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?

2 bottles of wine a week is loads of alcohol. Also, you are having 6 spoons of sugar a day in drinks alone.

So so many people think calories are calculated from how much weight they make you put on, but no - they literally just set the ingredients on fire and see how much heat is produced. It's the bluntest instrument that has hardly any relation to how we digest food.

As an illustrative example, if you were crazy enough to eat charcoal (don't!) it would go straight through you (and probably make you quite ill).

But in a calorimeter it'd come out as having lots of calories because it creates a lot of heat when burnt.

Similarly, when you eat oil and fats with your food, some of it is used to kind of lubricate your bowels (sorry tmi) so not all of those calories get used in your body.

It's basically only sugar that gets 100% used when you eat it.

So 100 calories of sugar and 100 calories of fibrous veg cooked in oil affect your body very differently

Just to add, then I'll stop banging this drum... this fact about calories is taught in KS3 science!

But pretty much every adult, even health influencers and other quacks, seems to forget it. Including lots of people on this thread.

this is why calorie counting often doesn't work. Just eat healthy filling meals with fibrous and colourful vegetables, and don't snack.
I agree. I think calorie counting adds a sense of depriving yourself too. If you really want something just eat it and think of it no more.

They tried to come up with other measures of digestible calories - remember glycaemic index? But none of them really won over public opinion as much as calories, partly because calories are very easy and cheap to calculate (they burnt the macros so we know calories per gram for fat, sugar etc and then you can just add it up for new meals).

Whereas glycaemic index required blood tests and stuff to calculate.

I go by the glycaemic index a little bit. If I eat something high GI my body lets me know about it.

Have you ever yo-yo dieted OP?

If so, that will have messed up your metabolism.

Also, how old are you?

But yes, agree that the sugar in drinks, the processed food and the alcohol is waaaay too much.

Ah don't get me wrong, GI probably had its flaws too, I don't know as much about it. As I say, I just know about calories because I'm a science teacher and it's part of the syllabus! It baffles me how much importance is placed on it when they're calculated so bluntly and have such weak correlation to how food is digested (and therefore how weight is gained).

It really does help explain why diets often don't work, though. Because most diets are based on calorie counting.

@Kingdomofsleep , I took no offence. I think I read a book on it and it made sense to me because many of the 'high GI' foods were ones that make me feel weird. It's like they burn up too quickly. Sort of like if you burnt cotton wool -you'd get a whoosh then there'd be nothing left.

Totally agree. Well said. Calorie counting also doesn't work because you can't keep it up forever. You can eat a huge amount of vegetables and feel really full, yet with fewer calories than a small burger or a few biscuits.

I find veg like spring greens and carrots really filling and keep me feeling full for ages.

I also think it's not a good idea to label those extras as 'treats'. Put that way, you'll always feel deprived if you're trying to do without them. Start thinking of them as unnecessary and unhealthy extras (which you've been fooled into wanting by some company aiming for more profit). And find some healthier ways (food or otherwise) to treat yourself.

Exactly. Walking is good for you for will not be burning anywhere near a significant amount of calories.
Heathy eating can be a trap as it can still be full of calories! I used to be overweight and thought I was eating a ‘healthy’ diet. All from scratch , nutritious food but way too much of it.
You need to calorie count and up your exercise to something that makes you out of breath for 30 minutes.

Upload Fitness Pal into your phone and you will see what calories you are eating. Sometimes, what you think is low fat is actually full of it. I was amazed at Edamame beans this week..hideous amount of fat, despite being healthy.

Fat isn’t evil. Your body needs fat. I don’t think anyone needs to be avoiding edamame beans.

Honestly in a day of sugar and biscuits and bread and alcohol, I wouldn’t be picking on the poor beans.

There was a woman on secret eaters who had no idea why she was overweight as she barely ever ate. What she was counting was sitting down and eating a meal, when she was filmed she ate more calories than she should while cooking a roast dinner, then she sat down and ate a roast dinner. So I definitely agree with your last bit, all those little bit of this, little taste of that etc do add up but many people don't count them. See also 3 left over chips from the kids plate, 5 minstrels from your husbands bag of chocolate, the toast crust your child doesn't want etc. It's so easily done by so many people and they just don't realise.

