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 really wouldn't worry about the exercise for now. It won't make a difference to your weight loss. It will be good for your health and your wellbeing if you can do it

If you add in more protein you will find you're not getting hungry and needing to snack. Lose the sourdough and have eggs for breakfast, or full fat Greek yoghurt. Your sample lunch here has no protein - have veg soup with chicken for example.

You're suggesting that being so overweight is OK as long as the OP doesn't become MORE overweight?

You're not burning as many calories as you consume.

Your exercise levels are very very low. You should try brisk walking or light jogging for a couple of hours each day if that's your main exercise.

I think you need more protein, less carbs. Your diet is very carb heavy and too much sugar in tea/coffee. One teaspoon spoon of sugar is 16-20 calories, plus the milk.

Nature valley bars are just sugar and fat and carbs. Better having a small bowl of porridge with fruit. Or even try protein bars instead of NV. But not every day as they're not that healthy.

Portion sizes could also be an issue.

Use a TDEE (I think it's called that) calculator to find how many calories you need to lose weight. Be honest in that you don't do much exercise currently.

But it does matter - being overweight can lead to all kinds of health issues.

Are you for real or is this a reverse? It's obvious why, you ate and drank too much.

Lots of good advice here, I would ditch the Nature Valley snack bar, loaded with sugar and calories. Maybe have carrots and houmous instead.

This is how I read it too.

It's not really great advice and just kicking the can down the road, while possibly piling on more weight slowly.

That’s a personal decision to be weighed up against many other things unique to each individual.

pretending otherwise is encouraging disordered eating IMo.

I don’t understand: if you drink 2 bottles of wine every week plus crisps, biscuits why do you think you will lose weight? A brisk walk around the block is not going to offset that level of sugar + carbs.

This is not meant to be as harsh as it sounds. I lost several kilos after starting intermittent fasting and cutting out booze, my morning pastries and the grab bag crisps I used to eat every week. When I reached my target weight I stopped IF and resumed drinking (2-3 glasses a week). I also have a free Greggs treat once a week via a bank account perk. Unsurprisingly, I have not lost any more weight. I haven’t gained either as I go to the gym 3x a week so I’ve made peace with it all and since I’m not prepared to give up my wine and once a week treat, it is what it is.

So you need to ask yourself what is more important: the wine and crisps or the weight loss? You cannot have both.

Wine has the emptiest calories 😉

What are you on about? What disordered eating?

Sure. I am struggling to understand your implied outrage.

people smoke. Ideally they would stop TODAY. They may not want or be able to. That’s ok. It’s a risk, but a risk for them to weigh up based on their own circumstances

Im wondering if its a troll. Overweight people know more about diets and healthy eating than the average slim person, she can't be this naive.

The Nature Valley bars aren't as great as people think. They are just empty, carby sugar. I'd skip them, or consign them to the "treat" category.

Personally, I'd drop the alcohol for a month or two and see if that makes a difference. I suspect it would, if all other factors stay the same.

Cut out the wine for a start.

You have to do more than just walking. I made that mistake during lockdown. Walked miles / hiked every day and never lost a pound. Started spinning again in 2023, and that helped a lot.

I've always eaten well but the only thing which really kickstarted the weight loss was weight loss tablets, in addition to the healthy eating, spinning, and walking the dogs. I'm not saying if weight loss aids are for you or not, but for me they were the only thing which really got the weight loss going. I was 3-4 stone overweight, yet didn't look it. But I was. I lost the amount I was overweight by on the pills.

There is noway she knows sourdough and japanese food yet doesnt understand nature valley isnt full of sugar.

I highly recommend One Year No Beer to address you unhelpful wine habit. 2 bottles of wine a week - although they feel like a treat at the time- will be making you feel tired, stressed and adding to weight gain.

www.oynb.com/

I’m a dog walker and walk between 3 and 5 miles five days a week, a lot of it briskly, depending on the breed of dog on the end of the lead! It’s good, I’m outside, but it doesn’t affect my weight at all. What helps me stay slim is 15 minutes on my exercise bike, 15 minutes hand weights, kettle bell workout, followed by 20 minutes yoga, four times a week. And I usually swim for thirty minutes once a week.

Food, I have no idea how many calories I consume, but I eat brunch at 10.30 - 11.30 a.m., homemade porridge, or a couple of scrambled eggs with grilled tomatoes or mushrooms. Black coffee, no sugar, stopped in New Year.

At least two big glasses of plain filtered water during the day, two large mugs tea with a drop of milk.
Dinner is around 6 p.m., tonight I’m having a couple of new potatoes, boiled eggs, green salad, handful of prawns, 1 small wholemeal roll with butter. Sometimes a pot of Greek Yoghurt for pudding. I always have two large portions of veg with dinner.

I snack on fresh fruit, plain popcorn, occasional oat cake. But sparingly, which I think is key, usually at about 2p.m.

Drink less than a bottle of wine a week.

Weekends I’m more flexible and relaxed, so a takeaway of whatever I fancy, usually Indian on a Friday, chocolate Saturday evening, roast dinner Sunday with yorkshires, roast spuds, the lot.

