Am I being hard on myself? Or am I FAT? why can't I tell..,

[AmIFat]

I am only 5'1" which is part of the problem as any weight at all shows. Just realised my BMI is 25.8 which puts me in the overweight category. I'M size 12 in shops like next. I don't feel like I am over eating though. I don't calorie count but I'd often feel like, no I won't have that. I don't pig out. But I don't like the feeling of hunger. I'm not an emotional eater. I make good choices. I try only to have one slice of bread a day (although I only manage that every second day). I have to have my breakfast very early (7.15) and then lunch isn't til 12.30 so I'd have a snack which feels small to me given how hungry I feel (half a banana, diet yoghurt). Dinner would be fish or chicken with limited carbs and veg.

I feel like I'm going mad here. I'm being careful. Oh yeah, I do exercise as well, do a 5k run about twice a week, so I'm not super fit but I'm not unfit. I also walk to work and it's about 25 mins away. I feel like I ought to be slim. I'm in my 40s.

Do I just accept this? I have been thinner before but I was hungry for hour long periods in the run up to every meal.

Any advice? either from people who've learned to live with not being slim? Or any tricks that will help.

I did mfp a while back and found it time consuming but it did work but I think 1200 is so few calories. I would probably eat about 1800 on a normal day but I'm active.

do I deserve to be overweight?

be honest.

Oh! And in the walk to work, as odious as the idea might seem, can you add arm weights, or carry a heavier bag? Alternating between a 'hard' walk and your normal walk might be a good way to burn extra calories?

Op have you heard of high intensity training? If not Google. Doing this in short bursts will help you.

I think your current diet is great and I don't think you ought to cut anything else out because life will be one torturous!

As someone who previously lost 9 stone and had huge issues with food, are you sure you don't? Your username, you talking about constantly being aware of hunger and really disliking it and saying things like "do I deserve to be fat?" are all kind of red flags.

If your hunger try overnight oats for breakie. It keeps me full until 2ish.
Are you drinking enough water? If your dehydrated your metabolic rate drop quite a lot! I was surprised how much when the nurse told me!
You don't sound overweight but you sound unhappy with your weight, so it's best you do something pro active about it. But stay positive, nothing to be gained from starting off thinking you'll be hungry.

MFP has a default of 1200 cals/day I think. Trouble is the lower the calorie level you lose weight on can mean that when at maintenance you can't eat much more.

Read this: eatmore2weighless.com/q-a-why-find-true-maintenance/
then click on the "Here" link to find your BMR and TDEE.

I have lost 42kg using MFP. I did the calculations in the links above as I wanted to eat as much as possible and lose weight.

Hope this helps

It doesn't really matter what food you are eating, what matters is the portion size and calories. You are only guessing what your caloric intake is, if you actually weighed and wrote everything down you may find you are eating more than you realize.

You can either accept who are you, or try harder to lose weight.

If you want to lose weight then cut out the alcohol, or if you can't bear doing that add half the wine you normally do and top up with sparkling water plain or flavored and have a wine spritzer.

If you go a few days without eating all your snacks, you won't get hungry as often. If you body expects food at a certain time in a certain amount you will feel hungry, but if you go a few days without it you shouldn't feel the hunger.

Switching to soya milk can cut your milk calories by about a third. I realised this during an embarrassingly short stint on MFP. Oh and there are a zillion calories in orange juice. I need to get back on it really. And start doing any exercise whatsoever C25K and 30 day shred again.

Your calorie requirements decrease slightly as you get older too, which you need to remember. You might not be able to eat quite as much as you did ten years ago and remain at the same weight.

I am 25, 5' 5" and 14st, and I eat 1600-1800kcal a day to lose weight (I'm also pretty active). I would say that 1800kcal might be okay for you as a maintenance level but you certainly won't lose weight on that.

I am at work and I just said to a v slim colleague that I'm joinging slimming world! A much, much fatter colleague (who is lovely btw) piped up that she will "kill" me if I show up at slimming world. Oh dear!? I don't want to make her feel bad or invade her space, but I still want to go.

RonaldosAbs I definitely don't have food issues! This is the heaviest I've ever been. I must have expressed myself badly. I meant I was 9 stone for decades, not that I lost 9 stone!

Op you sound absolutely fine. If you start dieting you will likely end up heavier in the long run (like you found with the 5.2), and risk losing your healthy attitude to food.

It's sounds like calorie counting is a bit frustrating for you.

Have you looked into something like the Clean and Lean diet? You don't count calories, but you do eat only lean meat/fish, vegetables, good (non bloating)grains etc.

You're barely overweight based on your BMI, so it sounds like you'd just prefer to look a bit slimmer, which is fine.

I'm 5'8 and with daily exercise my resting metabolism is only 1500. I've put on about 6kg over winter and am trying to lose it so eating 1200 a day (the weight went all to my chest and I look matronly ). I am absolutely not hungry - I eat a lot of protein, don't skip carbs, eat mainly vegetarian as I feel I get more for the calories although I do like meat.

I exercise 6 x per week, probably burn around 2,000 calories - if I were trying to maintain I'd stick to 1500 daily with weekend treats. 6 glasses of wine can be 700 calories if pub measures - home measures that could be much more.

I guess it depends on how much you'd like to lose a bit of weight, I found to do it (I lost 5 dress sizes before) I had to go for it and completely change my way of thinking.