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?

It's never the exercise. I did loads more than the OP when I was 3 stone overweight. I put weight on having DDs and then comfort ate with stress and knackeredness going back to work after mat leave.

For me it was that the calculators saying what I could eat and how much I should eat to lose weight were really off. And trying to lose weight is miserable at times and I got fed up. Plus it's practically impossible when you are knackered and stressed.

Some people have a good idea. I have a full MOT annually with full blood testing etc etc. picks up cholesterol liver enzymes etc etc. early identification specifically so you can take lifestyle actions where they can help.

Of course there are underlying problems that may or may not be lifestyle. Last year I had a bowel blockage which of course went unidentified until it was an emergency. The risks of this could’ve been reduced by a diet that hit the recommended 25g fibre per day.

funnily the orthorexics obsessed with controlling their weight with animal protein don’t like to hear about the risks of this.

I think the OP needs to look at sleep as well.

In a high stress job, cortisol will be raised. This is not good for you. Then drinking alcohol will be reducing sleep quality, and it's not actually reducing the stress.
Being tired leads to snacking for "energy", and poor choices generally. And our ability to deal with stress reduces, making us more stressed.

I'd cut the wine (easy to say, I know!) to Fri and Sat only. Then use a sleep meditation app, and maybe melatonin for a few days, to get sleep on track. Go to bed around 10.30pm, sleep by 11pm. I know how hard this is - I've been in stressful jobs and feel like I can't sleep until 2am - partly the stress itself (cortisol) and partly because I want that time on my own and don't want the next day to come.
You can also use a weight loss meditation app, they help you sleep too.

If you can manage this, I think the focus on cutting the biscuits, sugar etc will seem a lot easier.

I have also noticed that I feel less hungry in bed than I do on the sofa! It's obviously psychological. On the sofa, I can go get a snack. Once in bed, I'm not getting up to get food, so my brain turns off the fake hunger signals. Or something!

So, why are you telling the OP that she is healthy and doesn't need to lose weight?

She'll have lost 10lbs then will regain that and more on a huge carb and alcohol binge.

I would really recommend ‘why we eat too much’. It revolutionised my thinking about food.

you also need to try and break the link between needing a treat and that being food. I know how hard it is as I used to do the same. Try and find something else to treat yourself - a nice bath, a film, a new book. Anything but not food!

1650 would be way too much weightless for a lot of people. You dont know how tall she is so or even what her current weight is so saying do1650 cals a day to someone who obviously knows nothing about calories content is not particularly helpful.

Cut the sugar out of your hot drinks for a start. Then get rid of the biscuits, or cut them down. Swap the crisps for something else and cut one of the bottles of wine out. Consider portion sizes when dishing up your meals. Its really easy to underestimate how much you are eating if your portion sizes are double what they should be.

Also, push yourself on your walks to go further and faster and try and get your heart rate up a little more. Add in another form of exercise if you can such as strength training.

There was a programme on TV a few years ago called Secret Eaters which was really interesting. People just like you wondering how they are the size/weight they are when they don't really eat much and eat fairly healthily. Cameras followed them for a week to capture exactly what they were consuming in the week and totted up the calories for them. It was gobsmacking how many calories people ate without realising and how much it all adds up. The odd biscuit here and there and over the week it all adds up. You can still see episodes of these on You Tube I think. 🤔

You could try tracking your calories for a while to see what you are consuming against what you 'should' be consuming.

It is hard OP. I'm a size 16, it's crept up more over the three years or so.

I've found (so far) the first week hardest - everything reminded me of food. But I lost a good few pounds which motivated me to continue and it's been much better since.

My motivation has been three fold: my health, DH is overweight and prediabetic, so I want to help him too and honestly, pure vanity. I'm not buying another item of clothing in my current size. So I need to lose some weight to fit into my sports bra!

We found the Michael Moseley blood sugar recipe book in a charity shop over Christmas and that kick started things. We're aiming for about 800kcals for 8 weeks. The finite limit makes it seem more doable and then we'll see what we need to do to maintain.

Good luck!

Arm weights and squats. Several times a day. Pilates videos.

Agree with the others on how much snacks unfortunately add up.

Can you swap for a square of very dark chocolate.

