Why am I so overweight? Help me to understand

[PomegranateVase]

I’m 3.5 stone overweight (over the top end of the ideal weight to height guidelines), but would be around 5 stone over the lowest end of the guidelines, and I’m a size 16-18.

I cook from scratch using fresh ingredients everyday, including lots of vegetables and broths. We typically eat lots of healthy Japanese food that I cook from scratch at least 3 times a week, and only eat meat, chicken or fish around 3-4 times per week.

5 days a week I do a 20 minute brisk walk.
Twice a week I walk for 2 hours at moderate speed.
3-4 times per month I walk for around 3 hours at moderate speed (so around 9-12 hours walking - in addition to the above).

I drink 2 cups of coffee daily with a little milk and 1 sugar, as well as 3-4 cups of tea with 1 sugar. I also drink sugar free squash, and only very occasionally treat myself to a sugar free fizzy drink.

I drink 1 or 2 bottles of wine per week, eat one share size crisps packet to myself, and eat a few biscuits.

A typical weekday looks like this:
•Avocado on 1 slice of sourdough toast with a coffee
•1 Nature Valley snack bar and a coffee
•Baxter’s carrot and butter bean soup with 1 slice sourdough toast and butter
•A couple of biscuits
•Homemade Japanese vegetable, tofu and noodle soup.
•3-4 cups of tea and squash.

My best friend is a size 14 and it as overweight as me. She drives everywhere and never walks and doesn’t do any form of exercise. She eats lots of processed foods daily, also takes sugar in her hot drinks, drinks the same amount of alcohol as me and eats 1 large fry up breakfast every week.

Another friend is a size 10-12 and eats lots of pasta and processed foods, drinks about the same amount of alcohol as me and walks probably about the same amount as me.

My thyroid is functioning normally.

I fail to understand how I’ve become so overweight by leading this lifestyle.

Please can you give me any advice or tips on how I can lose weight as I feel my diet is quite healthy already.

Could something be wrong with me medically if I am this overweight?

Sugar free drinks are also a trap and trick your body into thinking it’s hungry and therefore you overeat. I would also cut them out.

Yeah, start by switching all cold drinks to water and reducing the sugar in hot ones. You will see a difference just from that.
regarding home exercise, FitnessBlender online is brilliant.

Do you track calories at all? If not, I'd suggest doing this for a couple of weeks. Be honest with yourself - a biscuit is about 80 calories, so snacking one before bed without really noticing will add up.

As others have said, your diet is carb heavy. Try swapping your morning toast for protein porridge or protein yoghurt with berries/fruit.

Prepare sliced fruit and veg for snacks - you're looking for food volume without the calories. Things like apple, pear, melon, carrots, cucumber.

Reduce the wine - turn it into a spritzer. But the aim would be to remove that habit, stop the association that you "reward" your stressful day with wine.

It's hard going all in, and trying to do everything at once will likely lead to failure. Start with 1 or 2 things you'll try this week and do them every day, build that habit. Then next week, add something else. Play the long game, you're aiming for a lifestyle change not a quick fix.

If you make improvements 80% of the time, you'll have slack to enjoy avocado toast (add a poached egg or two) at the weekend without spiking your calories.

Unfortunately bodies can react to same foods in different ways for different people. It is really frustrating! There are things I know if I eat they will sits straight on my hips and tummy, but that’s not true for other friends. You just need to work out what works for you and keep to it, no matter what others eat. Also I would up the exercise- weight training (just a moderate amount, not to bulk up if you don’t want to, it’s perfectly feasible) has helped me a lot in that and apparently it’s better sometimes than cardio if you are over 35-40 yo. Good luck!

It’s simple, you are eating more calories than you need. Even “heathy” food will make you fat if you eat too much. Count calories, reduce portion size, cut out crisps and biscuits and sugar in drink. For a quick start try the 5 2 fasting for a few weeks.

Sweeteners do not affect weight loss. It's a myth that the body processes them like sugar. They do not spike blood sugar because they don't contain any sugar.

Some bodies are just built differently. We all know people who eat like horses and stay slim, can’t put weight on if they try. The converse also applies: some people are just built bigger. It isn’t a moral failing.

Intermittent fasting is just not eating for long periods. It’s not new, anorexics have been doing it for centuries.

these extremes to lose weight aren’t for everyone. And that’s ok.

Not to mention obesity is highly linked to cancer as is excess sugar consumption...

OK, gonna answer this: It was one post about meat (after a thoughtful, kind and considered post about weight loss). Followed by lots and lots of quotes moaning about that one post. No one has come on to disagree that yes, we need to eat more and more meat until the gristle and juice drips down our chins, like a medieval banquet. No one has come on to say, actually meat is great for weight loss: OP eat more dead animals and you will be skinny

You've all come on repeatedly to all say the exact same thing about that one post: Don't tell us off. We don't want to know. You have just all repeated the same thing. Multiple times. Multiple posts. I am also fully aware that these multiple repeat posts are derailing the thread, which i also do not like.

OP: sorry that your thread has this derailment. I can see there's lots of grand advice on weight-loss too and I'm glad to see you're happy and working on them.

