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?

Yes having at least 16 hours between dinner and breakfast will help.

Cut out the booze, increase the exercise. Walking is great but you need to up your heart rate.

I gave up booze 1.5 years ago and it’s made a huge difference in various ways, including weight.

This is just not true though. It varies massively based on your height and weight. I couldnt eat 1800 cals as my maintenance calories are around 1400. Someone taller and heavier than me could maintain or even lose on 1800. Their BMI could be the same as mine. My mum is only 5ft so her maintenance calories are even lower than mine. There are several other factors taken into account also such as age and how sedentary your lifestyle is.

People really don't understand this.

Many years ago a colleague and I were both driving to the same place and she saw me ahead of her on the motorway.

She said to me that I must have really been going fast, because she was doing seventy and couldn't catch me up. I said no, I was doing seventy. She said I couldn't have been, because she was and didn't catch me.
I don't know why she couldn't understand that I was ahead of her simply because I started out ahead of her and if we go the same speed forever she will never catch me!

This isn't a myth. Look it up.
Also not just that they have a really unhealthy effect on gut bacteria. Essentially wiping it out. An unhealthy git with limited varieties of bacteria is linked to obesity.
Look up the latest research via Zoe & Tim Spector.

At first I thought your food sounded good but your example day featured two lots of soup, two of bread and a lot of sugar. More calories from sugar than food I think.

This thread just proves why so many people are overweight and don't understand why. Several posters have said have X number of calories so you'll lose weight but no one knows the OPs personal info to know this. Every number thrown out on here would result in me putting on weight even when my BMI was over 25.

A calorie deficit is the only way to go, this is very individual.

Sorry this is ridiculous 😭 what possible help could you get or need to deal with a passion for animal rights?!

That analogy doesnt work though. Someone who is 5ft 7 and 90kg may maintain on 1800 cals, but someone who is 5ft and 60kg would put on weight. Going at 70mph on the same road will always be the same.

The language is what makes it obvious here, not the passion.

Every number thrown out on here would result in me putting on weight even when my BMI was over 25

Even the person who suggested she can’t eat more than 1000 calories a day?

I'm a keen walker and get at least an hour in person day. I thought that counted as tonnes of exercise.

I had to go for physiotherapy and was surprised to be told that it wasn't nearly enough to stay strong and fit enough to be healthy. My lack of leg, shoulder and core strength was causing me serious back problems.

Now I don't call it "exercise" unless I need to change my clothes afterwards.

Makes what obvious? Are you suggesting she is experiencing a delusion or similar psychosis? What could you think this person is suffering from for which she needs help?

The wine, crisps, couple of biscuits... They all add up. Also, you didn't mention portion sizes so maybe they are too big. Exercise makes very little difference and burns disappointingly few calories. I walk around 12 hilly miles once a week and the drink at the end probably counteracts any calories I've burned off.

Oh sorry, I missed that one, I saw 1500, 1650, 1800 and 2000 thrown around as if they were these perfect amounts for everyone, my posts do state its individual rather than a specific amount though. 1000 cals for me is a good amount for weight loss, it would be too low for many people.

I'm not going to discuss this with you as that poster has already derailed the thread enough.

But her language imo points towards her possibly needing help.

I'll leave it at that.

Yes. Walking is great but it is no good for strengthening and you need to do tough uphills etc to gain any cardio benefit.

Lots of people eat far more than they realise OP, could this be you?
Also you may be adding far more calories in fat than you realise. How much butter on the bread, for example?
It sounds like a basically healthy diet, but try weighing literally every mouthful you eat for a few days and working out the calorie count.

OP, if I were you, I would use something like My Fitness Pal for a month and bother to weigh everything you eat. My guess is your portions have grown without you realising.

