To think I shouldn't be THIS heavy??

[Lotsofsausage]

So to start, I know I am no supermodel. Fairly tall at 5'8, size 14, smaller waist, medium bust. Fairly curvy arse/ thighs but toned. I am fit and strong and exercise 4-5x per week, including strength training.

Now I know measurements and photos are a better gauge than the scales, and muscle is meant to weigh more than fat (but I thought that was bullshit).....I am 14.5 stone! I have a friend with the same body measurements as me and same height and she is TWO STONE lighter.
Can some people just be 'heavy'???

@SnakeRattleRoll that mirrors my experiences of running.

@SnakeRattleRoll I agree about sub-20 5K women runners being lean, but not necessarily short.

My 5K PB is 20:37 and I'm 5'8" (I am very slim).
If I had the time to commit to speed sessions and really wanted that sub-20 I think I could do it. I don't though....I prefer 1/2 marathon distance. I am also 48 years old so it ain't getting easier!

At sub 21 I really don't see many larger women - certainly not ones carrying 3 stone of extra weight.

Sub 25 mins puts you in the top quartile of female runners. 21 minutes is a decent club level time for a woman. At my fittest and in the peak of conditioning I’ve run sub 24, that was at 6 foot and just under 12 stone.

There’s definitely something odd going on - you may be a genetic extreme outlier of course, but with those stats, if I were you I’d be taking up running seriously and cleaning up at competitions. I’m perplexed at the number of big but fast runners at your club to be honest. No women at my club (albeit the club is very relaxed and not v serious) goes much under 24 minutes.

Someone's fibbing, and it isn't us.

If I was carrying 3 stone extra and running sub 21 5k I'd be losing 3 stone and going for the WR. Every 10pound of weight slows you by approx a minute over 5k. Op could take over 3 mins off their time.

Tbf, it could be the scales. I can't stand the scales at the gym since they gave me readings of 17'2, 17'3 and 17'9 in back to back readings on the same day. My PT has shifted me to another machine, but I still have this niggle in my mind now about what's 'right'.

I won't be happy until I'm firmly down another stone/dress size, whereas I used to trust the monthly losses. It's a shame.

Oh thank GOODNESS that other people are calling BS on the 20min 5k! I was very very very sceptical about this speed.

I do wonder if the OP has got confused, and means that she runs a 5k in 31 mins and other 'thinner' girls in her club run it in 28 mins.

I mean, it's not impossible - but she'd have to be training really hard to get it to that speed. And if you're training that hard, then you'd need to eat A LOT of food to keep your body weight around 14 stone.

Kennehora Oh, I believe you, it's just hard not to feel sceptical when I've been given that many different results in one go.

I don't have scales at home yet (I'd be inclined to cheat mid month if I knew I'd already been losing well etc), but interested to hear what your 'best' one is for when I'm at maintenance?

That's very interesting Paradise. This statement is very strange to me:

I could never say I was full even when I felt sick with all the eating.

How can you be so full you are sick, yet still hungry? I'm not doubting you, just asking what it feels like?

@MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals1 it is imossible at her weight. Her vo2max would exceed Sir Mo himself. At the op weight her vo2 max would need to be 70+. Beckhams know at peak man Utd era was 66. So op is either a mutant, or lying, or miscalculating something

Cheers - the gym scales do height and body fat, but the height is often off, even if I'm not slouching. It sucks to distrust them now, as I've lost over 4st, but I wonder now about how accurate the 9lb, 7lb etc losses were!

I won't be buying 3 sets though . My maintenance approach will be a weekly check, and a monthly addressing of weight/calories if it stays up (e.g. I won't mind a lb going on so long as it's off again naturally). And measurements monthly.

I’m 5’7 and 8 and a half stone. When I was half a stone less and ten years younger, I ran a 19.20 5K. I am still one of the fastest runners I know—bar some incredible women who ran at college and can do a 17.30/18-minute 5K—and used to do lots of races. Every single one of the faster runners was thin—size 6/8 at most.

I think actually your BMI would be definitely overweight. I'm also 5ft 8, I've just had a baby and a very difficult pregnancy, gone from 11st size 10 to 14.5st size 14 and I definitely am carrying a lot extra weight. I look overweight I think. And my boobs are very heavy with breastfeeding so they must add a lot on 😂 --- what is your diet like?

