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?

That's a very good point about restraint.

And I find alcohol makes me hungry anyway.

Forget about walking or any other exercise for weight loss. That is fighting a losing battle. Exercise has many other benefits, though.

I stopped all wine last April and moved to gin and diet mixers as I was on a diet. I reintroduced it a small amount in September and my weight loss has slowed significantly. I’ve now stopped it again whilst I lose the last 12lbs.
its empty calories and a lot of them too!

Exercise is a bit bollocks for losing weight. And that's coming from someone who does 4 classes per week and runs twice. I was slimmer when I had an injury that stopped me exercising, because I consciously cut out things.

I think the most depressing thing is that running 10k for an hour only earns me 2 decent size glasses of wine. 2. So I don't exercise in the hope of losing any weight, I do it because I'm trying to maintain a healthy and functioning body into old age.

How old are you? I’d call your exercise level low since only walking. If you are 20 im confused why you’re overweight. If you are 40 id say you are a little over on calories - cut out am and pm snacks (or replace with anpple) and reduce dinner portion size. If you are 60 I’d say cut out snacks and avo and halve dinner portion size.

Running 10k gives me around a bottle worth of calories. Also I’ve always been substantially thinner when I’ve done long distance running. So at least TO me it does make a massive difference.

also every single time I’ve stopped exercising I gain weight

I'd also echo the wine observation (as someone who also drinks 1-2 bottles a week!)
I did Noom a couple of years ago which was really helpful both for weight loss but also educating me about what I was eating, I was genuinely surprised at some foods that are 'healthy' but also very dense in calories, no not helpful for weight loss (avocado and sourdough bread being prime examples).

From the example day you gave I'd suggest that other than the meal (sounds healthy but am mindful some Japanese dishes can be high in salt which doesn't help as then you retain more water)...

• Sourdough and avocado are both quite high in calories (especially the bread, if you're eating two slices a day that could easily be close to 400 calories just in bread!)
• Nature Valley is marketed as a healthy choice but is really high in sugar
• Tinned soup is usually very high in salt, which isn't helpful for weight loss.
• Wine is a big offender, red has more calories than white but unsure which you're drinking?

I know that's just an example of what you eat but if similar choices are made often that might be a day where you think you're coming in at a calorie deficit or maintainence level but are actually eating over what you're burning off?

Its calories.

I disagree that walking is pointless.

It's not going to have the same impact as diet, but it does have an effect.

I find step counting devices useful because they help you track the amount of exercise you actually take, particularly highlighting when you are being very inactive.

That’s not actually much walking, depends what your 20 min of walking a day is on top of but generally it sounds like your activity levels are quite low.

I’d track your calories and you’ll soon see how you’re going over. I say this as someone who is a similar size to you and now on weight loss injections, I’ve been tracking everything and it’s astonishing how quickly some things add up and how easy it is to eat too many calories, especially on inactive days.

Wear a weighted vest when you are walking, or at least wrist and ankle weights - or all three. Greatly enhances the effect of walking.

@PomegranateVase , not RTFT.
You eat a lot of carbs. The food you have listed isn't 'measureable' - an avocado or slice of toast could be small medium or large.

The food you eat seems to be only soup. You need to eat food that needs chewing. You should be eating more veg.

1 Nature Valley snack bar and biscuits - empty calories. Your daily diet doesn't look like food, it looks like snacks or mini meals.

Walking doesn't use up many calories.

I don't think that the sugar in your coffee is a problem. Approx 32 calories a day only.

What your friends eat or their dress size has nothing to do with it.

Wine is very heavy in sugar/calories, as others have said: no crisps or biscuits. Also no sugar in tea or coffee, cut it down slowly. A real biggie is low sugar/diet/carbonated drinks of any kind as there is an additive that makes you want more.

Water with a slice of lemon or orange is a much better alternative. Do not fry any food grill instead. We have a sandwich maker (George Foreman type) and use that occasionally for bacon or sausages. A good alternative to a fried egg is using a good amount of water in a non-stick frying pan with a small amount of salt (take egg out when cooked and put on a saucer or plate to drain).

Nibbles: Pumpkin seeds, up to 5 whole natural almonds with the brown outer coating on. Chew these well and slowly as you should with all foods.

Exercise is vital but you will not lose weight doing it alone. A lower calorie alcoholic drink is gin or vodka and tonic (one in a smallish glass).

Hope you find this useful.

Weirdly, I find the opposite. DH and I always do Dry Jan. I don't find it that hard as I usually have only one120ml glass of wine a night, sometimes two. But without that one glass of wine, I develop this really sweet tooth, and graze on left over Christmas treats all night long. I never lose weight during Dry Jan.

