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?

Swap the wine to spirit and diet mixers

I agree with all those saying to get an app and track everything that you eat or drink for a few weeks. Don't estimate weights either. Use kitchen scales to find out eg exactly how much cheese is in your portion.
When you have done this for a few weeks, then find out your TDEE and see how many calories you should eat to lose weight. I'm short and need to keep to 1200 calories per day if I want to lose a pound a week

It sounds like an awful faff, but it isn't too bad when you get on with it, and it works.

I've been doing it since early December ( except for 5 days over Christmas where I allowed myself to eat what I wanted and put on about 3 lb!) and I am slowly losing. It is giving me a sense of satisfaction to do it. I find I have to not have things like chocolate and crisps in the house though as I can't be disciplined enough to only have one piece of chocolate a day!

I'd split the task into two, get an appropriate app and just log your current food for a few weeks and see how much you are honestly eating right now

Then work on getting yourself brown to the number box calories you need to actually lose weight.

Why did you ask ChatGPT to write your response?

Alcohol.
Age?

Your portion sizes will be way too big. You need to make sure you’re hungry throughout the day, you’re not supposed to be never hungry. You need to become more at peace with the feeling. Also don’t snack between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cut out one bottle of wine. No squash just water.

42 teaspoons of sugar pw for starters (10 oz minimum)
Crisps
Biscuits
Carbs, probably refined
Snack bars
2 bottles of wine

There’s no point in comparing yourself to your friends. You need to establish exactly how many calories you are consuming, by weighing and tracking everything. That will give you a baseline from which you can calculate a calorie deficit.

Exercise is great and necessary, but it’s far easier to reduce your intake rather than increase the exercise. By all means increase exercise, but don’t take that into account by eating back those calories. I would start doing some strength training a few times per week if you can. That way you will build some muscle which will help you in the long term.

The bottom line is you are currently consuming more than your body needs.

Only overweight people who actually try to lose weight. Not all overweight people understand nutrition, calories and TDEE. Many/most of them are oblivious.

Walking is good for fitness and health, but cardio won't do anything for weight loss. Weight training can help and is very good for you, but even then, studies show that you can't out-train (a bad) diet.

So stop mentally considering your exercise as 'balancing' out your diet (if you do) because it doesn't.

I'd strike the wine and all the snacks, including the Nature's Valley bar, and coffee/tea/squash in between meals. You shouldn't drink anything but plain water in between meals if you want to lose weight, in order to stop your insulin from constantly spiking.

(Also, sweeteners are often treated by the body like sugar in many ways, iirc, so while better for your teeth, aren't great for weight loss.)

If you're not losing weight after making those changes, then try cutting your portion sizes by a small amount - or intermittent fasting (depending on what your GP says).

20 minutes brisk walking uses around 100 calories Im afraid. Exercise has many benefits but unless you are training very heavily it doesn’t use nearly as many calories as we’d like (and I say this as a fat runner who gained weight when marathon
training 🤣)

you really would expect a 10 mile walk or run to mean you can eat ALL the food but ….

5 x 20 min brisk walks aren't a decent level of activity. They are better than being a couch potato but not enough to be fit. Can you also do 60 min walks to the supermarket and carry something heavy back? (Build up to it).
Add in one gym class or swim session a week.
Half the wine and crisps. (The crisp thing will be brutal if you're anything like me 😭)

The eat less and move more mantra should really work for you to be honest.

If I eat snacks, bread etc I put weight on. Even if the rest of my diet is good. Sadly most of us who are slim are not naturally like that, we are resisting temptation constantly and avoiding stuff.

I used to have 3 sugars in coffee and I went cold turkey. It took about 3 days to get used to it and a week to think sugar in coffee is rank. Cutting down is problematic as every time you are tired or stressed or feel like it it’s a full spoon again.

You have to bin off the biscuits and crisps and wine and cereal bars - fine in moderation when you are maintaining a weight but not if you want to lose.

I lost 15kg in about 8 months last year with very little exercise increase. I started weighing everything - mind blowing how much I was stuffing in. I had Greek yoghurt and protein granola breakfast -200cal - it was TINY but it’s just normal now. My other meals were mainly lentils/beans. I made vats of dhal for work and took about 300cal a day (no chapattis or naan or rice) and my other meal was either more of the same, eggs with a slice of high protein bread (I made my own with wholemeal + walnut flour but I’m sure it’s a thing you can buy), beans on toast, a smoothie with added whey powder (frozen fruit, milk, Greek yoghurt) and sometimes I would have something like a piece of fish or steak with veg - but not carbs ie no spuds or rice - just broccoli etc. carbs are my big problem - I was living off them. I’ve also got a sweet tooth but the granola and smoothies satisfy that. I started having green tea sometimes as my hot drink and limiting coffee because of all the milk. For me it’s easier to have a “no” rule than an “in moderation” rule - no alcohol, no crisps, no biscuits, no pasta. If I can drink in a Friday then why not today? If one biscuit a day is ok why not two? I did have a slice of birthday cake and stuff like that but was strict with myself the rest of the time. You just can’t eat daily cereal bars and biscuits and drink 2 bottles of wine a week and lose weight - it’s not a thing.