@Snipples You're friends sound like arseholes - who would say that!! You sound perfectly healthy

@Snipples Your friends * 🙄

Time to change, this is exactly what it feels like when the hormonal regulation of hunger/satiety is broken/not functioning as it is supposed to. Hormone leptin is supposed to send signals to brain not to eat as there are sources of fuel available within the body (fat cells). Hormone insulin is supposed to insure cells get adequate nutrition from blood glucose. Hormone ghrelin sends hunger signals. Hormone cortisol triggers ghrelin and insulin production etc etc etc But if your body’s sensitivity to leptin is decreased (due to consistently high levels thereof, the more fat, the more leptin produced) and you are insulin resistant for example, your brain doesn’t get the signal that no more food is required, so you always feel like you need to eat some more. Even when you are feeling sick from overeating, it still feels like you aren’t satiated. It is horrendous.

Hunger and satiety is hormone regulated. For example, when you have little sleep, so will have elevated levels of cortisol, you will experience sugar cravings as your body needs instant, easily accessible energy - available from trashy carbs. You will not have a desire to eat a salad leaf when underslept.

I can’t describe how fantastic it is to break away from that. But I am only too aware if I start eating junk again, I will be back to where I started. It’s just how my body works. And relatives on my maternal side are the same, so it’s clearly hereditary in my case. Thus I need to be aware of it and work with it, rather than flagellating myself for lack of perceived moral strength. If you felt the hunger that a morbidly obese person feels, you would be shocked. ‘Normal’ people just don’t know the feeling, got no concept of what it is like, so they sit on their high horse telling those of us with broken hormonal feedback to just eat less. It is very very hard, as hard as it is for a smoker to smoke less or for an alcoholic to have one glass of wine and leave the rest in the bottle.

It is a syndrome, hormonal health issue. So it needs to be treated as such for any success to be possible.

Well congrats on finding your answers! (It's TimetoChange, I decided it was time to.....well, change)

I pretty much share OPs dimensions/weigh and although i cant run much so dont know about that, i've always done heavy manual work, eg: last night i did 12hrs and 24,000 steps, with added lifting and pulling. I eat wayyyy less and better than most people i come into contact with. No fizzy drinks, no sugar in tea and coffee, dont touch crisps or biscuits, no bread, rice, pasta...

Running 5k under 20min takes a lot of training to reach that endurance. There's no way you could have all that training and keep those dimensions. I'm 5ft10 and when I did some running for a 1 year or so, I lost quite a bit of weight and that was just running 3x a week and not that fast. 5k in 26-27min. I went down 2 clothes sizes. No diet and no other exercise.

Iloveeverykindofcat, it was like a lightbulb went on for me when I looked into the insulin link and weight gain. Life changing. It suddenly made sense WHY I was piling pounds on while people who ate loads more or had utterly crap diet stayed thin. Diabetes type 2 in the family suddenly made sense.

Now I know how it works, I have re-adjusted my diet and lifestyle in order to work on reducing insulin resistance. Surprise surprise, my appetite plummeted. I don’t feel hungry any more, I might feel a bit light-headed if haven’t had any food for 7h or so, but the ravenous hunger is a thing of the past. Today I had a lump of Mozzarella, an apple and a handful of almonds for breakfast at 11am, about 4 cups of tea with milk throughout the day, 2 cups of green tea and just had 3 apples. And I have not been hungry yet, it’s 6pm in the evening. Low carb has been life-transforming. I am about to start cooking dinner, so will have that.

At no point during the day have I needed to use will power. There is no trash food in the house and I haven’t even thought of it. I haven’t needed to watch my weight, I know I will be fine if I stick to this way of eating/ resistance exercise.

People should really stop regurgitating outdated ideas about calorie is a calorie. Bodies can’t tell calories, it can only see chemical compounds to process.

So I started to eat less naturally, as my insulin started to put itself right. I don’t starve myself. Just don’t think to eat, forget about it.
It is nothing short of miraculous.

But I know I can be thrown back to square one if I start eating cheap sugary foods. So I make a choice to enhance my well-being and not undermine it.