I was the same as you. I lost 3.5 stone by cutting out bread, biscuits, pasta, rice, crisps. I still drank and still had one square of chocolate a night. I also cut my portion sizes in half. Sugar in tea and coffee adds so many empty calories. The cereal bar snack needs to go. That and the sugar is 300 calories.

I was steadily gaining weight despite going to the gym 5 times a week. When I did my TDEE it turned out anything over 1400 calories a day and I will put on weight. I also should have cut down cardio because it can lead to raised cortisol levels which in turn leads to weight gain.

Depressing as I love food. This is what I ate

Greek yoghurt, blueberries, nuts and seeds

Scrambled egg, mushrooms spinach, no bread. Or soup no bread

Normal dinner but half size. Cauliflower rice, beetroot fries, courgette ribbons etc instead of carbs.

To defend eating large amounts of meat, a ketogenic diet can actually be great - I know people who have used it very successfully, and it was the only thing their bodies responded to. (They eventually shifted to low carb to maintain weight loss, as keto does have drawbacks and is best used carefully.)

But you're right, large amounts of meat in an otherwise balanced diet really isn't necessary.

I don’t understand the question in relation to the post you’ve quoted

It's not childish though. It's important for the planet and our health to reduce our consumption of meat and fish. You know this. I know this. I address it when it arises, you don't. We are not the same.

Cut out the sugar, snack bars and biscuits and see how you go!

Cut wine, crisps and biscuits.
Cut high carb/sugar veggies/fruit like carrots potatoes, bananas - Google for more info.

Just to add that the following has worked for ppl i know:
Cutting out all snacks
Going swimming daily (this person is retired, possibly not feasible for someone who is working).

OP - if it helps, I used to have a spoon of sugar in my coffee. I went to half a spoon but my dentist recommended to cut it out. For the first week, coffee wasn’t as nice. By end of week 2, I was used to sugarless coffee. After only a month, someone I’d not seen for a while made me a coffee and put a sugar in, it tasted awful! It really isn’t long for you to get used to it so don’t ween yourself off, just stop.

For snacking - do you work somewhere you are allowed to have nuts in the building? I can’t have any nuts at work now as a colleague is v allergic but I did used to take some cashew nuts to work for that “I fancy a biscuit” moment. Worked better than sugary fruit (which I’d eat and then still want a biscuit).

I’ll go on your typical daily diet
nature valley bar - full of sugar
biscuits - sugar
alcohol - sugar (2 bottles a week is a lot)
tea w sugar in each cup - 4 tsps a day
white noodles and white bread - carbs (body treats as sugar unless wholewheat)?

get rid of the sugar and it’ll make a difference

I think you need to mix up the exercise and do something more strenuous than walking, a few times a week.
Please remember a lot of this is genetics. How similar are you to your parents?

Logging what you are eating is the only way to tell really though. Many years ago I did weight watchers after having my 1st child. The amount of people who were surprised they weren't losing weight then when they were asked to bring in the portion of eg cereal they had every day it actually weighed 4 times more than the calories/points they were logging. Same for pasta, rice, potatoes, they were logging it as 1 portion but the actually weight of their portions were way over.

In reality you need a really small amount of calories depending on your height/weight so its worth checking your TDEE online to see.

The wine, the snacks, the 6 teaspoons of sugar per day in drinks, the biscuits, and not much exercise.

You're eating more than you think and the alcohol is bad for your health and weight. If you are drinking 2 bottles of wine a week, as a woman, that is far too much.

You are short on fruit and veg.

An avocado
Bought soup (1 portion of veg maybe just 2 at a pinch.)
Your dinner.

Very little vitamin C or fibre.

I eat 3-4 portions of fruit a day.
Blueberries with yoghurt
An apple
Frozen black cherries
A small banana or 6 grapes

Track the calories in everything you eat and drink for a week. Then use a TDEE calculator to work out your maintenance calories. My guess is that you are going to be eating significantly more than those maintenance calories. That will be why you are overweight. You are only slightly active. Wine, crisps and biscuits all have lots of calories in relation to nutrient density. Losing weight is 90% down to diet. Your lifestyle isn't as healthy as you think it is.

Walking does nothing to lose weight. It’s a very healthy activity but it won’t burn calories. Trust me, I walk eight miles (minimum) a day. You need to move much more strenuously to shift weight. When I’m looking to lose I don’t count my walking hours as part of my required exercise regime at all.

There’s no proven link between artificial sweeteners and cancer