Has anyone got fat eating only healthy foods?

[kistanbul]

I’m sitting here eating nuts thinking about the number of times I’ve heard fruit, nuts etc are bad for you.

But all the larger people I know eat lots of processed foods. No judgment - it’s quick and easy and it’s hard to only eat a super fresh diet. I don’t believe that a diet high in potatoes, fruit and nuts that excludes processed food like bacon, bread and refined sugar has ever made someone an unhealthy weight.

Are there any bigger people out there who just eat a lot of the healthy stuff?

I got really fat eating nuts. Think about what birds eat in the winter.

You see threads here all the time with people struggling to lose weight and they say, 'I don't eat/hardly eat processed foods, always cook from scratch, plenty of veg/don't drink alcohol' etc so I don't agree with you.

If you grazed on nuts all day long, I mean constantly chewing on them, literally only stopping for your other (unprocessed, bacon-free) meals, do you think you would put on weight?

Everyone seems to be repeating the obvious, if you eat more calories than you use, you will get fat, but the OP asked if there is anyone on here who actually eats healthy and is fat, in real life.

I eat unprocessed foods, no bread, cook from scratch. My weekly shop is 80% veg. I also avoid dairy and gluten and do not replace these things with ultra processed vegan alternatives. I have not eaten sugar for four years, including sugars from fruit and dried fruit.

I am probably 10kg overweight.

How are you defining 'healthy foods' here?

I don't believe in 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods - there's an ideal diet out there, which includes all food groups in appropriate proportions.

If you eat a handful of nuts that's great. If you eat a kg of them a day you're going to put on weight.

My parents both eat generally really healthily, they always enjoyed a small bowl of nuts/peanuts and wine in the evenings. One of my DC has a nut and peanut allergy, and had a reaction at their house just from touching g the sofa. My parents cut out their nightly snack they both lost a stone with no other changes in their diets

Of course you can, if you eat too much. This is really not that difficult to understand.

Sorry. I should have phrased my statements better.

I appreciate that weight is complex, not only due to how the body processes food but also physical impairments (like Henry VIII) that prevent people from moving but don’t lessen their appetite.

My understanding is that the majority of obesity is socioeconomic - a significant number of people lack the resources, time and energy to shop for and cook completely unprocessed meals. And for the rest of us modern life is too tiring to avoid bread, ready meals and sugar altogether and live a totally unprocessed life.

I hear people talk as if eating too much nuts and fruit etc is a health risk, but I’ve never known anyone who was otherwise of “normal” health became an unhealthy weight that way.

I was wondering whether they existed out there.

Same

It sounds like there might be a couple of people who eschew all processed foods and are overweight.
Thanks for answering the question!

I understand that if someone eats 1kg of nuts a day they might put on weight, but I don’t think nuts and so on generate the same cravings as refined carbs and lovely salty sugary snacks. So the issue of what will happen if you eat a kilo doesn’t come up in real life.

When I went plant based and was relying on more carbs in general, i put on two stone. Imma good cook and don’t eat much processed food but ate too many legumes and noodles etc.

keto got rid of it in about two months.

Yes. I have lipoedema. It's a fat disorder that makes you fat in a way you can't diet off. Add to thyroid problems and I was a fat child.

It's harder to overeat healthy foods because they have not been engineered to be hyper-palatable as processed treat food has. However, trainer Louise Parker, who works with celeb says in her book that people can become 'organically fat' if they over eat on her very healthy meal plans, so not impossible, but unlikely. There was also a woman on one of those dreadful noughties body shaming shows, who was significantly obese, but cooked all her meals from scratch, but used lots of butter, oil etc and big portions of carbs.

There was also a woman on one of those dreadful noughties body shaming shows, who was significantly obese, but cooked all her meals from scratch, but used lots of butter, oil etc and big portions of carbs

Was she the opera singer who 'lived on fruit' yet when you showed her making a fruit salad it was punnets and punnets of fruit, a bunch of bananas and a whole pineapple?

It was no more of a surprise that she was overweight than the traffic warden that 'lived on salad' yet had something from Greggs every time she walked past as she patrolled the high street.

Most carbs make you fat whether highly processed or not.
Full fats do not.
Have a look at Zoe for the latest research.

I don’t know anyone who is overweight who just eats unprocessed foods. I suppose because if you’re eating that kind of diet it is likely to be harder to over eat and you might not get cravings in the way people eating processed foods might.

I also think that someone who has the discipline, self control and headspace to eat ‘healthy’ or mainly unprocessed food is more likely to have that same attitude and self control when it comes to portion sizes. So there is a correlation, but not necessarily a causation.

i have a family member who eats well but very high calorie, she’s not huge but she is overweight.
She’ll have a salad but with loads of olive oil, feta, nuts, tahini etc, it’s delicious but low calorie they are not!

Perhaps the idea that it's not just calories in v calories out comes from the way that very available sugars, in high GI foods, make your blood sugar spike up, then crash down, leaving you craving more food, preferably simple carbs. So, unless you are carefully watching your intake, you will think you are hungry because you are not eating enough.

Low GI foods release their calories more slowly leaving you feeling 'fed' for longer.