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?

Having read your update, those are good starting points for health and nutrition, but you need to count your calories. You can make lots of small changes that have a big impact if you have an accurate sense of how many calories are in things, and in your total daily and weekly consumption.

For example, switching your snacking to nuts might be more nutritious, but could be the same or even worse calorie wise. You might also be able to eat pretty much the same meals and portion sizes if you measure the amount of cooking oil you use in preparing them.

It's really not about whether the things you're eating are 'good' or not, when it comes to weight-loss - it's just calories. Of course always make sure you're fuelling yourself well with nutrients, but in terms of weight loss, just make sure you're eating the correct amount of calories to be in a deficit.

Lots of good changes suggested op but please be careful of switching snacks to nuts and fruit. Nutritionally it may be better but could easily be higher calorie than the oat bar Nuts are super high calorie for the weight. A plain Greek yogurt might be more filling? I sometimes add a little lemon oil a few drops to mine for flavour or add half a chopped pear. I wonder if you are looking for something sweet and hot peppermint and licorice tea might help? It’s naturally quite sweet I find. I used it when weaning myself hot milky drinks as I think I craved the comfort of a hot drink.

There is so much angst on this thread and it just isn't relevant to the OP. She has the lowest of low-hanging fruit.

No more crisps saves 500kcal per share bag. Switching to sweeteners or weaning off sugar in hot drinks altogether saves 700kcal over the week. Swapping each bottle of wine for two double gin and slimline tonics would save 820kcal. That's an immediate drop of over 2000kcal per week; drop the biscuits too and it will likely hit 3500kcal, the approximate deficit needed to lose a pound of fat. If she did literally nothing else she would lose on average a pound a week and would be a healthy weight by Christmas, and those little swaps are the kind of thing that are relatively easy to keep consistent.

It can be complicated, and the subject is really fraught for many of us, but specifically in relation to her post it's very, very straightforward.

Havent reas the full threasld but wine, biscuits and crisps are some of your culprits for sure. Sugar free squash is no added sugar, it will have naturally occuring sugars. I'd look at making your main meals more filling (definitely more protein and fibre) to stop you craving snacks. Add eggs to your avo on toast for example. Swap some of your walks for strength training (body weight only at home will do) to make sure you maintain your muscle. Stop alcohol unless there is an occasion rather than regular weekend thing. I love "Filling meals" and "Healthy happy hungry" facebook pages for meal ideas that will keep you full for longer. In terms of excercise it's great and we all should be doing it but like others said, calorie deficit is the only way to loose weight. Just as an example I run 4 times per week and I am not really losing weight because how hungry it makes me😅 sleep is super important and alcohol will affect your sleep quality even if you werent drunk or feeling hungovered. I find if I go to bed as I should around 10pm (I am up at 6 most days, sometimes earlier) I wont get hungry after dinner as I am asleep by then. Good luck OP, try small changes first so youre not overwhelmed x

Dont ever believe that friend. You are not with her all the time. For all you know - she might skip meals? Or her portion are small but frequent.

just do this :

track calories for a week to have a reality check on how much you actually eat.
biscuits are high caloric and so is some instant soup/ flavouring for asian foods.

hate to say it but carbs can be your enemy. Keep an eye on your macros when tou have tracked your calories. You will notice that you probably overeating carb and fat and lack protein load.

You’re taking in too many calories and not burning enough off.

Alcohol. 2 bottles is a lot. Biscuits, crisps. Check our their calorie content as it's all the food hiding calories in added sugar and fat.

Exercise wise you need to up aerobic activities, walking doesn't do it, whilst it's healthy, you need an exercise that makes your heart pump and sweat a lot.

But you’re exactly proving my point.

You can’t just drastically cut calories and expect to sustain the weight loss long term.

The crucial steps you’ve taken in addition to cutting calories are WEIGHT TRAINING (which increases muscle mass, which means you’ll burn more calories even at rest) and INCREASING PROTEIN. This also increases muscle mass therefore increasing your TDEE and is processed entirely differently in your body to simple carbs.

My point was that just deducting 500 calories from your TDEE doesn’t work long term because it’s unsustainable and you’ve exactly proved my point (providing you keep the weight off).

Another problem I see a lot is that people will often underestimate their net caloric intake (easier to measure) whilst overestimating their overall training load (slightly harder to measure) in terms of intensity, duration etc as well as not providing the working muscles with enough stimulus to induce hypertrophy.

Never eat back exercise calories. You can never accurately calculate them anyway. Treat exercise as what you do for health and fitness, calorie deficit for losing weight.

This isn’t entirely true and it would be easy if it were that simple. The composition of the calories you’re consuming makes a huge difference to hunger because of how your blood sugar reacts to it. For example - eating the same amount of calories in nuts as in biscuits or crisps leads to different bodily reactions. The nuts would fill you up and satiate you, keeping your blood sugar stable so you don’t crave more carbs an hour later. The biscuits and crisps would spike your blood sugar and make you starving for more carbs. This is why just calorie counting isn’t sustainable for a lot of people. I don’t even look at calories. Only carb/sugar content. I am never ever hungry between meals anymore

Exactly this.

But people STILL believe it’s just about creating a calorie deficit.

It’s the ‘law of thermodynamics’, apparently.

Calories in v calories out

OMG!! How has the world not thought of this? Why are so many millions of people overweight?

You need to create some sort of public service broadcast about this. It’ll cure the obesity epidemic for good.

Of course. I don't disagree with you. There's a lot of nuance when it comes to people's own journey with weight loss, but there are also some helpful clarifications that can be found. Ultimately, if OP swaps crisps for nuts, it's unlikely to be helpful for immediate weight loss.

I was absolutely astounded when I started calorie counting at how much I was consuming, even without eating a large volume of food. Like OP I felt I was eating a 'good' diet, and I was in many ways - nutritious foods, not loads of treats and sugar etc., but when I counted the actual calories it was clear why I was gaining weight despite eating healthy things. That's why I make the point about ultimately, for weight loss, in simplest terms, it's about how many calories you eat. As you go along, you work out what foods keep you fullest, which spike your blood sugar, which ones trigger cravings, etc. But it's very confusing when we're still in the headspace of healthy food = weight loss. It's not that straightforward.

Do you sleep enough? That may be a huge factor too, especially as you mentioned a stressful job.

You cannot use your fat stores until your insulin levels are right down because insulin is designed to store fat in cells for future use in leaner times.

Everything you eat that has any carbs....pretty much at all, will release insulin.

This is why the v low carb/carnivore diet and diets that have a fasting element work.

A lot of what you are consuming currently has carbs and every time you have carbs, you release insulin which either stores fat or prevents fat from being released.

Works great for cave men who get to eat two days but have to go hungry for the next five. It's how we survived as a race but as we eat every day and carbs at that, we get huge.

But that only becomes an issue if you give in to the cravings created by the biscuits.

If you don't, then you're still on the same calorific total.
So 200 cals of nuts or 200 cals of biscuits are the same in calories. The former probably fills you up more, sure. And has better nutrition.
But they're always the same calories.

The argument that biscuits spike blood sugar making you hungry is only an issue if, as a result of that, you eat something extra.

@Negroany , it's a lot easier to avoid the biscuits in the first place than it is to not have some more when you get the craving.

That's irrelevant to what I said, and also pretty obvious.

I'm just trying to provide clarity. I rarely eat biscuits so it's no skin off my nose if other people do and have to fight cravings.

The best thing I invested in was a Garmin. I used to have an Apple Watch but the battery life is shit. I charge my garmin once every 5 or so days and it charges super quick too. Anyway, it tells me how many calories I’ve burnt including usual BMR so I know how many I should eat to make sure I don’t overeat. When I was losing weight I always tracked all calories on MFP.

I generally eat 1600 calories a day now. Run 3 x a week- once will be a long run, two are 5-6kms and I do strength training 3 x a week.
I’m a pescatarian but average day would be: protein porridge and berries with semi skim milk, definitely no sugar added and no sugar in my coffees ever.
Poached eggs on sourdough with avocado or protein cottage cheese
protein shake with water after my workout/run
Jacket potato with cottage cheese and tuna or salmon with green veg and rice or lentil curry and rice for dinner

I make homemade pizza once a week as a treat and for snacks I have chocolate protein pots, fruit, protein bars, greek yoghurt etc. Lots of emphasis on here about UPFs at the min but it’s another lame fad that will pass. I eat till I feel satiated basically and do have chocolate once a week. Dropped the wine for January and feel way better for it.

I recommend as I said before that you do intense exercise at least 3 days a week. Walking is nothing. My mum has always been a yo-yo dieter, literally my whole life and whenever she’s trying to lose weight she just goes on walks and thinks that’s adequate. It never works.

@Negroany , You probably don't eat them because someone pissed on them.

Not true unfortunately.

The biscuits spike your blood sugar then crash it, creating insulin resistance and all sorts of other problems re satiating hormones and inflammation.

Even if you don’t give in to the cravings and the calorie intake is the same, you are doing something to your body that will make it very difficult to sustainably lose weight and keep it off forever.

This is the kind of misinformation I’m talking about and why so many people remain overweight or yo-yo.

You're consuming more calories than you're expending

What you measure you can manage. I really recommend using MyFitnessPal to track your calories. Don’t adjust your usual meal plan for a week but scan packets, weigh what is being done by scratch. Once you know how much you’re actually consuming, you can work out what you need to reduce to lose weight.

Two bottles of wine a week is excessive and is a really easy thing to cut down immediately. It’s just empty calories.

I think if you measure you’ll realise how snacks add up. Nature Valley bars are about 200 calories each. You could get rid of those and you’re saving yourself over 1000 calories a week.

Id also recommend adding something that gets you out of breath - a run, some weights, a class. Steady state exercise like walking is good but burns less than you think.