Edamame beans are low in fat. You must have chosen the "battered and deep fried" option or something. Or, are you talking about the roasted snack ones? They might have more fat from the roasting process.

They're quite high in calories, but they're a legume, so they would be. Good for fibre. Also a decent source of protein, especially for non meat eaters.

Lots of people on MN say this. But I lost a stone by doing 3 bootcamps a week. Did not change my diet at all. Just started exercising. Within a year I was 1 stone lighter and kept it off.

What would you eat if you were naturally thin but wanted to eat as healthily as possible? I don’t think you would eat like this! The main meals and even the breakfast sound small and although sort of luxurious definitely diet-like. One slice of toast is not very much! I would have two, ditch the avocado and have marmite or peanut butter. (Actually I would have jam but I don’t eat much other sugar.) For lunch and dinner you need to put your teeth and digestion to more work! It can be plain food — jacket potato with beans and cheese and steamed broccoli/ kale, curried chickpeas with brown rice and green veg, grilled fish with potatoes and veg, etc etc.

You don’t need to eat snacks. I would ditch all of the snacks immediately and have larger meals. Definitely don’t start snacking on nuts and fruit — no one needs to do unless pregnant or on a hike or something.

I also think you should walk more. I don’t think of myself as doing a great deal of walking but my walk to work and back is 45 mins a day, and obviously I walk to other places too, as well as doing formal exercise. If it’s your only exercise, you should definitely be doing 10,000 steps + a day.

Have not RTFT so I’m sure it’s been said before Op, but aside from cutting out the sugar in tea and reducing alcohol which I see you’re planning to do, I’d recommend you get your walking up to one hour a day for health reasons if nothing else. Split it across the day so 20 minutes each in the morning, during the day and an evening walk.

These walks can all be done in the house, although getting outside has additional benefits. For indoor walking I use YouTube walking workouts, my walking pad and just pacing the room or walking on the spot while watching tv or listening to music. The gym isnt necessary.

ETA: didn’t mean to quote the whole post lol

It doesn’t actually matter that much what you eat if you’re within your calorie allowance, be it a deficit or maintenance.
Obviously for health we should all make better choices but ultimately if you’re eating too much of even ‘healthy’ food you’ll gain weight.
Work out your tdee for maintaining your weight then eat less than this.
Exercise is very beneficial for the body but walking isn’t going to make you lose significant weight if you’re eating too much and if you’re not losing weight you’re eating too much. Track all your calories every day

I’ve seen this idea that it’s only calories that matter come up a lot during threads like this, but I think what you eat matters for sustainability as well as health.

If I had a cuppa soup and slice of white bread for lunch vs salmon and some salad, it might be similar calories but the healthier choice - salmon - would fill me up more so I’d be less likely to snack or binge later on.

I find healthier whole foods more satiating. So as much as I love a good pastry for example, I’d choose homemade potato wedges and chicken breast or another healthy protein for 450 calories over a Gails cinnamon bun or something which has similar calories, but will leave me hungry again within an hour or so.

So OP, if you are using calorie counting initially make smart choices - choose your calories wisely. I tried one of those low calorie meal replacement diets and my body just couldn’t take to the powder shakes and diet bars etc. I was left starving after it so would end up raiding my freezer anyway lol. Did lose a few pounds in the first week, but I didn’t find it realistic to carry on like that. It’s so much better to eat real food.

Whilst it is true that it doesn’t actually matter that much what you eat if you’re within your calorie allowance, it is much easier to overeat on refined carbs and sugar (and alcohol) than vegetables.

I also agree that walking in and of itself does not result in significant weight loss, but the effect can be greatly enhanced by

• walking at a fair pace so you will end up short of breath
• walking for extended periods
• walking uphill
• adding weight by wearing a weighted vest and/or ankle and wrist weights

Walking can also influence one’s outlook positively in that it gives one a sense of achievement and reinforces commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, if one walks for an hour, that’s one hour less that might otherwise be spent eating biscuits whilst lying on a sofa…

You're an exception, and it depends what the bootcamps were. The weight loss might have been from a change in your metabolic weight. Walking won't do that.