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?

I’m 5 foot 7 and a bit, 10 stone, the cuddly end of a true size 10 here, and if I ate what you ate, and drank the amount of alcohol you were drinking, I would absolutely put on weight week after week, exercising or not 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maybe see what difference cutting out alcohol, biscuits and crisps makes? Also, I think the sugar free squash might be messing with your body - Zoë podcasts say that even though sugar-free sweet things don’t contain sugar, your body responds to the sweetness and it can make you more hungry and likely to snack.

Wishing you all the best OP 💪🏼

Bread, alcohol, biscuits, lack of exercise, slow metabolism if you have been overweight from being young.

You are consuming more calories than you are burning. The end.

Exercise doesn’t make you lose weight.
You are eating a lot of very calorie dense foods.

Track your calories and check your portion sizes. I think you’ll find you’re eating a lot and it’s around 2000 calories a day. I’d be fat if I ate that much, despite loads of exercise.

Cut out the snack bars, biscuits, crisps, wine and sugar in coffee and tea. And the bread

Sesame oil has the same calories as any other oil.

Clearly OP doesn't.

A lot of advice already I would just add that I would try and cut down on the bad things you’re having rather than cut out. You might find it easier to stop having gradually cut down. I am trying to lose weight - not that overweight and I’ve had thyroid problems that now seems under control. By way of comparison I have a maximum of 1 Lindt truffle a day between Monday and Friday as a small treat. Nothing else with added sugar in, no bread Monday to Friday or alcohol. Saturday I have whatever I fancy and Sunday is usually a couple of treats eg a bagel for breakfast and some sort of cake or chocolate in the afternoon. No sugar after about 4pm other than Saturdays. Now im used to it I’m not finding it hard to stick to.

Ditch the sugar in the tea and the biscuits. Add ten minutes to each 20 min walk.

I’m fat because I eat too much,

I watched a show called secret eaters and that gave me a lot of insight into how we eat more than slimmer people. My slim friends have mild food noise, stop eating when full, eat way smaller portions than me, are more active. They may appear to eat crisps and such but if you stayed with them you’d note portion control evens out / lessens as the day progresses. If not, they’re probably far more active.

In the nicest way, you’re probably in denial on how much and what you eat. I know I have an insatiable appetite and that’s the reason for my weight.

That's not true.

Swap some carbs and high cal foods for protein & fibre and more plants...
Swap avocado for poched or boiled eggs. Consider Aldi protein sourdough bread. Add grilled mushrooms/ tomato/ wilted spinach.

Skip the bread with soup. Add a few heaped spoonfuls of cooked lentils or butter beans to your soup. Scatter sime seeds on top.

Cut the sugar in hot drinks out and drink less wine, perhaps switch to an unsweetened herbal tea on occasion. Collagen adds protein to hot drinks. Swap the sugary snack bar for fruit and biscuits for crunchy veg and hummus. Instead of crisps make popcorn (no sugar) or crispy veg in the airfryer

Walk faster or up hills.or with a weighted vest. Do some weights.

It's not about how healthy you eat OP (unfortunately 😞) you could eat only crisps or only takeaways but if you calorie counted and were under your TDEE calories you'd lose weight.

How so? Quite literally oilve, sesame, rapeseed, and sunflower oil in my kitchen right now all have 824 - 828 calories per 100ml. Avocado oil is slightly lower at 817. The 4 calorie differences between those oils is not going to have an impact.
Which oil is vastly different in calories per 100ml that it would have an impact please?

OP didnt say her lowest recommended weight was around 5 stone. She said that going by the weight in the healthy range for her would make her between 3 and 5 stone overweight. So the very lowest recommended weight for her height would be 5 stone less than she is now and the heaviest recommended would be 3 stone less than she is now.

@rainbowunicorn , you posted Sesame oil has the same calories as any other oil. to which I said That's not true..

How so? Quite literally oilve, sesame, rapeseed, and sunflower oil in my kitchen right now all have 824 - 828 calories per 100ml. Avocado oil is slightly lower at 817.
They aren't all the same then, are they.

The 4 calorie differences between those oils is not going to have an impact.
Which oil is vastly different in calories per 100ml that it would have an impact please?
That's a separate question.

