Why aren’t you obese?

[Spottyphonecase24]

A bit of a weird one but I have just got off a zoom call with my therapist. We were talking about my weight (I am obese).

Why isn’t everyone else obese? What stops you? I don’t seem to have an off button. I remember going from a 10 to a 12 and thinking that’s it I’m not going to get any bigger but I did and now I am in a size 24 and they are getting a bit tight. I’ve read lots about how people have their light bulb moment to lose weight and that has not happened to me, or maybe it has and I’ve ignored it.

What stops you eating a tub of icecream or picking up a large bar of chocolate instead of a small one or one bag of crisps instead of a family size bag?

I honestly don’t know the reasons why people don’t eat more. Is it will power, feeling full?

I think for me:

• Fairly small appetite (though it's got bigger as I got older - I never used to be able to finish restaurant portions of things, though I usually can now)
• Takeaways are about a once-a-month tops thing, not a regular meal option (may not be an issue for posters here, but from what I've seen regular takeouts are a common lifestyle feature for people who are very overweight)
• Not too much food in the house - there's only so much crisps and chocs any of us can eat in the week and when it's gone there's generally no more until the next shop - I get the impression that when people stock up with loads of big packs of those each week then there's much more likely to be weight problems in the household.

@midnightpopcorn

I'd be really interested to see a week of food for the thin people who say they eat loads of unhealthy food but dont gain weight. I just don't understand it scientifically... I'm convinced they're actually not eating much or they're really active.

So for example if I'm unchecked, not in the zone diet wise and eat what I like, I'd say it's: bacon, eggs, sausage and buttery bread, crisps x 2, 3 portions cereal (looks like nothing in the bowl), chocolate bar, tuna Mayo sandwich (whole tub of sandwich filler meant for 3 sandwiches), then a takeaway (pizza or curry), or a meal from the freezer like pie, chips, beans. Then maybe a bottle or 2 of wine and another bar of chocolate.

This kind of thing every day for weeks.

That's not how the thin people are eating is it?

I'm not naturally thin by any means. Left to my own devices I'd probably be a stone heavier than I am now. But I would never dream of eating food like this. I simply wouldn't eat chocolate, takeaway, pies or icecream anything other than very rarely if at all. (I would eat chocolate and haribo occasionaly, but feel sick after takeaway or pizza and don't really eat icecream or crisps).

But I like to be under 20 BMI so watch what I eat and exercise a lot. A the moment I'm trying to lose a few pounds so am calorie counting. But still, wouldn't really see any of that stuff above as a treat at all. For me a treat is eating out several times a week - and then I pile on the pounds.

There was a program on a few years ago which explained that if a human reaches the point of near starvation a gene is switched on which encourages them to over eat when food is available. This is done by hormones. This switched on gene is then passed on to their children, who will over eat. I found it really interesting. My husband is obese and will eat any food he is offered. I have always been slim and feel full up so stop eating. There is also an idea that as fatty/salty or fatty/sweet foods never occur in nature, humans do not feel they have had enough. So, we don't eat a bag of sugar as our brain would us it is not a good idea. But we could eat a litre of ice cream (fat and sugar) as our brain would not send the signal. Whatever the cause, I don't think it is your fault. Nor do I think it is due to willpower.

I can’t have to much food in the house, also if I do have food in the house it’s safe as long as it’s not open, as soon as a packet of anything is opened then it’s gone. I have been in a battle with my weight since I left school . I want to be a size 12 my body likes to be a size 16 we usually meet in the middle at at 14 but can easily go up to a size 16 In a blink of a eye.

@midnightpopcorn

I'd be really interested to see a week of food for the thin people who say they eat loads of unhealthy food but dont gain weight. I just don't understand it scientifically... I'm convinced they're actually not eating much or they're really active.

So for example if I'm unchecked, not in the zone diet wise and eat what I like, I'd say it's: bacon, eggs, sausage and buttery bread, crisps x 2, 3 portions cereal (looks like nothing in the bowl), chocolate bar, tuna Mayo sandwich (whole tub of sandwich filler meant for 3 sandwiches), then a takeaway (pizza or curry), or a meal from the freezer like pie, chips, beans. Then maybe a bottle or 2 of wine and another bar of chocolate.