So overall you are doing well, but to lose weight you need to restrict treats.
Add more protein to your breakfast and lunch to help with satiety and cut out snackbar and biscuits.
Try weight training and high intensity interval training instead of all the walking (less time needed, more targeted exercise).
Reduce liquid calories, wine and sugar in tea, the less sugar you eat, the less you will want/crave it.
Good luck!

Try tracking your calories for a week. Really accurately, weighing and calculating everything. It is really shocking how they all add up! It’s not healthy to do this all the time but for a short period gives you a better understanding about portion size.

If you need to exercise at home, find something you enjoy and you are far more likely to stick to it. I bought a treadmill, which is expensive but over time cheaper than a gym membership. I use it for walking meetings when I work from home and to go for a run 3x week. I do whatever exercise I am motivated to do at home on top of this, might be yoga, might be some sort of class via you tube. Something that gets your heart rate up.

I am doing RED January this month which means I have to get out doing something every day and run every day as that is the challenge I have set myself.

Wine, crisps and sugar, no proper substantial means. Definitely 2 bottles of wine a week is too much, and may creep up more. It’s around 1200 calories in wine, so 18 units at average ABV. Also drinking alcohol encourages binge snacking.

The sugar adds 31 Cals per rounded (not heaped) teaspoon of about 8g. So 186 calories for 6 teaspoons, as described . Then 170 at least on wine, averaged out. So 360 daily on sugar/wine alone, if you haven’t underestimated.

Too many calories on empty carbs and not enough on nutritious food.

You mention a lot of Asian style foods, are you using sesame oil? It seems very calorie dense compared to others. I only realised this when I began tracking what I was actually eating.

As someone who couldn’t understand why I was so fat, until I went on the jabs, I thought I was eating a moderate amount- plus snacks. On the jabs I’ve realised how little food there is in the amount of calories that I need to lose just 1lb only a week! Find out your tdee and use a calorie tracker app! Then see if you can stick to that. I struggle with food noise, my next jab is tomorrow and the effects are wearing off (half life of 5days! and I’m trying to ignore the call of the crisps!!

Up your proein and reduce your carbs
I am veggie and to do this I have a scoop of protein powder with yoghurt and seeds . Really satisfies hunger.
Eggs are good
Reduce bread to 1 slice a day (I have sourdough too)
Reduce your wine too !
Can you bike rather than walk or walk for a bit longer and faster ?

Wine has a lot of calories
A snack bar and a couple of biscuits that’s 2 sugary treats in 1 day.
Do you not drink water? Sometimes you think you’re hungry but what you really need is a drink. Try cutting sugar out of hot drinks. I used to have sugar in tea and coffee. Can’t stand the taste of it now if someone puts it in.
Walking is good exercise but you need to be doing at least 10,steps a day to lose weight.
Logging everything you eat helps. Nutracheck is a good app.
Don’t buy share bags of crisps just the smaller multipack. Better still don’t buy sweet treats in at all. Just have the odd treat when out.

6 sugars a day is probably the reason, that is quite a lot. Plus not much exercise. Walking is great, and you are doing some exercise, but I think you need to add something with cardio and weights.

For me, exercise gives me a lower set point weight (greater muscle mass = higher metabolism maybe?) plus manages my appetite.
Plus it's a few hundred calories a run, probably less on the weights workouts, but like you I don't really balance against food - I'm running to to feel fit and healthy long-term, not earn treats.

I lost five stone by really, really cutting down on wine. I also wrote down everything I ate with the calories and tried not to go over 1,300 a day. I also swam around four times a week, doing around 40 lengths. Unfortunately I cannot swim at the moment due to a shoulder replacement recovery and have put on half a stone, which for me is devastating

A lot of sugary, carby processed foods (including wine).Not much protein.

Walking is great for general moving, but it's hardly enough to outweigh the diet. And you can't out-train a bad diet.

Have a look at Stacy Sims' stuff on protein, resistance/weight training for women, and HIIT and SIT

HIIT is high intensity interval training

SIT is really interesting: it's Sprint Interval Training. Quick to do, not easy, but doesn't last long.

Do something aerobic (run, `Rowing machine, bicycle/exercise nike, rowing machine, SkiErg) Do it AS FAST/HARD as you can - give it everything you' ve got - everything, for 30 seconds. Stop & recover (maybe 2-3 minutes). Then go again - everything you've got. Do this for 5 rounds. It'll take you 15 minutes maybe? But it works!