Oh come on now. 4 calories over a 100ml measure is literally a fraction of a calorie in an average serving. The poster i was responding to was trying to use the argument that the sesame oil was denser and was accounting for the OPs weight gain. It clearly isnt and anyone who thinks it is must be a bit daft.

It wasn't an analogy.

I know there a lot of apps to choose from, but I’ve been using Lose It! for years, lost 40 lbs and have kept it off. More than anything, it tracks every calorie and I can set goals, for weight, protein, carbs, sugar and so on. On my personal plan, I have slightly higher allowances for weekends, because that’s what works for me. The key, for any app of this sort, is no cheating. There will be days when you go over and even days when you are horrified at what you ate. Nobody is perfect and people have meals out and splurges. But, you have to realize that if you cheat putting it in the app, you are only cheating yourself. A phone app doesn’t judge, gives so much positive feedback and doesn’t comment on days that I don’t do well. It’s a diet pal, always in my pocket.

There’s an age thing there as well. What was fine at 30 isn’t at 45. I am slim and seeing this as i am putting on weight whilst eating the same as before.
Also don’t be fooled by others. People also say to me that i can ‘eat anything’ and I sometimes do bings on crisps or whatever. But I have exercised my whole life, have a fast metabolism, and I don’t ALWAYS eat like that. I eat 4 meals a day (as I have a sweet treat including a couple of bicuits) at tea time), but drink only water and tea with no sugar and very rarely snack outside my 4 meals.

@rainbowunicorn , true.
If OP is using sesame oil - she doesn't seem to have mentioned oil - she's probably adding it to food not cooking with it, which would be adding many calories.

@MightyDandelionEsq , I watched a show called secret eaters and that gave me a lot of insight into how we eat more than slimmer people. I didn't see it but I've believed for decades that slim people eat differently.
They tend to only eat at mealtimes, eat more slowly, eat meals that are more 'meat and two veg' than carbohydrate-based, eat smaller portions etc

DM and DMIL are often on diets, but they nibble when they prepare food. Tiny bits of cheese etc soon add up.

How old are you? IMO it’s 10% being over 40, 20% alcohol and 70% calories. Exercise doesn’t make a significant difference. It’s really as simple as how many calories you consume. Doesn’t matter if you eat chocolate cake and ice cream or 3 healthy meals a day, as long as they have the same number of calories it has the same effect. I’ve lost 3.5 stone since May (I’m on Mounjaro) but I’ve been tracking calories and by giving up booze and limiting my daily calories to 1400 without fail every day..and the weight’s come off easily (obvs thanks to appetite suppression from mounjaro, I know I would’ve struggled without it) I wasn’t eating anything special (although it’s easier to feel fuller with healthy food & lots of protein). Try calorie tracking apps to see how many calories you’re actually eating in a day

But maybe that's because you're not eating while you're running. Surprisingly, our brain is the biggest user of our calories and exercise makes very little difference.

@Womaninhouse17, exercise makes very little difference.It makes a big difference but it depends on what exercise you do.
Weight training probably won't make you lose weight, but the muscle you gain will use up more calories. Anything that raises your heart rate should raise your metabolic rate.

Walking and swimming are great forms of exercise but they're not going to make you lose weight unless you eat fewer calories.

@Seymorbutts , Doesn’t matter if you eat chocolate cake and ice cream or 3 healthy meals a day, as long as they have the same number of calories it has the same effect.
I don't think this is completely true. A satisfying meal probably generates less food noise. I also think when you eat makes a difference.

I'm a firm believer that if you want chocolate cake and ice cream for your dinner then you are better off having that. If you eat something else, you'll still be hankering after chocolate cake and ice cream aka food noise.

It's nonsense and a pernicious myth that 3 ice creams and the equivalent calories in a jacket potato and beans are equivalent.

We do not digest all calories at the same speed, and some food never does get fully digested (soluble fibre etc).

"Calories" are just calculated from how much fire is produced when that food is set alight.

Soluble fibre, for example, has calories that we never use (ends up in the toilet).

So 100 calories of jacket potato and 100 calories of ice cream do not affect our body in remotely the same way.

Edit to add - this is why calorie counting often doesn't work. Just eat healthy filling meals with fibrous and colourful vegetables, and don't snack.