This kind of thing every day for weeks.

That's not how the thin people are eating is it?

Like I said I'm a size 12 and a little bit overweight, probably about half a stone away from a healthy bmi.

I just couldn't imagine being able to eat that much food in one day, I can't eat if I'm full up. If I have a big lunch I'll quite often skip dinner with DH and the dc's because I'm just not hungry, I'll end up having a snack type dinner later once I feel hungry.

So today I haven't thought once about what I've been eating. I've just eaten what I wanted when I wanted it. I've had:

-A bowl of weetos with semi skimmed milk. No idea of portion size, I'm with you that a 'portion' looks like nothing in the bowl. Probably equivalent of 2 portions.

-2 bagel thins with light lurepak, salad leaves and tuna mayo (roughly a 3rd of a can of tuna and generous squeeze of light mayo.

-2 beef burgers (the super cheap frozen ones with 'onion'. Don't judge me, I love them 😂), 2 brioche buns, some fries, and peas and sweetcorn with a bit of light lurepak mixed in. I didn't finish all of this because I was full up.

I know I've got some cadbury's ice creams in the freezer and some chocolate waves (aldi) in the cupboard so I'll probably choose one of these as a snack once the kids are in bed. Would be one ice cream or probably half the packet of waves. Again this will only be if I get peckish. If I feel full for the rest of the evening then I won't because it won't occur to me to go and get them.

This is a pretty standard day for me. I do like eating out and do so once or twice a week (usually lunch) and can eat 3 courses if I'm really hungry. Rarely eat all of my main course though. But I won't eat much the rest of the day because I'll be too full. I hardly ever get takeaways because I think they are a waste of money.

I used to be really skinny and couldn't put on weight. I'd eat lardy cakes, left over lasagne for breakfast, all sorts of stuff and couldn't get above 53kg.

That changed in my thirties. Not fat, but not skinny either.

I think it's largely your eating style (grazing and excessive snacking is a big cause of obesity)
I think this is true too. I never eat in front of the tv and I don't tend to eat snacks at the cinema as I just don't feel the need. I am not into fat shaming but the last time I went to the cinema in the UK I was amazed at the amount of food that some people had - it wasn't even a meal time and the people next to us literally never stopped eating - and yes, we noticed because they kept on squeezing past to go out and get some more!

During weekdays I only consume lattes and maybe a biscotti. I have a meal in the evenings. Have two meals a day at weekends. Don't exercise but also don't drive so end up walking quite a bit.

I am a curvy size 8, wouldn't say I look especially skinny, so if I ate 3 meals + snacks a day I think I could easily be overweight.

Im a size 12 and always eat 3 meals per day and no snacks in between.
Drink water, green tea and black coffee.
The meals will vary as to how hungry I am.
My weight is stable.
I simply cannot imagine eating a whole tub of icecream or a big bar of chocolate without throwing up.
I loathe the over full feeling and think that feeling hungry and looking forward to a meal is normal.
On the other hand I dont have restrictions at all on what I eat.
Nothing is considered " bad" but generally I rarely have room for puddings etc.
I love food and eat high quality rather than quantity .

@nearly4o

Without sounding nasty, I don't know how someone ends up morbidly obese - even with mental health problems - how much does someone need to constantly eat to get to that size? I am not being goady because I have put on about 10lbs this past year. I could fee myself over eating. So how do people not put the breaks on when they feel it getting away from them?

You just don't. Eating feels more important (or even crucial) in the moment than 'don't eat too much or else you'll get fat'. Your stomach expands and you need more food to feel physically full. You might have internalised body issues and the eating is a form of self harm. You might have binge eating disorder. You may be addicted to sugar. You may never have been taught what healthy portions or diet is, and your calibration is off, so you think a fry-up for breakfast and a shite package sandwich and crisps and a muffin for lunch and then a takeaway for tea most days is normal. You might - as you did - feel yourself overeating but think, fuck it I'd rather enjoy myself now than feel restricted by it.

