Why am I overweight? I can't work it out

[Gibralter]

It just doesn't make sense to me. I track every last thing in my fitness pal and I've been eating this way for about 5 months. I'm only overweight by a pound or two but surely I should be a lot slimmer?

Typical days food is:

Two slices of seeded brown bread with low fat spread and marmite OR porridge with blueberries on top OR a glass of fresh orange juice, two eggs and a small slice of toast.

Lunch: Rivita crackers topped with a 20 Calories laughing cow spread, cucumber OR avocado toppings, with banana and Diet Coke, OR sometimes I have for lunch a very small portion of last night's dinner.

Dinner: Vegetable curry (home cooked, low fat), OR vegetable rice and chicken, OR low fat Bolognese OR pesto pasta.

Snacks: Passion fruit (one), banana, raspberries (a handful or so), and sometimes on a Friday, a chocolate brought home by DH. It's rare I have more than 2 of these snacks a day.

Where am I going wrong?

I don't secretly eat other things, I'm also breastfeeding. I walk mostly everywhere. I go up and down a big hill with shopping etc.

I'm not very active indoors but is anyone, apart from my cleaning?

BIWI I know you’re the queen of low carb... I personally love low carbing and it’s how I lost weight for my wedding. But why is it so high fat? Does it actually help, adding extra fat eg butter, or is it just because ‘low fat’ products are full of shit? I mean, skimmed milk, low fat cheese etc do not have sweeteners etc added so instinctively I’d rather go for those rather than full fat, however I would choose normal yoghurt over low fat. Unless you’re telling me the fat helps you lose weight? I’ve always wondered.

P.s I have a 5 month old too OP :) 5 months yesterday. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know from when I had my first, post baby weight loss is a different ballgame, IMO.

I'd cut the starchy carbs back to once or twice a day. So if you have porridge for breakfast, don't have bread at lunch, and reduce your pasta/rice/potatoes at dinner.

Fwiw, I'm 5'4" and even though in theory I should be about 8st, when I actually was that weight I looked ill. 10st is comfortable for me (I am infact several stone over this at the moment though)

From my experience (3 exclusively breast fed children to 6 mos) I didn’t lose weight until they were around 1. I fed my youngest until 10 months, by the time she was 2 I was in great shape. It must be extra hard though if you are the only one of your friends who is a parent.

You need to watch your carb/protein/fat split.

I was eating 1600 calories a day and losing no weight, just maintaining. When I signed up with a Personal Trainer he went through MFP with me and I was eating a 50/25/25 split.

Split for weight loss should be 50/35/15.

I mean this gently but maybe just relax about it? We're not all meant to be super slim, if you're eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full, and not eating loads of crap, maybe you're just the size you're meant to be.
Do you have daughters? Would you like them to be so focused on food and weight?

It's fat as a percentage of your total daily intake. Not high fat in general as in you can eat as much of it as you wish. Fat makes you feel satiated and leads to you eating less. In addition if you're in keto, you're burning fat as your fuel source.

I'm the same @Gibralter , I eat very similarly to you and am a similar height and weight . I go to the gym at least 4 times a week and do high intensity cardio .
My thyroid has been checked many times and it always comes back borderline 🙄, the last time I went to the doctors she offered me thyroxine but I refused as I don't want to be on medication but it's so frustrating !!! Like my body just doesn't respond to anything ... before my son 6 years ago I was about 2 stone lighter and everything was so much easier .. I keep trying to get back to just somewhere near that 😬😬

Hi all, just reading through all the replies and replying the best I can!

Do you have daughters? Would you like them to be so focused on food and weight?

No, and I think my weight now is absolutely fine. BUT, it's not the weight that bothers me really, not alone anyway. It's the fact that I'm the weight I am AND I don't indulge or overeat just makes no sense to me really.
I would happily be this size if I ate big/fair portions, or had the odd take away. I do none of these things and on top of that, my portion sizes are even smaller than recommended a lot of the time.

There was a lovely PP who suggested swapping a lot of what I eat and gave good alternatives. I forgot to add in OP that I'm Peskerterian

Just had lunch, mixed veg salad with some Rivita and fake chicken and I'm bloody starving

A lot if people I know found breastfeeding made them fat. It is quite common for the weight to come off quite suddenly when women stop breastfeeding.

Bluntness so if you feel perfectly satisfied using low fat on a low carb diet, then that's fine? Thanks.

How many litres of water do you have in the day?

Gibraltar - it's just as easy to lower your carbs if you're a pescatarian!

Breakfast - the yoghurt option still holds. Bacon and sausage are clearly out, but you could have scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, with a squeeze of lemon.

Other main meals - Could still be a veggie curry, as long as you use lower carb veg, e.g. cauliflower, shallots, mushrooms, leeks, broccoli. (You said you were eating bolognese though - so how does that work if you're pescatarian?!)

Big salads work well - tuna, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel. Eggs, avocado and cheese also good bases for salads.

I’m confused too oP.
That’s really not a lot of food !

@BendydickCuminsnatch It's about the proportion of the macros that you're eating.

The current guidelines for a 'healthy' diet are Carbs:Protein:Fat.

But a low carb diet reverses that, so it's Fat:Protein:Carbs.

If you cut one macro down, by definition another one has to increase!

Both carbs and protein result in a spike in insulin production, which is what (very simplistic explanation!) results in weight gain. Protein doesn't do this anywhere near as much as carbs, but it does a little. But fat doesn't result in an increase in insulin production at all.

In addition, if your diet is high in fat, it's also very satiating, so you're less likely to feel hungry. You can't, actually, eat that much fat!

Bendy, basically yes, and that's the Dukan diet, it's low fat low carb but it's fairly brutal to be honest and hard to follow for ny length of time.

We like fat as humans, it tastes nice. It also keeps us full for longer. It makes following a diet much easier in reality so that it becomes a way of eating and we lose weight on it when our body is burning fat.

So things like skin on your chicken, a bit of butter on your veg, a full fat yoghurt, these things all taste good, and make us feel more satiated than if we had skinless chicken, veg with nothing on it, or one of the dreaded miuller lights.

I did the Dukan diet once , it was a extremely brutal and not something I'd recommend if you have any impressionable dc in the house .
I actually don't like excess fat on anything , eat well and move loads . I think sometimes it's just bad luck as I have friends who are big drinkers and eaters and are tail thin 🤷‍♀️.. the back at the idea of going to a gym too ... sometimes I wish I didn't care but I like clothes and want to wear stuff tucked in 😬😬😬

Every time I read what you or others say about LCHF BIWI I'm reminded of what total sense it makes to me in terms of the science. And reminded of how good I've felt when following it properly - finally free of cravings and a desire to overeat. My skin also has felt much better and I just generally feel good on it.
BUT I can't ignore the fact that every time I do it, (about 3-4 times j think) I manage it for however long (2-3 months at most) and then can't keep it up, fall off the wagon big style and end up gaining weight plus some.
Is there any hope for me?
Not sure what to do now as there's no reason to think the same wouldn't happen again and I can't afford to put any more weight on.

I have tried telling myself not to stay on strict boot camp too long (tempting as it works so well) but to move onto bootcamp light in the hope this would stop me having a blow out & unable to get back on track but it has not worked so far.

(Sorry to derail the thread!!)

Having a child was like flipping a switch in terms of weight loss for me. I stayed a size 6 to 8 throughout my 20s and early 30s without any trouble at all. Most of the time I wasn't on a diet. Then I gained 4 stone in pregnancy without increasing what I ate; and it's been impossible to lose that weight ever since. I've just accepted that I'm never going to be thin again, i'm ok with it.

Low-carbing doesn't work for me. I spent 8 months low-carbing and lost 6 pounds. Rubbish.

chandlersfraud - same here exactly. I absolutely believe in the benefits of low carb. I even find it easier to stick to from a hunger pov than other diets. But from a convenience, family life, general willpower and social pressure pov it is just as hard to maintain as any other diet. Plus I don't really want to be modelling to my 12 yo dd that cutting out whole food groups is normal. If I lived on my own and never ate out, I'd probably do it.

. Then I gained 4 stone in pregnancy without increasing what I ate; and it's been impossible to lose that weight ever since

There’s your problem.
Your lying to yourself. And it’s stoppijg you making headway.

That is pure nonsense. of course you ate more. Your baby and placenta didn’t weigh 4 bloody stone!
I’ve had two. Weight dropped off, too much in fact. There are many like me, and there are many that aren’t. I do sympathise but seriously. Stop kidding yourself that pregnancy somehow fucks up your metabolism forever more. It doesn’t. It simply doesn’t.

you’re

Another one here who clung onto the last few pounds of baby weight which magically vanished once I stopped breastfeeding. Completely unscientific but I think some people’s bodies just do that. Probably not what you want to hear! If you keep eating healthily, drinking lots of water and exercising when you can I’m sure it will shift eventually!