I have no idea what I weigh, scales are for 🐟 imo, but I’m a size 10, and 5’8”.

Good luck OP, I would suggest you start by cutting out the biscuits and crisps weekdays, reduce portion sizes by 20%, add protein in place of carbs to evening meal, and get yourself some hand weights or a kettle bell, lots of videos on You Tube, just ten minutes a day will help. I’ve gone down two sizes doing this, but I did it gradually.

In this case:

• sharing bag of crisps (150g, normal serving 30g) - 780 kcal (approx)
• bottle of wine - 600kcal (approx)
• 1 biscuit a day - 602kcal

All super “approximate.” If you give me exact brands, @PomegranateVase , I’ll run the numbers for you.

So if you eat one sharing pack of crisps a week, two bottles of wine, and just one biscuit a day, you’ve added 2,582 kcal. A pound of pure fat is only 3,500 kcal. So double the biscuits (2 a day), and you’re adding a pound of fat a week, onto everything else you eat.

It’s shite but yes, snacking adds up SO, so quickly. You’ll discover you’re essentially consuming an 8th day’s calories in seven days.

I do Team RH I've just put your daily plan above through the food diary and included one large glass of white wine and one 25g of kettle crisps and for my plan on weight loss of 1664 daily calories to lose weight, I'm 5,3 and started as am 18 you are 553 calories over my daily allowance. Your odd biscuits here and there add up, whilst your eating primarily nutrious foods your calorie intake is way above where you should be to lose weight. You need to do food diary and track your intake it will genuinely surprise you. I say this from a place of support I started my plan last year and am almost 4 stone down (with mounjaro help!)

I hear you

But to take the time and effort to post on a public forum asking for help. And then not bother to lose weight because the OP is "only" 5 stone overweight and can simply aim for static weight......I feel a bit outraged, not particularly implied! 😵‍💫

“I drink 1 or 2 bottles of wine per week, eat one share size crisps packet to myself, and eat a few biscuits“

Cut these out and start walking more, do an hour a day. You’ll soon see a difference. I know some People that eat more than me and are thinner because they are more physically active than me. I sit down a lot. Move more and cut out all junk. If you need something then eat popcorn and a handful of pretzels.

What oil do you use when cooking? That can add a lot of calories I think.

With age, our metabolism slows down so much. I used to eat 3 meals a day, then 2 meals a day to maintain the same weight, and now just one meal a day (plus a couple of small healthy snacks). When I indulge a bit more in drinking alcohol and having snacks I put on weight, without exception. So clearly my body only needs the calories I get from that one meal. The problem is that the calories in the wine and snacks easily make up another meal, without the nutritious value.

So I had to choose between eating more meals full of healthy stuff which are good for my body, or replacing one of the meals with wine and snacks… After testing both options, I chose the wine and snacks 🤣. That’s because my emotional well-being is just as important and my body’s health, and I simply take a lot of pleasure from the relaxation alcohol gives me or from eating snacks while watching TV. Of course I don’t go over the top, but I also don’t have the discipline to stop. And that’s fine, I have to accept myself with both qualities and flaws. It’s important to say that I am not considered overweight, I just weight a bit more than I should.

I used to feel so guilty about drinking alcohol but I then read ‘A short History of Drunkenness’ and thought about all those people from the past, who thought, just like us, that the world revolved around them, and now they’re all (without exception) gone, and nobody remembers them. So it would be really silly of me to spend my very short time on earth counting calories or looking disappointedly at my cellulite.

Buy my advice op, because you did say you were a bit overweight, is to increase walking (or fit in a quick run which gets your heart up) and to reduce snacking just a bit. Hopefully this way you’ll only need to make a small change to the lifestyle you enjoy, but gradually you’ll start to lose weight.

Oh don’t stop eating crisps and drinking wine, that’s a miserable way to live! I think you’ll drop the weight if you make a few little tweaks and it will be more sustainable too.

Drink a big glass of water before you have a glass of wine, it’ll quench your thirst so you don’t end up drinking the wine quickly and then reaching for another glass. Alternate your drinks - one glass of wine then one small glass of water then one glass of wine. If you usually have two bottles, reduce it to a few glasses.

Implement a rule where you aren’t allowed to eat a sharing bag of crisps unless you actually have someone with you to share them with!

Instead of “a couple of biscuits”, have one biscuit and enjoy it.

Reduce your portion sizes - I’ve never met an overweight person that doesn’t eat large portions at meal times, no matter what they claim. Don’t eat the same size meal as a 6ft tall man when you’re only 5ft 4, for example.

Use a TDEE calculator to work out how much you can eat without gaining weight and how much you can eat to lose weight. Then weigh your food - weigh every single thing you put in your mouth. Yes it is boring but you need to educate yourself on how many calories are in the things you consume. You’ll have the shock of your life with pasta! You’ll notice that suggested portion sizes listed on the packets are tiny. Same with butter and cheese. Then you realise that’s the amount we should be eating and it dawns on you just how much you’ve been overeating.