There are a ton of reasons why.

For me, food was control. My bulimic mum had been so weird and inconsistent with food (and we had been so, so poor) growing up, that when I was 18 and living by myself, I had no idea what was a normal portion size or what a sensible diet was. And I wanted in some way to regain control (and joy!) in what I was eating, so I cooked and bought whatever I wanted, because I could afford to and she wasn't there to stop me or imply throwing it up was better. Then I found eating sugary processed shite made me feel good in the moment, and I turned to it when I was miserable (which, as a mentally ill graduate searching for a job in the financial crisis, I was a lot haha!). Then I had been eating so much for so long that I was addicted to it, and hungrier than I should have been because my brain was programmed to want far more food than it needed and eating a healthy amount of calories a day felt like starvation. I felt myself getting bigger, I was at times self conscious about it, but my ability to stop myself was non-existent (something I now know is possibly related to ADHD and impulse control but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 26). I'd see something - a KFC box meal, a giant bar of Dairy Milk - and instead of thinking "I won't eat it all, I'll stop myself", I felt utterly controlled by my 'need' to eat it. It was "I shouldn't but I'm going to and I can't stop it". I could no more have stopped myself eating the entire packet of custard creams than I could have stopped myself blinking. It felt very alien sometimes, even as a person who is generally impulsive - I knew overeating was making me fat, and I didn't want to be fat, and I knew to stop doing it I had to stop overeating or stop buying shit food or whatever, but when it came to the moment I had zero self-control, it felt like I was on auto-pilot. I couldn't connect what I knew to be true and actually doing it.

It is not genetics. (Unless you have an undiagnosed condition such as an under active thyroid) it’s harsh but true.

There were no obese people in the Nazi concentration camps bemoaning that despite no food they were still fat. They were all skeletal due to lack of food.

Thus anyone who cuts back on calories sufficiently will loose weight (again Caveating this with certain medications etc).

I could easily be obese if I let myself. I love sweets, chocolate, crisps are heaven and don’t get me started on sticky toffee pudding! The reason I’m not, I don’t want to be fat. I exercise, I eat healthily and becuase I exercise and eat healthily most of the time I can have the large chocolate bar occasionally etc. I have a small one regularly.

Don’t keep in the house what you don’t want to eat and exercise daily. Whether that’s walking initially or upping it to something more energetic when you feel able.

Being obese certainly isn’t a default size.

And a lot is genetics. Noone in my family does anything sporty and I only started exercising in my late forties and nobody is fat either.

No way could I give up nice food

This is me, I would rather do an extra hour on the erg if it means I can still eat what I want!

As for the how do I not eat a tub of ice cream in one sitting, I would simply feel too sick trying to attempt such a feat. If someone brings in some doughnuts to the office, I can eat one, any more and I feel like shit.

I think it's also about what a notion of a treat is.

I can't drink anymore so I frequently have a Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate in the evening. That's a big treat for me. I wouldnt have it with a chocolate bar or crisps. And I would not eat anything like that through the day. It's a single treat, not one every meal.

Some of this condition is probably genetic and some would be lifestyle.
I'm not obese but I struggle to keep weight off, particularly since the menopause, so for me I don't eat in between meals and have no snacky items in the house.
It just about works, but I avoid dieting as this can adversely interfere with metabolism.

Interestingly @nearly4o as I wrote that, I wondered if people who aren't naturally slim but who deliberately control what they eat to stay that way have good impulse control generally?

I don't. I've been an overspender, overeater, wild-hair-cut-regretter, blurt-out-my-thoughts, unwise-one-night-stand person my entire life. The concept of not doing something I want to just because it would be a bad idea in the future - even if that future was an hour or two away - is something I really, really struggle with, even now. Or, conversely, forcing myself to have the self-control to do something I don't want to (in the context of this thread, go to the gym - but also, take the bins out or reply to that boring email or whatever).

I look at people who do hard things which take so much effort for a long-term reward and I cannot wrap my head around why it feels worth it for them. Instant reward - like eating a burger - I understand, even if there are potential risks down the line. Delayed gratification isn't something that has ever motivated me, and I wonder if that's something to do with it.

