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?

In case it’s useful, my daily diet looks something like this. Not massively high in calories (about 2000 a day, I think/ hope) but bigger meals (all my portions are large) and fewer snacks. I do a bit more exercise than you but not a huge amount. My BMI is 19 and I’m 47 / perimenopausal. Have gained 5 lbs in the last 5 years.
breakfast:
Large bowl of porridge made with full fat milk with brown sugar and raisins, coffee with milk, apple
lunch:
whatever is provided at work, eg beef goulash and rice and broccoli, fish and chips and peas, lasagna and various green veg), bowl of fruit salad
dinner:
with kids, something like chili con carne with brown rice and cheese on top, kale (kids like this weirdly), tomatoes/carrots/pepper (one hot and one cold vegetable is the only way to get them to eat two!),
2 little petits filous/ rice pudding/ Greek yoghurt (or some other reasonably nutritious pudding), an apple/pear/orange
drinks:
squash (with sugar) throughout the day, tea and coffee (milk no sugar), sometimes juice at breakfast, usually a couple of glasses of wine after kids in bed

Never feel hungry other than before lunch and occasionally dinner so rarely snack other than eating some nuts while cooking. If I go to the pub or to someone’s house for tea, I will eat whatever is offered (crisps, scones, cake). Always eat everything offered if someone else is cooking.

Everyone is different. I was never overweight but to loose the pregnancy kilos I followed the below and lost 18 kg.
For 6 days a week: zero carbs, sugar, alcohol or diary.
1 day a week: eating normally everything but not overdoing
I also did 15k steps a day.
I lost the kgs and never gained them back. I am back to normal eating than 6 months now. Hope that helps!

The 1tsp in sugar with all those cuppas in a day adds up as does the bag of sharing crisps can’t you just have one bag of low cal lentil/pop chips etc instead?Cut out all the bread apart from the breakfast one and just walking isn’t going to hack it can you do an other form of exercise?

your diet sounds pretty good if I’m honest, you have to live! I haven’t read any comment as I’ve jumped straight to the end so the only thing I wonder is what age you are? I’m peri and definitely finding it so much easier to put weight on and far more difficult to lose!
my fool proof method of losing it is calorie tracking. No fad diets, just making sure it’s well balanced and perhaps more towards the veg/fruit and protein but I still have carbs and moderate exercise too. I use the nurtracheck app and just make sure I don’t go over 1500 calories a day yours might be different as it calculates how much you need and how quick the weight loss you want (you can still have wine just make sure it’s still counted) . You’ll be surprised how much calories are in some foods and it helps to keep those in moderation. I hope this helps x

It's the sugar in your drinks and the wine.
Cut all forms of pop and the alcohol.
Both wreak havoc on your metabolism.
It gets worse for most people with age.

ETA:

I re-read. It's the drinks and food. This says it all:

"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."

It's a lot, actually.

Ive only read the first page but its clearly all the sugar in the teas etc every day? 2 bottles of wine over a week and one big bag of crisps isn't really that many extra calories on comparison. Just drink tea without sugar and water instead of squash.

Unfortunately, metabolism is down to luck so no good comparing yourself to friends too much. They could have digestive problems which keeps their weight down. But things you could try….adjusting when you eat, try fasting diet, fast for 16 hours and only eat in the 8 hour window (12-8 works well). Or download fitness pal, see how many calories it suggests and start logging food to make sure you are in deficit….combine both and you should be on to a winner!

One bottle of wine is 700-900 calories; a large bag of potato chips could be at least 900 calories.

Conservatively, OP is consuming an extra 1600 calories a week that do nothing for her nutritionally. It's quite easy to underestimate the effects and amounts.

OP doesn't need to do anything extreme, ie fasting, it's pretty obvious what the cause is.

Because a lot of your diet does sound really healthy, are you fooling yourself into think you’re eating more healthily than you are? That’s what I do! The crisps and biscuits, but also lots of sugary drinks - not just the wine, but also sugar in hot drinks and drinking squash. Have you tried a food tracking app?

OP I think people here are being quite harsh and a lot of people (including me) eat a way more unhealthy diet than you, and hardly ever walk anywhere. Weight gain and loss is one of those things that works differently for each person so I'm not sure it's helpful to compare to others. Very few people are realistically doing 45 minutes of strenuous exercise a day, we all have lives to lead. So much virtue signalling in the responses you've had here.

cut the sugar out of the drinks for a start … you are having about 4 teaspoons of sugar a day, and that’s before you have eaten anything!!

2 bottles of wine over a week and one big bag of crisps isn't really that many extra calories

Are you joking? That amounts to around 2500 extra calories a week, or 350 a day.