Can I just add: 5 minutes dancing to Alexa counts as useful and enjoyableexercise that can easily be fitted in here and there, when you're pushed for time.

So many people say they can't understand why they carry extra weight.
You need to weigh every single thing that passes your lips for a week and calculate the calorifies. Include the milk you have in tea and even the smallest sip of anything at all - a single raisin, if that's what you eat. Then, and only then, will you know.
It's probably in the snacks, the alcohol, biscuits, sugar, hidden fats and just a bit of portion creep, but you'll only know when you calculate it.
Don't imagine that it's not due to you eating extra calories - it certainly is. People fool themselves about how much they are eating.

Your HAES/fat acceptance position is not helpful. Doesn't it make you pause when a whole thread of people disagree with you? FWIW 16 hours isn't a long time to not eat and has nothing in common with anorexia. Nor is 24/36 hours. Anyone with excess fat on their body can easily fast for 2-3 days with no adverse effects if they choose to - I'm not advocating that but it's not going to do any harm and evidence suggests it can do a lot of good. Intermittent fasting is a very sensible and easy way to reduce overall calorie intake.

I’m just the lone voice interfering in the eating disorder chat 😁 you need someone with a healthy attitude to diet to break up all toxic talk

Fat acceptance bullshit

too much sugar, not enough protein and fibre. Frequent eating. If you want to have something sugary, keep it small like a cup of hot chocolate and have it at the end of the day so you don't set yourself on a rollercoaster of craving more sugar throughout the day. Exercise is important but not as important as food in losing weight and staying healthy. Buy smaller plates to manage portion sizes.

I would replace foods rather than cut out, so you don’t get hungry, rather than just cut out the bread etc. add some extra tinned butter beans or something to your soup. Replace mid morning cereal bar with carrot sticks/ houmous/ boiled eggs and some nuts, replace biscuits with few squares high dark chocolate, sprinkle seeds on things add nice things to your salad s like nuts or cheese or olives etc, when cooling a meal from scratch I always think, what can I add, how can I make this even healthier, and I add stuff rather than take away. For example, if I make bolognaise I try to add extra veggies, extra herbs or put some red lentils in. It makes things more filling and I’m less likely to snack.

Arm weights, squats and Pilates will do SFA to reduce the fat on her body

In response to a largely ignored question in your post - it may be worthwhile to arrange a blood sugar test with your gp to check for type 2 diabetes or pre diabetes. Obesity causes our bodies to become less sensitive to the insulin our body makes, leaving high sugar in the blood unprocessed. Excess sugar is converted to fat, and insulin resistance makes cells less responsive, causing even more fat storage and cravings for sugar, creating a difficult cycle.

I spent years overweight due to too many carbs and hidden calorie consumption in drinks etc. and was told I was diabetic. I’ve now lost 2.5 stone and put my diabetes into remission for now, by calorie controlled low carb diet, but I have to maintain this constantly.

i also had to up my amount of daily exercise to be more effortfull - exercise also helps lower blood sugar. I started couch to 5 k app and joined the local park run. Try to think of ‘exercise snacks’ throughout the day!

good luck OP

When I was overweight I had the sobering realisation that if you are already overweight and eat the same as a thin person from that day on (say 2000 calories a day) both you and the thin person will stay the same weight you started at. They will stay thin and you will stay fat. This is because most women have roughly the same metabolism whether fat or thin.

To lose weight you have to go into a calorie deficit. Depending on your insulin response and other factors, it can be very difficult to stay in a calorie deficit for long enough to lose weight. For a woman, a food deficit would be eating say 1800 calories a day and that is not a lot of food at all! Google pictures of what a 1800 day looks like. I would recommend looking at weight loss jabs.

Also, a professor of endocrinology told me that exercise plays hardly any role in weight loss. You have to go into a calorie deficit!

It's the sugar in the tea, coffee, wine and biscuits. Then the sugar is causing your body to also hold onto ALL the data in the crisps, avo etc etc.

She's eating way more than 2000 calories a day. I eat 2000 calories and maintain my 11 stone weight. I eat far less than OP describes.

Six teaspoons of sugar per day in hot drinks alone is too much. Add that to wine, snacks & carbs consumption. Also the underestimation of exactly what your consuming all adds up.

We all know people who eat like horses and stay slim, can’t put weight on if they try.

Actually watch those people and what they do. Those people look like they eat a lot because you see them eating a large meal. I had a colleague who used to say this about me, because I eat a heaped plate at lunchtime in the work canteen. But then I just don't snack.

Everyone I know who is slim eats the same as me. No faddy diets or weighing stuff out. Just large healthy meals with enough fibrous veg and zero snacking.

Everyone I know who is overweight, rations their meals but then gets hungry and starts snacking. Often "low carb" so there's little fibre which is necessary for satiety. They are always hungry and that's an unbearable feeling so they snack.

It really doesn't have to be complicated. Eat large enough healthy meals so you don't need to snack.

Op is eating ridiculous "meals", like just a bit of broth and bread. So she then has to top up with biscuits and crisps

I hope you get whatever help you need.

Genuinely.