Weight/metabolism- am I really abnormal?

[rytonsister]

Hi
I'm wondering if anyone else shares a similar body shape/metabolism to me.

As a child I was very very thin, very underweight. So much so that I was carted off to gp and given all sorts of potions but I was just honestly never hungry. I was made to stay school dinners in an effort to get me to eat but I just never had any appetite and eating when I was t hungry made me gag. I remember once being forced to eat a trifle at school and it coming straight back up

Oops i pressed too soon....so
As I got to adulthood I was still very underweight but looked fine.

I was a uk size 4 but looking at photos I looked spit on for my shape and height. I never looked too thin or Ill my bmi was 15. I weighed 7st 4. I was heathy and active and definitely did not have any sort of eating disorder- I just at very little and only when hungry.

Now I'm almost 50 . I now have a bmi of 24. Yet I'm fat. And I've been diagnosed type 2 diabetic. I'm 10 stone 4 and I can't ever ever lose weight now.

I remember in my 30s being horrified at being 9st 2!! And doing slimming world which dropped 7 lb after the first week.

Now I can't lose anything. I'm fat and ill and 10st is big for me and I carry fat round the middle.

I've been to go for the diabetes and they dismissed me saying it wasn't my weight but I think this is abnormally big me me....for my frame I'm fat now.

Is anyone else built this way and if so how do you manage weight gain or loss? Nothing is working to shift the extra pounds and I do exercise regularly and eat very very healthy meals. I'm worried now re the diabetes more than anything. I'm only a size 12 but feel horrendous and have a lot of fat - according to gym stats I'm 40% fat.

What is your typical menu like?

Not me but my sister - you could be describing her, although she doesn't have diabetes AFAIK. She was desperately thin as a child and it was a constant battle to get her to eat. If you had have seen her you would have assumed an eating disorder, but this definitely wasn't the case. She simply never felt hungry. She stayed very, very slim during her twenties (I always felt like a whale next to her, although I'm reasonably slim myself) but something changed in her thirties and now she is inexplicably heavier than you'd expect given what she eats (not much).

My mum is certain that there is a medical condition underlying all of this which has never been diagnosed. So sorry, I can't help, but I don't think you are alone.

When you say you exercise...is that cardio? Weight training will increase your muscle to fat ratio, reducing your size (relatively) and increasing your metabolic rate.

Hello,
I think we can all be lulled into a sense that everyone else just loses weight when they want to. Also magazines show fantastic before and afters.

To actually lose fat takes a huge amount of daily effort for months. You really have to approach it with a ‘act as if everything depends on this day’ but ‘look to see the change in six months’.

For me at 5ft it took me exercising five times a week, consistently monitoring my food intake to mostly low fat, low carb (not no carb) low dairy, at about 1200- 1400 cals per day- 9 months to lose 1.5 stone.

And bodies live in the present tense so when I stopped being so vigilant and exercising five times a week I put weight back on.

With diabetes balancing your blood sugar is going to be important so low gi foods and meals. Avoid ‘diet’ things like Diet Coke and low fat yogurt etc.

Good luck

Type 2 isn’t always diet/weight related, and some people who aren’t obese have late onset type 1 that’s misdiagnosed as type 2 to start. Have you had your thyroid checked? If you’re eating healthily this might just be something you don’t have control over and exercising, this just might be something you cannot control without medication.

If you are diabetic then a low carb way of eating should help. 20g of carbs a day will see you lose weight and lower your blood sugar. Research keto and low carb eating. Once you get your blood sugar under control the rest will follow, I lost 11kgs i had not been able to shift before.

cheese that is really interesting.

It's just odd because now to all intents and purposes I'm a "healthy " bmi and yet I feel like a whale ! The 40 %. Body fat stat from the gym shocked me bit didn't surprise me - I've known that this weight for me is way too much.

In my 30s. I was about 8st 7 and a size 8 - 10 and felt fab. I was in proportion top and bottom . ( at my lightest I had no boobs ! ).

The diabetes tells me that despite appearing a healthy weight it's not for this body! This body needs to be a good 2 stone lighter and yet I just cannot shift weight no matter what I do and I gain it very easily now.

I'm 5ft 4

I'm also extremely anaemic.

My typical menu is all bran (small bowl as really don't do breakfast easily) with skimmed milk and cup of tea dash of milk no sugar.

That can easily keep me going until about 4pm . I might have a salad with chicken or I might wait for my evening meal.

Evening meal is very clean. Cod with stir fry veg and bit of brown rice or chicken and rice.

Steak , couple of boiled Charlotte poatato, salad, grilled mushroom and tomato.
Tonight was chicken and bit of brown rice
Sometimes have chilli/rice

Very occasionally do something "bad" like chicken pie with carrots and peas.

I'm now
Looking at low carb more due to the diabetes. (Doctor not taking that seriously at all due to not being overweight!)

I also now work stupid shifts( days afters and nights) but that's soon to change in March .

On nights I'll sometimes have a Mac Donald's happy meal but a healthy one ( hamburger happy meal ) Diet Coke

No more nights from March tho!

I drink water or tea during day.

Often st night have a couple of wines or gin (single) And slimline tonic.

No sweet stuff ever.

Exercise 3 times weekly - either a 30 min run plus kettle bell of classes of an hour - always high impact. I have to maintain fitness to work.

Definitely going to look st low carb/keto thanks. Need to given the diabetes diagnosis.

I'm getting no support from gp cos they don't think I'm overweight.

I am. For my frame I reckon I'm about 3 stone overweight!

I'm having another blood test on Thursday - the hba1c. As far as I know everything else was checked inc thyroid.