The wine is definitely a factor. I'd also look into insulin resistance. I have a lot of diabetes in my family and have had to cut out refined carbs and sugar and started doing intense cardio a few times a week

Nature valley bars = 200 calories = 1400 calories a week

sharing bag of crisps = 520 calories

2 bottles of wine = 1500 calories a week

average biscuit = 70 each = 980 calories a week

thats 4000 calories a week extra on top of your meals.

Also you’re overestimating how much impact sliwish walking has. You need to up your speed. And do Some weights.

I know, it’s depressing isn’t it?

Stop the wine and snacking - specifically the morning cereal bar (you don't need that!), and the crisps.
You don't need all this extra food if your meals are decent and you are barely exercising!
And reduce the cups of tea (which each have sugar), and drink more water instead,

Be careful of the nuts, although much healthier than biscuits and cereal bars a single portion of unsalted cashews is 175 calories. Thats for 30g or approx 20 nuts. You should be focusing more on veg than fruit. If you do have fruit, berries are best and in proportion to veg it should be a third fruit 2 thirds veg. You cant just forget that fruit has calories. An apple can be 80 cals, smae with pears. A banana over 100. You really need to understand the calories your body needs and the calories that are in your food. Sourdough is a healthier choice of bread providing it is proper sourdough and not a supermarket loaf with bit of sourdough culture added. Even then a decent sized slice can be up to 140 calories.
You should prioritise protein, from lean meat and fish, pulses and beans.
Healthy fats from oily fish, avocado and nuts but again that dosent mean eat as much as you like. Half your plate should be vegetables. Add a side salad to your meals. Eat nutrient dense food and make sure you are getting plenty of calcium rich food, not just from dairy but things like tinned salmon and mackerel with the bones mashed in. Veg like broccoli is a good source as well. Calcium is important for future bone health as is strength training. But some dumbells and start with a routine of lifting every otber day. Keep moving up the weights. This will help burn calories much better than walking. I walk around 12 -15000 steps a day. It won't help me lose.much weight but it does help you not to put on any more if you are active.

Op I disagree with a lot of the people saying what you eat in crisps and biscuits lead to this-I know a lot of people who eat well but are overweight and were always bemused at my McDonalds, sprite and Dorito addiction(!) as a size ten. As I got older and healthier I put on a bit of weight more due to age and healthy fats (I love egg and advocado!). Also sadly walking isn’t a great calorie burner, an active job/ day is necessary for any unrelated to food weight loss imo

Try a good quality kava (this is a link to a New Zealand shop I use, but Amazon probably has it, haha) instead of wine, if you can get it delivered to the UK! It doesn't have the same taste, but it's better for you, low calorie, and perfect for relaxing after a stressful week.

Looking at your daily intake, you're consuming up to 7 spoonfuls of sugar every day. Could you train yourself to drink coffee and tea without sugar? I stopped taking sugar in hot drinks and if I get a hot drink now with sugar in it, I can't drink it cos it tastes so foul!

Also I wonder if all this Japanese food is filling enough? Or if you end up snacking because although it's healthy it isn't filling. It obviously works in Japan because they don't have a culture of snacking.

You’ve had some good advice here but as someone who’s also overweight, it’s quite likely you’ll be eating around 1800+ calories a day there. You don’t need to make drastic changes but adding more protein and cutting out the biscuits will make a big impact.

You can’t wait to be “motivated”. By analogy, if we waited to be genuinely motivated about work, most of us wouldn’t go (including me and I was C-suite!). Also - and this focuses my mind when I need it - if you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it.

It's probably

1. Wine - totally empty calories
2. portion size - if you are eating lots of healthy foods you ll gain weight
3. Treats
4. Sugar in tea/coffee.
5. Lack of protein.
6. More intense (weights etc) exercise

More than anything - age.... I'm peri. I have to actively try now to lose weight. And it climbs on quickly.

Stop kidding yourself you eat a healthy diet! You eat a lot of rubbish, wine, share size bags of crisps, toast and butter!

so cut out the crap!

I sympathise as Im a bit overweight as well.I wonder if you could take the teas /coffee without any sugar? Not too bad once you get used to it. Also wine /crisps and bicccies all add up! It's annoying isnt it when friends seem to eat similar and not gain weight