In other words, she would lose nearly a pound a week, or a third of a kilo, if she cut these out.

And that’s before we get to all the sugar, and the refined carbs.

Youre simply eating too many calories and not burning enough

OP- download my fitness pal
log everything you eat/drink
work out your TDEE - amount of calories you need to maintain your weight (loads of calculators online just google)
take 500 cals away from that number and aim for that every day
find an exercise you love - weights work fastest and are good as we age. A PT if you can stretch to that is very helpful
eat 90g protein a day along with as much veg as you can
Cut out the alcohol for a month then if you can’t ditch it completely reset to a glass at a time - not a bottle. Remember to log it all on mfp.
Drink 2-3 litres of water a day
no fizzy drinks - try fizzy water with electrolytes or dissolving vitamin tablets - the elderberry ones by Sambucol are nice 💖

Could it be the sugar you add to your hot drinks. Sugar is the thing that makes me put on weight.

What if her TDEE comes up at, say, 1400 calories. Is she supposed to eat 900 calories a day for the rest of her life?

Because I’ll tell you what will happen. She will try. She will fail because she will be ravenous. Then she will have screwed her metabolism even more and find that her TDEE is now only 1250 so when she falls off the wagon she will put on even more weight.

This is what people women are doing all over the country because of shit advice like this.

She needs to be increasing her TDEE, not lowering it.

Eating in a calorie deficit does not ‘screw your metabolism’, this is nonsense. Metabolic adaptation exists, but it’s been proven that’s it is invariably small and non-permanent.

The pp was not suggesting 900 calories or lifelong restriction (and a TDEE of 1400 is unlikely anyway). Fat loss uses a temporary, and moderate, deficit and one that should be rich in protein. Fewer calories than TDEE does not automatically mean ‘ravenous’.

Continuously eating in an unsustainable calorie deficit (which -500 calories is) DOES change the way your body digests and burns energy.

This fact has not been debunked.

Your homeostasis will adapt because it has less fuel so will try to use less fuel. We are not cars.

If you continued to eat like that then of course it would all be fine.

But of course you can’t, because 500 calories below what you burn is a LOT.

According to my Fitbit I burn around 1850 calories a day. I don’t calorie count because I’m not a moron but I suspect I eat around that with three normal meals a day.

It would be totally unsustainable if I suddenly took 500 calories out of that.

If OP is 50yo female and about 80 kg, TDEE calculator says 1700 kcal/day for sedentary person. First objective is for OP to stop gaining weight. Anyway, if OP can't stick to 1650 then no point in planning lower intake, or at least not without planning complementary measures.

Not sure if OP stated their total mass.

Cut out all the sugar in tea and coffees, cut out the biscuits and crisps and have as a treat at weekend, reduce the wine, overnight fast (don’t need to eat anything after dinner until breakfast) swap two walks for strength based exercise like yoga or Pilates.

Try higher protein foods, cutting out the wine and doing little and often on exercise

Having just lost 2st by doing the above I can tell you it works.
I was also someone who “ate healthily” but just kept pilling on the weight slowly over the years since having kids.
I’ve tried “eating more protein” and cutting carbs - lost 1/2 a stone then stalled.
I needed to stop drinking alcohol, weight train and eat a lot less calories.
I have another stone and a half to go. I’ll do this then adjust my calories to maintenance.
Focus on getting enough protein stops me needing to snack.
Eating more is not the answer if you’re already eating more calories than you need - eating healthy food and figuring out how many calories you need to lose / maintain is key. As is exercising.

Everyone is different with their metabolism and comparison doesn't do any good.
Id say 6 sugars a day, with a snack bar and biscuits are the place to start. Reduce the wine. 30 years ago I took 2 sugars. Didn't take me long to get off. Id also say that 20mins walking a day isn't enough to loose weight. Everyone is different but I'm a 14 to 16 ish bottom and 12 to 14 top, I noticed a slight difference with weight when I was walking around 1 hr most days. Walking twice a day, for instance again after dinner will also make a difference.
I know Ive put weight on since stopping strength training. Add in a class or do something at home. I dont drink most weeks either and I'm 47. Depending on age and ive not read all the pages, perimenopause and age might be playing a part too. You start to struggle to lose belly and hip weight.

OP I struggled with weight/weight loss for a long time and cutting out carbs worked wonders for me. It was literally like day and night, I stopped being so hungry and the weight just fell off. I do find it hard to maintain in the winter though. I followed the 'boot camp' rules on here, more or less.

I couldn't calorie count FWIW, that is pure misery to me.