I meal plan, 1/3 of my food shop by value is veg, I cook from scratch, enjoy my food rather than drink alcohol. I don't buy sweet stuff. If I really want a cake, I make it myself which means that doesn't happen very often.

I run, walk a lot, practice martial arts.

And if I do put on weight (xmas) then it isn't allowed to take root. I deal with it immediately.

Plus I suspect I have decent genes. Only one person in my family is over weight.

There were no obese people in the Nazi concentration camps bemoaning that despite no food they were still fat. They were all skeletal due to lack of food

This is such a good point. It's not that people who say they eat loads and stay thin are lying, they're just calibrated different to think what they eat is a lot

Very little carbohydrates, eat 3 meals a day, no snacking and realizing that I am healthier if not overweight. And I walk a lot.

@NothingSafe
Watch the programme about ultra processed foods by one of the Dr twins ( cant remember which one)
Within 4 weeks of consuming a diet of UPF his brain structure had changed.
Will power in the face of this type of food does not exist, its a myth and I think we should change the rhetoric surrounding this because it leads to even worse MH problems and self loathing.

@Thingsthatgo

I don’t really enjoy eating that much, or the feeling of being really full up. My jobs and my hobbies are all creative, and I have noticed that many, (obviously not all) creative people are a healthy weight; writers, artists, musicians, actors etc. I wonder if the creativity fills a void. Just a theory

I think there's a lot to this. As with so many addictive behaviours (like eating easily becomes, in our part of the world), it's about looking to fill a void. I also find that when I'm completely absorbed in something, usually creative to some extent, I forget about myself entirely. It's easy to think that we should live for others (how we look, dress, what we weigh etc) and not for ourselves. I think creativity plays a huge part - so very many things can be creative though, and it's an essential part of our humanity. Maybe our "standard society" has missed a beat here, trying to put people in to very square boxes. Overeating is ultimately an outcome of consumerism - and so is the exercise culture. Very much one and the same.

@NothingSafe

Interestingly *@nearly4o* as I wrote that, I wondered if people who aren't naturally slim but who deliberately control what they eat to stay that way have good impulse control generally?

I don't. I've been an overspender, overeater, wild-hair-cut-regretter, blurt-out-my-thoughts, unwise-one-night-stand person my entire life. The concept of not doing something I want to just because it would be a bad idea in the future - even if that future was an hour or two away - is something I really, really struggle with, even now. Or, conversely, forcing myself to have the self-control to do something I don't want to (in the context of this thread, go to the gym - but also, take the bins out or reply to that boring email or whatever).

I look at people who do hard things which take so much effort for a long-term reward and I cannot wrap my head around why it feels worth it for them. Instant reward - like eating a burger - I understand, even if there are potential risks down the line. Delayed gratification isn't something that has ever motivated me, and I wonder if that's something to do with it.

I do like to prevent problems for "future me" but have rarely thought of food in that context and never in regard to weight.

I don't have the self control to go to the gym, so I don't. I ride horses because that's a kind of movement that I enjoy. If it creates a calorie deficit in my day then great but it's not license to eat what I want, I'm afraid!

I love good food. I love to cook and to bake, and when I have the time I do it often. My only self-control is sticking to eating when I am physically hungry (though I will occasionally have something small, like 15g cheese, before riding if I haven't eaten in hours).

It is sometimes hard to explain to your inner self that no, you WON'T die from not being fed IMMEDIATELY but it's an important conversation to have.

No way could I give up nice food

You don’t have to. Just eat less of it.

I have tonnes of everything in the house, chocolate crisps wine. I find it strange that so many people don't have such things in their house.

I find it very hard to stop eating sweets, chocolate etc once I have started. I don't buy it and have it in the house. I used to be a size 14. I now don't actually fancy as much as I used to eat and feel sick if I try to eat that much. I stop myself eating it when I am full. I instantly put any left in the food bin so I won't be tempted. I try to eat sweet things only twice a week.