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?

People can get fat on very healthy diets if the portions are large of they eat lots fat.

Have you ever tried a calorie restricted diet, OP?
Go for 1650 kcal/day and eat pretty much how you eat now, and plan daily, say 550 kcal/meal. as target. Presume you can't include booze, any sugar or tea, or any snacks at least to start, so just focus on 3 meals.
And lt us know how that goes.

20mins of walking a day is very little too, if you're sitting down the rest of the time.

Slim people tend to have jobs or lifestyles where they're on their feet pretty constantly. I get more than 30mins of "brisk walking" just going to work in the morning (walking to the station, changing tube lines, walking to workplace etc), then the same coming back. That's 60mins of "brisk walking" per weekday without even trying - and I consider myself someone who "never does exercise".

20 mins of walking is nothing, you've barely done more than pop to the corner shop and back

Swop sugar for Stevia, monkfruit sweetener or another "ok" sugar substitute.

Start with that and reduce your wine by one or two glasses a week.

Then halve your biscuit count, cut out the crisps and so on, like weaning yourself off. You will see a difference.

Don't deny yourself any treat to start with, it only becomes an obsession and then you might gorge!

Make your daily walk half an hour. Fast pace, at least 5-6k steps, the 10k goal is debunked now. But it's not harmful either, just do what you can but a bit more than now!

I dont mean this to be unkind, but you won't lose weight doing what you're suggesting

I appreciate that you want to start off slowly. I get that. But worrying about getting cancer from sweetners when you're 5 stone overweight, is crazy !

Maybe you need some therapy to help your self esteem so that you make choices to treat yourself well

Ask chatGPT to design you a cortisol balancing meal plan, I did this recently and it’s like a fat burning switch has been turned on.

In the meantime ditch the wine, biscuits and squash.

Sorry cross posted. You’re in a high stress job so you really need to fuel your body with big meals that are rich in nutrients, protein and fibre and fill you up, and also move your body with strength building exercise to get you feeling capable and energetic. The wine and snacks will actually be making you feel worse. But you can do it!

I really do believe that some of this comes down to genetics and metabolism.

I’m a ‘healthy’ weight and you do far more exercise than me and my diet is worse (sorry). One thing I do do is drink a tonne of water every day and eat something as soon as I wake up to start the metabolism. I also do some cardio when I can (as opposed to the walking you do).

You can fiddle round the edges with things but fundamentally you need to consume fewer calories than you’re burning to lose weight: in rough terms, 1lb = 3500kcal. Spend a couple of weeks tracking everything you eat using an app like my fitness pal. You may be surprised how many calories you’re eating and also how few you need. I’m 53, 5’7 and my basic calorie requirement is 1450 a day. I WFH and if I don’t exercise or leave the house I’ll burn maybe 250kcal more in the course of a normal day. That’s 1700 total. To lose 1lb a week, I need a deficit of 500kcal a day which means either only eating 1200kcal a day or being more active - I swim most mornings for an hour and that burns 500kcal.

I would cut down on the carbs op. I use my fitness pal and have done for years as I gain weight really easily and I weigh all my food. It can be eye opening because you don’t realise how many added carbs and calories can be hidden in things! X

Is there anything obvious about the way the weight is distributed on your body (such as on your legs but with a slim top)? I am just posting this in case it is useful to anyone.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/lipoedema/

It sounds to be like you have told yourself that your meals are healthy and not enormous so you are having biscuits, cereal bars and crisps in between. If I’d had avocado on sourdough for breakfast and then I knew I was having soup and bread for lunch it wouldn’t cross my mind to have a cereal bar and biscuits in between those meals. And I’ve got a relatively physical job.

Booze, crisps, no exercise and 6+ spoons of sugar a day in your hot drinks for starters.

Everyone thinks that you don't get to be several stone overweight unless you're a monster gorging yourself constantly. I think your diet/lifestyle shows that you can be broadly focused on health, doing what feels like the right things, have the odd treat in common with everyone around you, and still end up like this. I'd guess you've had a gradual accumulation through the extras of wine, crisps, sugar, cereal bars etc that everyone else has flagged up, and unfortunately for you, your makeup means they stick as opposed to others who maybe tolerate a bit of extra junk more easily. You've not done anything that sounds excessive or unreasonable, but it still makes you gain weight nevertheless. Try cutting out the sugar and the cereal bars, squash etc for a month and see how you feel.

Start by cutting wine to one to two glasses a week

But for all we know you could eat half the portions the OP does.

You could swop the wine for a gin with low calorie mixer?

Someone pointed out that the alcohol and snacking is adding 4000 calories per week!!! I’m shocked!

How can you be shocked about that?

Were you overweight as a kid?

portion sizes. I expect you’re eating much more that you think.

Exercising at home is fine - I never go to the gym. There are so many 20/30/45 minue workouts online.

Gradually incorporating weights into your workouts and building muscle mass will mean your body starts burning more calories at rest - improving your metabolic rate. So I'd definitely look into that. Start with 'weighted walking'/walk and tone type sessions, then metcon/weighted Tabata. Happy to recommend some channels to follow if you are interested.

I don't personally think you need to make a lot of changes.

Stop all snacks during the week. No alcohol and no refined carbs.

Up your protien. It'll stop you wanting a snack.

If you did weights on top of your walking, you'll get away with a lot more. You need the calories for it.

Best thing to do imo, for the next week or so is use a tracking app like MFP and log everything. It'll become clear where the issues are on its own.

Increase the protein in fiber in meals and drop the snacks completely. Nuts are healthy but high in calories. You could just be eating healthy upf free foods but if you’re eating too much calories you won’t lose weight.

The breakfast and lunch you describe contains virtually no protein at all which is why you’re hungry. Add eats to breakfast and try strips of chicken at lunch. When you would normally snack have a 15 mins break and an enjoyable drink without sugar.

I always work work out treats as if they were meals, sounds daft, but works for me. I used to have a can of coke a day, until I realised that 7 cans of coke was a large lunch extra! So I stopped, though I love the stuff.

So..
2 biccies a day, 7 days a week. May think being reserved but actually that's the same as an extra 2 lunches every week, and that's based on normal biccies, not chocolate!
2 bottles of wine is the same as a big dinner, extra a week. About 1500 calories.
Crisps, a share bag even just once a week is another 600+ calories. Another extra lunch equivalent.
Sugar in tea and coffee, about another 100 calories a day. 7 days a week - another lunch.

So each week, you're eating 4 extra lunches and one large dinner on top of your normal dinners. This is why the weight isn't going off.

It's the booze mate. Stop that and you'll see the difference in no time.

You need to put your daily diet into my fitness pal and see what it returns on terms of carbs, fat, protein and calories. Its not too much carb that is the issue, its an imbalance e.g. more carb but not enough healthy fat and protein with to slow the increased sugar levels from carb. The Glucose Goddess is a good starting point to learn more, as it the Zoe Nutrition podcasts. At a glance I don't think you are eating enough protein, 2 bottles of wine is also far too much, and your body composition is probably too high a fat percentage - you need to strength train as muscles burn more calories at rest so you can tip your metabolism into your favour.

I think this is key OP- what you say about senior job etc it all leads into your ability to take on a strict calorie redirect- I’d question whether it actually matters?
You’re overweight but currently healthy. You appreciate the stress release of food and wine.

There is nothing wrong with that if that’s what you need right now. things will probably be different in a year, 3 years whenever- why not consider coming back to it when you’re ready?

my only caveat is I think it would be wise to be a little more careful about putting on more weight.