Diet advice, please!

Ahh the confusing world of diets and dieting... I'm very strict about what I eat during the week and used to think I ate a healthy and substantial diet, but now I'm not so sure. I'd like some advice, please!

I go to the gym nearly every night after work and burn an average of 450 calories each time. I often feel quite weak and wobbly after a tough session, and I've had to buy some emergency jelly beans from the sweet machine on a few occasions before driving home. I also recently fainted during a Stereophonics gig because I suspect I hadn't eaten enough before going. Not my finest hour, but at least it was at the end of the gig and not at the beginning. If I had to choose somewhere to faint for the first time, I definitely wouldn't have chosen a packed arena containing one of my favourite bands of all time!

I absolutely love food (as you'll already know if you're a regular reader) and I'm much less strict on weekends, but I do try really hard to be good during the week in terms of diet and exercise. I want to lose more weight before my wedding next August, but I think my weight loss goal might be unrealistic as I haven't lost a substantial amount of weight for a while according to the scales, yet I've gone down a clothes size in the last few months. I think I must have reached the stage where I can't actually lose much more weight so it's all about toning up. For someone who weighs themselves every day and judges themselves based on their weight, this is hard to accept! I am a healthy weight for my height, but I don't think anyone ever really wants to believe those figures.

I find it so difficult to know what a healthy and nutrituous diet should contain... the media is always publishing conflicting stories about good and bad foods, carbohydrates always have mixed reviews and everyone has a different opinion on what makes a healthy diet. I'm not even sure if I'm eating enough during the week, especially as I go to the gym so often and burn 400 to 500 calories every time. I'd hate to find out that I'm actually hindering any weight loss because I'm not eating enough, not eating the right things or starving my body of the energy it needs.

To sum up, I'm getting fed up of struggling through the confusing world of healthy diets so I thought I'd ask for advice from the blogging community!


This is my diet on a typical week day:

Breakfast - 2 Weetabix biscuits with semi skimmed milk

Lunch - Beans on toast (half a can of Tesco Light Choices beans and two slices of Hovis Nimble bread, 51 calories per slice)

Dinner - Either poached eggs on toast (Nimble bread again) or a bowl of pasta and pesto, veggie stir fry, veggie curry or chilli con carne. I'm not a vegetarian, I just don't like spending money on meat!

Snacks - Apple (12:30pm), banana (4:30pm), Weightwatchers yoghurt (after lunch), two breakfast biscuits (one before lunch, one after lunch), Options hot chocolate with three marshmallows (evening), a handful or two of sultanas (evening), multivitamin with iron (evening).

Yes, I really am that strict with the timings and quantities.


I know this diet isn't particularly varied but I think it's pretty healthy on the whole. It's also important to note that my food budget is very small due to all my other monthly expenses, and I'm also way too busy to cook meals which require a lot of effort every night. I usually cook a huge meal once or twice a week then divide it into 4 or 5 portions for the rest of the week.

The big questions are... am I actually eating enough and am I getting enough nutrients from the food above? Is there inadvertently too much sugar in  my diet? Am I eating enough from all the vital food groups? Am I just thinking about this too much? Should I put my weighing scales in the bin? I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts!