Extremely overweight

[Tinkerbella1986]

Hi, I'm 31 and 20st. I am mortified by how much weight I've put on. I feel so unhealthy and feel massive. I really don't eat that much. Usually nothing for breakfast, nothing for lunch or sometimes a sandwich/baguette and this I think is where my problem lies, my evening meal is usually a big meal, usually unhealthy and always around 9pm. My husband genuinely eats around 3x as much as me and is super lean, infact, he struggles to put weight on. It's so unfair lol. Any tips or advice would be greatly received. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. Thank you.

Possibly obvious, but have you seen your doctor to rule out any medical reason for your weight gain, especially if you're feeling generally unhealthy?

Ok, so many elements to this

Firstly have you seen a doctor to have some blood tests run to rule out any illness.

Secondly, the sad reality is you must be consuming an awful lot of calories to be maintaining at this weight.

So make an appt with your gp. In the meantime keep a food diary, of everything you eat and drink. Everything. Do you genuinely not eat or drink anything most days till your evening meal? Weigh your portions for a few days, work out the calorie content. I suspect you will find you're eating and drinking an awful lot. I'm sorry.

Why not see your GP for advice and support? You are possibly morbidly obese and need help. GP could refer you to a dietician. Basically you need to completely change how and what you eat. You don't have to eat that much extra over a day to put weight on - a few extra hundred calories each day for months will result in a lot weight gain in a year.

You need to eat 3 meals a day; mainly lean protein, high fat, loads of fruit and veg and a few wholefood carbs. Your calorie intake depending on your height should be around 1500 a day to lose weight. You could easily be eating 2500-3000 a day now.

And no sugar, sweets, snacks, sweetened drinks, ( including teas and coffee) and alcohol.

As the PP said, keep a food diary and be honest.

Try Slimming World - people tend to lose more with a group. Your GP might be able to refer you.

Try tracking your food for a week or two with an app like My Fitness Pal (I use this one, there are others). Weigh. Every. Single Thing (except lettuce, thats probably not worth it). It is soooo easy to eat more than you think. Dont think about eating less to start with. Eat as normal, then enter it at the end of the day. You'll soon see how much you are eating. And it will be much higher than the recommended amount for an adult woman. There are some common conditions that can increase propensity for weight gain (or increase appetite), but the % of calories you have to eat less than someone without these conditions isnt actually that large. And the same principles of weight loss exist when you decide to lose weight.

If I dont track my food, and just eat when I fancy it, I can easily pack away in excess of 1000 extra calories a day. Over a week that would see me gaining 2lbs! Unfortunately some people just dont seem to have a very effective mechanism for telling their brain to stop bloody eating! And/or we relate to food differently (I am a stress eater). Our gut and brain speak a lot, though, and a consistent change in diet does eventually effect the gut, and have a positive knock pn effect on the brain in terms of cravings, etc.

The good news is, as you are 20st, you will be able to lose weight on a relatively high calorie diet, and slowly bring it down as your weight comes closer to the healthy weight zone.

There is a prescription drug called orlistat which is licensed for weight loss in the UK for people with a BMI of over 28. Your GP may consider it for you (or you can buy the lower strength version called Alli from a pharmacy)...but there are some icky side effects that you will want to be aware of. It wont do the work for you, but it can speed the process up and get you off the mark a little faster. That is assuming your GP is happy that there is no medical reason that you shouldnt use it.

Good luck!

Low carb, high fat is worth looking into. It's the way of eating I find easiest to stick to - I have been LCHFing since last May, and have lost more than 3 stone, slowly but steadily. I put on a lot of weight while immobilised after surgery, and like you felt absolutely rubbish. I'm now within a stone away from target. Have a look at the MN low carb threads and see if you think it's something you could stay with.

One advantage is that you don't have to weigh or count anything - you just need to stay within the prescribed food groups. Another is that getting your 5 a day is easy, as your only carbs have to come from vegetables.

Hi OP, you've taken the first step which is always the hardest and decided to seek some help. I too have a lot to lose, I always start off with the best of intentions but because loss is slow (it needs to be for it to stay off) I get impatient and on my bad days I give up completely.