A single thick slice of sourdough from an uncut crusty loaf could easily be 100-125g which could be up to 350 cals. Add real butter - that could easily be another 150-250 cals, depending on how thickly you spread it. That's 550-600 calories just for a slice of bread. Add the soup - another 170 cals - that could be nearly 800 cals for what you may think of as a light lunch. Not far off the calories in fish and chips. Then add snacks: a couple of biscuits, a few crisps, two or three glasses of wine - that's easily another 600 to 700 calories. If you eat a whole avocado with a thick slice of sourdough each morning, that too could easily stack up to 600 cals before juice, coffee, tea etc. You could be at 2000 cals before you've even had your evening meal.

A friend of mine said she became friendly with an obese family on holiday and observed they didn't eat huge amounts. They just ate a bit more than everyone around them at every single meal. That is all it took, day in day out, year in, year out.

Try swapping sourdough for Baker Street pre-sliced rye bread (140 cals per slice) or Warburtons no added sugar wholemeal (55-100 cals depending on what size loaf and thickness.) Swap avocado for a boiled egg or poached in water every other day. If you want to lose weight, very low fat mayo (11 cals a spoonful) or very low fat spreads are much lower calories than real butter, or if you prefer unprocessed foods, just shave slivers of butter, for flavour, with a veg grater, and make sure you don't use more than about 6g at any meal. You could be saving 1000 cals a day just by changing what bread you eat and what you put on it.

And cut back on wine. Have a few nights each week without wine. Zero calorie San Pellegrinos are good - no sweeteners, just natural fruit flavourings. Then top up the wine you do drink with loads of sparkling water - weak spritzers with ice.

Finally - do bodyweight or weight training or bootcamp workouts. They can burn 600 cals in one hour!

Nutracheck app is great for keeping track, I've been using it for a few months to help maintain weight loss.

Bread is quite high calorie, as are biscuits - eg the cookies in the bag from the co-op are 200 calories each! So 2 of those for example really ramps up the day's calories.

Walking is good but 20 minutes brisk walking only burns off 53 calories according to my app.

I really like this. I used to do loads of bootcamps and you just had to shower and change clothes immediately after every single workout. The bootcamp closed down and although I walk daily, I haven't had to shower after a walk, ever.

I'm going to use this as an incentive: 3 'need a shower afterwards' workouts a week.

I stopped drinking wine and was astonished at how much weight I lost. It was only a glass (or two) a night and I'd never thought about the calories in it, but I lost a stone and never regained it. Booze is also terrible for making you lose restraint, so you're more likely to have a few chocolates or biscuits etc - or another glass of wine.

Don’t compare yourself to other people, everyone is different.

Although eating whole foods and freshly cooked is Important for overall health and wellbeing, the main issue with weight isn’t what you eat but how many calories you consume.

Many incredibly healthy foods (avocado, nuts) are also very calorie dense.

The reason you are overweight is that you are consuming more than you are expending. Losing weight means taking on far fewer calories than you currently consume, and consistently.

Your friend may be eating crap but also each much less of it for each meal. It’s easy to think that portion size doesn’t matter when you’re eating a healthy dinner but it really does. It’s the first stop when trying to stop weight gain/trying to lose.

Also, how old are you? Weight can suddenly arrive with no change of diet or routine in your forties just do to your loss of muscle which means you need fewer calories just to run your body.

Easy wins for you are:
Swap avo on toast for eggs on toast or ideally eggs with another protein, no carbs
Soup with salad not soup with bread (the carbs in the butter beans will be enough for lasting energy)
Ditch the alcohol entirely - it’s tons and tons of calories (I was SO slim when I was breastfeeding just from not drinking, and it all piled back on when I stopped - I only drink about 4 glasses of wine a week)
Change a biscuit snack for something high protein and lower sugar eg maple cashews

But then you posted a post that it turns out was meaningless and that wasn’t a derail?

@ShawnaMacallister Thanks for the correction! I know I've read sweeteners aren't great, and it seems someone else has said they're apparently not good for the metabolism (?), so I'd still steer clear because I figure it's better to be safe than sorry, but it's nice to know the body doesn't process them like sugar.