If you're overweight, how much do you spend on food?

[MarinkyDinkyDink]

I suppose my AIBU is 'To think I can't afford to put on weight'... but I MUST be! I'm not on the breadline. But eating any more just looks SO expensive!

This is my question:

1. I really want to put on weight
2. Every time I go to buy excess food (thinking calorie surplus) I think of my bank account
3. But when I go food shopping, I see soooo many overweight people. Some of whom MUST have less disposable income than me
4. How have they got to that weight!?
5. My jazzy banking app tells me I spend £700/mth on food (+3kids, no other adult).
6. That's 350 on food shop and 350 on eating out (we live in a very cafe-y area, but it's like fancy quiche deli salad places. Ain't nobody getting fat on this stuff)
7. Apparently UPF is great for putting on weight but I really don't like the taste and texture of processed food (which is apparently fab for making anybody overweight)

I like homemade, pure food. Like, if I want a sausage roll, I'll make sausage rolls. I don't like the taste of pre-made or cold food. I only really like hot and fresh, made on site etc.

1. Food is so expensive! I don't buy snacks or crap for the house because it's just.. more money. But discussing snacking with school mums, I'm starting to think maybe I don't keep enough snacks in.

I only eat 3 meals, I can't dream what would happen to that £700 spend if I started snacking too!

If you are overweight: HOW!? Do you spend £700+ on food/mth?

I just want to understand the balance I need to make between my spend and my weight. Is my food spend unusually low? Do I need to start splashing out on the calories?

I get that being overweight for many isn't desirable. But being underweight is no treat either.

This is a wind up right? Have the admins looked at this one? Doesn’t seem genuine

Try a bacon sandwich but maybe just cut a pack of butter in half and put the bacon in the middle instead of using bread. Slips down lovely. 😁 Deep fried Mars bars are also good.

£350 a month on cafes is INSANE. If you want to eat more but spend the same then stop with the cafes and have beans on toast with real butter topped with grated cheese instead. There’s 4 of us and we spend about £150 eating out every month so there’s £200 you can spend on extra food.

Focus on calorie dense food:

cheese
avocados
nuts - ground and as sprinkles
cream
butter
oils
salmon
full fat mince
sausages
bacon

Ah yes, lucky fatsos who have so much money to spend on food to be fat.

If you genuinely want to be overweight, eat more, and make sure it's rubbish. It's nothing to do with the money you spend on food. It's the food you eat.

I have wondered about the cafe spend for a while. But when life is mental busy, or we're on a day out, they're just so quick and easy. I won't do picnics because I don't like cold food.

This is why I started this thread, for reality checks like this.

Thank you to those actually telling me your food spend. £700 in Tesco could get a good deal of food. It's just a matter of being home to EAT it!

No, I'm serious.

I'm spending £700 and have the body of a teenage boy. It's ridiculous.

I seriously want to know how to get fat, cheap. In short. 🤷‍♀️

It's easy.

Post something goady on Mumsnet and sit back and enjoy all the troll food.

Or the mumsnet chicken?

Do you know that some people eat a tiny amount and actually still can’t lose weight ???

I’m afraid, even if you haven’t meant to, you’ve been a bit insulting here implying that all fat people eat vast amounts and spend a fortune of food.

I’ve just lost 5 stone… if I ate any less I’d suffer from malnutrition.. some people are just inclined to put on weight regardless of their food intake.

@MarinkyDinkyDink where do you live that the cafes only sell salad? Obviously it can’t be London, but I’m so interested to know where this amazing salad village is!!!

Biscuits. Lots of them.

Being underweight and looking like Peter Crouch obviously doesn't stop you being a knob does it, maybe ask for advice on that.

Oh God that sounds revolting. We need a puking emoji in the react options.

What a twat

Here’s some excellent advice for you from a pro at gaining weight:

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/lifestyle/a38877423/christian-bale-workouts-fitness-transformation/

It's just a matter of being home to EAT it!
you can take food with you, Tupperware, lunchboxes etc exist

Overweight people are lucky? 🤔 I've heard it all now, I must remember to keep reminding myself of that after 58 years of struggling with my weight 🤦🏻‍♀️

It’s called a functioning metabolism. But if it’s bothering you I suggest you bookmark this thread until your menopause and then report back.

Out of everything you've said I just want to know where you live.

I live in a place that sounds similar... plenty of places to get a poke bowl, Salads and smoothies
Local fancy cafes and coffee shops.
But they do other stuff too. Including chips.

Very funny. Nobody wants to be fat. When you said you wanted to gain weight I believed you because some people do have a problem putting on weight to look healthy. I've got a friend who constantly get comments about her looking sick/anorexic and I know for a fact she isn't. Checked out thyroïd etc and nobody knows why her metabolism is on overdrive.

She would like to gain weight but she wouldn't like to be fat because that would be unhealthy as well. So therefore I know you are just posting to mock overweight people. You thought they were going to tell you how much they were spending to have a laugh. Disgusting behaviour.

Calorie count and make sure you have a surplus. Switch out half your fruit for biscuits and cakes. Drink calories in coke, full milk, icecream milkshakes, smoothies. Essentially do the reverse of what every person trying to lose weight does. Maybe catch the bus instead if walking and eat a bag of crisps while you travel.

This is an unpleasant little thread. In the best reading, it’s naive. In the worst it’s sneery in a way purporting to be clever. It’s not.

Let me tell you something OP. Many (not all but many) people who are obese are spending far far less than you on food. Here’s why:

Obesity and social deprivation are linked. They are linked because people on very low incomes have to prioritise cheap, ultra processed, calorie dense foods to fill their stomachs- and those of their children. Comorbid obesity and social deprivation are also linked to early deaths from lifestyle diseases. Depression. Poorer life outcomes than their wealthier peers. They form vicious intergenerational cycles. And the people trapped in these cycles, have done nothing wrong except be born into less fortunate circumstances than you find yourself in.

Here’s a suggestion, if you’re serious about putting on weight. How about you cut your food budget down to say, £200pcm (generous probably for many of the “fat people” you’d like to follow around the shop), and fill your freezer, your stomach and your kids with the kind of foods some people have no choice but to buy, or starve.

Take your £500 surplus and give it every month to the food bank.

Then, after a month or so, you may have put on some weight. But I hope more that you’ve put on some empathy, and common sense, enough to know how threads like this are not the way to ask questions like this, if you’re asking them in good faith.

Cream and butter. Just add it to everything you can. Cereal, desserts, creamy sauces, stirred through vegetables.......I had to "fatten" my husband (a naturally skinny person) before he went through a stem cell transplant, as we were told he would get a terribly sore mouth and be very nauseated a lot of the time, so would lose a lot of weight. They were right on all counts, it was gruelling. Before he went through it, I asked a dietician how best to put weight on him, expecting her to recommend protein shakes or similar. Instead, she told me to add cream and butter to everything I could. It worked, and gave him the cushion he needed to get through the transplant.

And if your dislike of cold food is preventing picnics, have you considered a thermos? £10-£20 and will quickly save you that amount on cafes.

Me too! I'm dying to find out where it is that you live that the only eating out options are cafes which sell salads only, no chips or sandwiches or avocado toast or burger or pizza? I've visited some pretty swanky places but nothing like this (and I probably ought to move there when we find out where it is!)