at yourself and talk yourself down because if you do that, it is very easy to let everything go and give up. This is easier said than done, I know that myself.
I am very good at getting frustrated with myself. But try to tell yourself every time something goes wrong this month (and after that!): “Ok, it happened. I enjoyed it. Everybody makes mistakes, this can happen. I will leave this moment behind me right now and pick up where I left”.
And from that moment on you continue eating low FODMAP and healthy. No thoughts like “I already ruined the day, so I can just as well eat crap for the rest of the day”, but just continue where you were before that little hiccup happened.
2. Keep a food diary for a week or a few days
Keeping a food diary really can give you valuable insights. Both for IBS triggers as for losing weight. You have handy apps for this, such as myfitnesspal, but you can also keep a food diary with pen and paper. A food diary is insightful for two reasons.
Firstly you can write down your meals and IBS symptoms for every meal and in between meals. This makes it easier to find out what triggered your IBS symptoms. Secondly, it gives you insight into how much you eat on a day.
When I kept a food diary a few years ago, I found out that I ate a lot of extra calories without even thinking about it. A piece of chocolate here, a slice of cheese there, one cookie from the package etc. I often thought that I ate super healthy during the day, but I didn’t count all the little extras.
With myfitnesspal, you can also track your calories and that might give a good insight into why you are not losing weight.
For myself I know, because I am using a Fitbit, that I burn 2.100 calories on an average day when I don’t work out. I sit at the computer all day for my work, so I don’t move a lot.
If I want to lose weight, I try to eat 1500-1600 calories a day. If I did a heavy work out, I add 100-200 extra calories.
I don’t advise to always track your calories and what you eat exactly because this can quickly become an obsession.
But if you track your meals and calories for a week, it can give you a lot of insight into what you eat, how many calories the products that you eat contain and how much you should be eating if you want to lose weight.
3. Add extra vegetables and fruit to your meals and snacks
In the Netherlands, the guidelines for healthy eating advice that you should eat 250 g of vegetables and two pieces of fruit a day.
A lot of people don’t even make it to 200 g of vegetables a day and if you follow a low FODMAP diet, where lots of veggies are limited low FODMAP or high in FODMAPs, eating enough veggies can seem like even a bigger challenge.
How do you make sure that you eat enough vegetables and fruit? You can start your breakfast with a piece of fruit. You can eat your other piece of fruit as a snack or you can have two pieces of fruit as a snack. Always add 150-200 g vegetables to your dinner.
If you use several kinds of low FODMAP vegetables it must be easy to get to this amount. Choose 1 or 2 vegetables that don’t contain any FODMAPs. You can add one kind of vegetable that is limited low FODMAP.
Add 100-150 g veggies to your lunch or eat them as a snack and you easily get to 250-300 g veggies per day!
I often put some lettuce or cucumber on my sandwich for lunch or some veggies as a snack. Veggies are good for you, they fill you up and they contain hardly any calories. So it is a win, win, win to eat them a lot!
4. Focus on what you can have
If you want to lose weight and eat low FODMAP, it is very easy to start focusing on the things that you cannot or don’t want to eat. But only focusing on the things you cannot have is not going to make it easier for you. Try to focus on all the things you can have!
Take a look at all the recipes on the blog. There are enough tasty things that you can have! Go to Pinterest, look for healthy recipes and make your own low FODMAP version.
There are so many good things that you can have. Also if you want to make healthy choices!
Make sure your healthy meals are very good and that you look forward to eating them. Treat yourself to a festive breakfast, such as these banana oat cookies or this breakfast brownie.
Make a good lunch that you really enjoy. Check this blog for a lot of low FODMAP sandwich fillings. And also healthy dinners don’t have to be boring. What do you think of this taco bowl, spring roll bowl, grilled chicken salad or pasta with tuna and olives!
5. Plan ahead
When does eating low FODMAP and/or healthy go wrong easily? When you didn’t plan ahead. Then it is easy to buy a snack on the go that isn’t totally low FODMAP or to get fries for dinner.
Therefore it is important to take some time on the weekend to plan your week. Get healthy groceries for the week and write down what you want to cook this week.
Choose easy and quick meals if you have a busy workweek and make sure that you always have a low FODMAP meal in the freezer. I often make a little bit extra when I cook a pasta or rice dish and freeze it.
If I come home from work and I really don’t feel like cooking, I can take this meal from the freezer and heat it up for us. Like this, I still have a healthy meal, also on days when I don’t feel like cooking.
These were the five tips to make losing weight on the FODMAP diet easier. I hope the tips will help you during your challenge!
Did you miss the earlier blogs about the challenge? You can find the blog where I explain the challenge here and the first blog about setting your goals for the challenge here.
In the Karlijn’s Kitchen community you can ask all your questions about the challenge and about the low FODMAP diet in general!
1 Comment
Dag Karlijn!
Blij dat ik je blog/ recepten ontdekt heb!
Al 3 jaar ” freestyle” fodmap dieet bezig,
vandaar…