I clearly need to be paying much more attention to carbs. No more happy meals ( not that I've had one for months). But obviously the rice and couple of baby potatoes might not be a good thing.

Have a look at the 8 week blood sugar diet by Michael Mosley.

You are 5'4" and 10 stone 4lb with a bmi of 24. You are not "three stone overweight". Get a grip.

Are you actually overweight though or is just that you are used to being pretty slim and aren't used to seeing your body like this.

A body at the upper end of healthy will have more fat than at the lower end, you were underweight as a teen and you will look very different now. You were not healthy, it doesn't matter the reasons for not eating you still werent healthy, you said it yourself you didn't eat very much! A BMI of 15 is not healthy.

Is that really what you eat? Be honest with yourself, have you counted your calories? The rice and 'couple of baby potatoes' are fine, theres hardly any food there. Why do you eat so 'clean?

You claim you don't have an eating disorder, yet you were underweight as a teen, you don't like your adult healthy weight body and your diet is very minimal and there's a focus on it being clean.

You are already eating a low calorie diet. As a child and teenager (and probably as a young adult) you barely ate. I know you weren’t hungry but whatever the reason, you were on a starvation diet and you were very underweight. Having been underweight for much of your life you probably don’t really know what a healthy weight should look like on you. It’s possible that if your build is very slight that 10 stone 4 is a little heavy for you despite it being in the optimal BMI range, but it certainly won’t be massively far off where you should be. Your diabetes isn’t necessarily diet related either.

Yeah 7st 4 at 5'4 gives you a bmi of 17.4, you think your body needs to be underweight to be healthy?

I have to say it but if you are eating as you are and excerising frequently your weight (which is perfectly healthy) might just have to be something you accept, I would also have thought if you do that much exercise you would have a fair amount of muscle which will increase your weight. If everything else you do is healthy then your body is healthy. Really if you are severely aneamic you do not need to be cutting out more foods

Bibbity

I'm a long term lister and I "know" you .

My gym body fat stat is 40%.

I am way heavier than my body copes with. For me.

I've made every excuse in the book looking st my wobbly fat middle . But now I have diabetes. Type 2 apparently. The disease of the overweight and sedentary. I have a very very active job and my job depends on a yearly fitness test. I'm not sedentary. But for me - 40% body fat ? And I know I am overweight for how my body functions. To be a healthy fat % the gym advisor told me to lose 10kg. That's 22lb .

And proves my point . I know my body. I've lived with it for 47 years.

I see you work shifts including nights.

I'm sure there's a link somewhere between that and diabetes. I'm off to google in case I'm talking shite.

Knew I'd seen something. Don't know how robust the research is but it mentions 270,000 people.

consumer.healthday.com/diabetes-information-10/type-ii-diabetes-news-183/rotating-night-shifts-a-path-to-diabetes-study-suggests-731132.html

I am quite happy to slide into fat and old territory but sadly my job won't eat me and even my dp is commenting now .

If I wear a slim fit jumper or top I look like a sausage. Rolls of fat round my midriff.

The gym adviser told me to lose 22lb to get within a healthy body fat %

I've not got an eating disorder if any sort . Im a cop so I have to exercise and stay fit but I'm decidedly heavier looking than most of my colleagues now.

I hate exercise and I do it under sufferance but I do it . I could happily eat and drink now but 40% body fat at a bmi of 24 is just not normal and that's was the point of my post tbh.

Thank rj that is very interesting to me I've done night shifts for 9 years but just landed a new role begins in March with the latest finish time being midnight.

Shifts definitely don't help trying to maintain a healthy eating regime. The temptation is to say stuff it and buy a maccies . Who wants salad at 3am. I now try cereal but that's carbs. So need to find something else. I'm currently signed off anyway and my new job starts soon so hopefully nights no more....

It's a body composition thing.

My DH was 23 BMI and 11st. He'd never done weights. He's taken up training and is now still 11 stone, so BMI the same but 10% less bodyfat. He's now very lean indeed and a lot less frail. So he was effectively skinny fat.

You lose muscle density as you get older, it's to do with hormones and aging (google sarcopenia and osteopenia for info on this sort of thing).

It's why people try to drop to the same weight as they were when they were at peak muscle mass in their late teens/20's and don't get to the same dress size.

Every time you diet alone (without training), you lose fat and muscle, gain in weight is always fat alone, so you get fatter over time...

The very last thing you should do as aging is undereat as it'll trash your bones and muscles.

Oh and unless you have a DEXA scan or the Bod Pod, fat is very hard to measure. The gym machines have a high degree of inaccuracy.

OP my stats are not that different to yours and I’m a size 6 - 8. You cannot afford to lose 3 stone.

Your thinking is completely disordered.

Also
Just realised that the gym told me to lose 22lb to be a healthy body fat %.

That would take me down to 8st 5.

I was 8st 7 in my 30s. And felt fantastic. Best I'd ever felt. That can't be coincidence.

I doubt realistically I'd ever lose 22lb without serious restrictions (saw a recent study in diabetes uk where some patients were put in an 800 a day calorie diet to reverse the diabetes)
I simply don't have the willpower for that I don't think.

Worth getting your body fat retested somewhere else - 40% on that height & weight is pushing my trust in the machinery (although it does fit with the type 2 of course).

Time to start counting the calories in your intake to make sure it's what you think it is. MyFitnessPal is excellent for this, it takes a couple of extra minutes and scales as you prep food but it makes it easy (and scans premade food barcodes). With that info you can construct a "calories in - calories out" plan, either upping exercise or downing intake.

It's a nasty shock when you go from "difficult to put weight on" to the opposite, but 40s is when it'll happen if it's going to. Metabolisms, eh? Who'd have one.