The last few weeks have been better because I've committed to something other than "must eat healthily". I've signed up to Slimming World online so that I can track my weight loss and get advice/meal suggestions easily. With groups of any kind I'm a serial joiner/quitter. I'm useless with committing to something week in, week out so inevitably fail at diet groups.

I eat very little in terms of meals, but after writing down every single morsel of food for a week it was hammered home to me just how bad my diet was. The sugar, the snacks and the generally eating on the go more than made up the calories I wasn't getting from the take aways and huge portions I thought I'd have to be eating to weight this much.

I'm only 3 weeks in so I'm not claiming to be an expert, but after keeping a food diary of what I eat, what times I eat, and most importantly, where I eat I've made myself a few rules:

1. No food in the car, water only.

1. 1/3 of my plate to be green

1. Each time I come out of the shop without crisps or chocolate I put £1 in a jar.

1. Go upstairs by 10pm with a drink. No need to go into the kitchen after this time.

I've followed Slimming World loosely for 3 weeks, I've had a few slips in terms of free and speed food which I'm still getting my head around but each day I'm getting better with following it. I've lost 7lbs which means I've gone down into the stone below, a great motivator.

I'm taking it day by day, and seeing how it goes. Visuals can sometimes help, colouring in a square to represent each lb and the £1 jar are things I do.

Good luck OP, every lb off is a victory X

Sorry, but an obese person that doesn't eat much?

There is always a bit of denial wrt to eating, drinking, smoking, drug taking whatever.

I am no angel but when someone says they are twenty stone and they don't eat much. Well.

It could be an underractive thyroid or some other medical/psychological issue though. Get it checked OP.

Other than that it is usually a case of eating more than you need to. I know food is lovely, we need it to stay alive.

Tough time OP, I hope you get the help you need.

Thank you all for your replies. I will definately be going to get some blood tests done as I wouldn't of thought of that. I drink tea (no sugar) pepsi max/other no sugar drinks, never drink full fat drinks. I don't drink alcohol at all. It's got to be food, when I have dieted in the past, I have breakfast, dinner, tea and this is when I lose weight. If I don't eat breakfast, I genuinely go all day without anything other than pepsi max. I have only just reached 20st. I have 4 children and am in college full time so I am very active. I will have mashed potato, boiled potato, jacket potato or if I have chips, they will be done in the actifry, for my evening meal, what I have with it could be a problem, e.g faggots, 1 pie (my husband will have 2) garlic kiev, sausage, I fry everything in 1cal spray. I feel like I'm really trying but obviously not good enough. I will start writing everything down to really see. Only other thing I can think of is some sort of carb intolerance as my meals usually consist of these. Thanks again, it's a lot to think about xx

Op, I'm sorry to be blunt, but if youre 20 stone, even with a thyroid problem or a carb intolerance, you must be consuming a lot of calories to hit and maintain that. You cannot be not eating much and be twenty stone. So the only thing I can think is it's your portion sizes, they would need to be huge. I think uou need to be honest with yourself. No one is twenty stone by not eating much. That's not how our bodies work, even if we have a medical problem.

It's great that you've taken the first step by posting on here and you'll get loads of encouragement. Speaking from experience here, do get your thyroid checked by your GP. Have you considered that maybe just eating once a day is not ideal, particularly so late at night? You're obviously extremely busy with your college and children, but you could maybe change into eating at least some lunch, even if you can't manage breakfast. This will moderate your appetite and maybe you can then have a different type of evening meal. As others have said, low carb may work well for you. But before you start anything drastic, definitely get yourself checked out with your GP and get his professional advice on effective weight loss. Brilliant that you're addressing this, all the very best OP!!!

Tinkerell.

Sorry to be blunt but your latest update shows you have little idea about food and nutrition. There is no such thing as carb intolerance- just overeating carbs!

Pepsi is rubbish. Even zero cals.
You are eating a lot of processed food including meat which is related to higher bowel cancer- pies, sausage, faggots.

This is my typical day of food.

Breakfast at 7,30am 1 boiled egg and 1 slice toast. Or 1 small bowl of porridge with 1/2 teaspoon honey and some blueberries.

Lunch Either half a pot of some kind of vegetable soup (often home made) and an apple, sometimes a small portion (150mls) of full fat greek yogurt. Or, it might be a salad I've made with tuna, prawns, egg, cold meat, watercress, peppers, celery, grated carrot etc.

Dinner- varies of course but most often , a fillet of fish (cod, salmon, haddock) oven baked, with masses of steamed veg, sometimes roast veg, sometimes fish pie, sometimes a homemade casserole (chicken) , sometimes a roast (at weekends), desert is always a piece of fruit and Greek yoghurt.

I eat 3 good meals a day and i weigh under 8 st (I'm petite.)

We don't eat pastry (as in pies), pizza, pasta, white rice. They are all refined carbs. Some people might think this is extreme, and yes, we have the odd treat, but these foods aren't on our plate every day or even every week.

I think it would be a good idea to post a photo of your typical meal in the evening as it's likely you are having something like 3000+ cals (more than a man needs) .

You are not active by being at college all day- assume that is sitting at a desk or moving between floors at most.

At the risk of joining the blunt brigade (but with the benefit of having been extremely overweight in the not too distant past as well)...

I wouldn't bother with the blood tests unless it turns out that improving your (terrible) diet doesn't work. You are not carb intolerant, you are carb overloaded.

You've said you lose weight when you eat 3 meals a day so you already know a big part of the solution to your current problem.

Ditch the Pepsi max - if you can use a substance to clean a toilet you shouldn't be putting it in your body!

The foods you've described in your second post all have enormous numbers of calories and next to no nutritional benefit. As a general rule beige food is not good for you! Vegetables really do fill you up, and you might not like them to start with, but that's because you're body's going to scream for greasy, salty, sugary processed food. It doesn't take long for that to go away. (potato is not a vegetable BTW...although sweet potato does count and tastes much nicer)

The good thing is that at 20 stone the weight will come off fairly quickly with fairly minor tweaks to your diet to start off with - no need to start marathon running. It gets harder as you get closer to a normal weight and exercise becomes more important (but also becomes easier).

Also, even though your husband may be skinny while eating the same sort of stuff, he'll be accumulating badness on the inside too (skinny people can have heart attacks as well) so it'd do him good to start eating a more balanced diet to.

Good luck with it all. It is possible to lose weight and get healthier, but there isn't a quick fix.

PS... Orlistat may some people, but has some really quite gross side effects, particularly if you don't cut out the fat...I think they should add the phrase 'never trust a fart' should be in the product literature for this drug! :-)

The other thing OP (trying to be helpful) is that by missing two meals (how on earth you last from dinner one evening to dinner the next day beats me ) you are also missing out on a load of fresh veg and fruit.

You need to aim for 5-7 portions of fruit and veg (and avoid grapes as they are high in sugar) every day.

Anything starchy should be no bigger than your fist- that's a portion. So around 2 tablespoons. These are guidelines for maintaining a healthy weight so for you, it's less.

Your healthy diet should be one piece of lean protein - chicken, fish, red meat ( a couple of times a week only). eggs, or pulses (lentils and beans) with 3-4 veg each meal. (not spuds.)

Add in some dairy- a small amount of cheese, plain yoghurt, cottage cheese, - and some whole carbs ( ie oats in porridge), brown rice, wholewheat pasta.

If your 4 kids are eating the same as you and also large amounts, they will end up obese too.

Your diet sounds completely lacking in vegetables. Potato is a fairly poor source of vitamin C, but if it’s the only veg you eat, your body will feel hungry and want you to eat tons of it to try and meet its daily vitamin requirement. You are probably also lacking in folate and several trace minerals.
Switch to a good, healthy, high vegetable, balanced diet, and you will feel less hungry. All that processed muck (pastry etc) is just calories with no nourishment.
If you’re not sure about portion size and healthy eating, you could either join one of the proprietary slimming clubs, or google it and stick to the recommendations.
Exercise of any sort, including brisk walking, will help to convert fat to muscle and burn off more weight.
I think when you lose your first few pounds you’ll feel encouraged to continue! Good luck.

First of all well done for recognising the problem. The second thing to say is there is loads of support on weight loss boards on mumsnet so do pop on there. Fundamentally you need to eat less high calorie foods and move more. I'm trying to lose another 4lbs and I will be at happy weight (10 stone , 10lbs) and I'm six foot. I weigh everything and do 5:2. Even at my height, I struggle to use more than 1750 on my sedentary ways