I have several female friends who became a bit overweight and all because some internal problems. They were eating healthy and they still eat healthy but they still get weight. It’s a pain for them to see how much energy they spend into many things and yet they still get weight.

I’m about 50 to 60lbs. overweight. Big guy, football player-sized.

I love fruit, spinach, salad, green beans, grilled chicken, salmon and more. I eat this stuff all the time. I work at a farm even.

Problem is A) I eat too much of it, B) I also love warm fresh bread (carbs), and C) I work sixty-seventy hours a week and hate exercise.

@cprevite that is an excellent example of what I had in mind, though. Every time I watch a show about weight loss, there is this focus on people looking repulsed or disappointed when presented with fresh fruits or vegetables, or lean meats. It irks me. Feels like it perpetuates a myth that a person only becomes overweight by eating junk non-stop. And that seems like a dangerous myth, to me.

I should also add, I don’t drink soda or alcohol. Only water or coffee.

And sure I cheat (chocolate chip cookies anyone?), but I’m more likely to eat a whopping bowl of steamed wild rice, grilled chicken, scallions and soy sauce.

I do have a major problem with portion control though. And bread (Mmmmm warn, crusty bread).

I’ve got a relative who fits this pretty well. He is easily 75+ lbs (probably closer to 100) over weight and fully admits lack of exercise, desk job, poor diet, and portion control are the key contributors.

While his diet is definitely not good he never balks at healthy food, he’s always up for a salad, fresh/grilled veggies, fruits and nuts. But recently he’s decided a big part of why his diet is so unhealthy is he’s never really learned how to cook healthy foods in ways he enjoys them. I’ve been helping him out with that now for a couple months, teaching him how to do certain things and giving him recipes that can be easily adapted and help to reinforce methods. So far it’s worked out pretty well, he’s starting to incorporate more into what he makes at home, he feels better about what he eats, knows he’s getting better balance and nutrition, and says he’s actually shed a couple pounds.

For him there’s no doubt tofu will never replace a burger on a permanent basis but putting a heaping pile of steamed spiced spinach or a couple slices of grilled eggplant on top of said burger instead of cheese, a second patty, and a generous slathering of mayo is a big step for him.

Portion control failure here too…. :-/ although I do eat healthily, I go way over the top with my portions, instead of one jacket potato I’ll have two, Instead of chicken breast I’ll eat a whole chicken & a full bag of mixed salad….. I love pasta bake & all those unhealthy white sauce dishes…. And yes, warm crusty bread covered in butter….I’m probably two / three stone over weight. & I do exercise but my work is not as physical as it used to be.

Most people I know who are very overweight, so let’s clarify by saying an average person of average height being 40+ pounds overweight for women, 60+ for men, may like seemingly healthy food, but the majority of the time I witness them turning it into an unhealthy high calorie dish. Cheese sauce on veggies, bacon in veggies, creamy dressings on salad, and more. To contradict myself a little, because obviously I am just generalizing, my father is very overweight and 90% of his diet is very healthy, but he just eats too much. If you eat roo many calories your body stores the extra as fat, even if you don’t eat a gram of fat. That’s how it works.

I think that obese people are just as likely to like healthy food as regular weight people.

Oooh, and olives. I love good olives. We just started harvesting winter squash here at the farm too. Roasted turban squash with white pepper and nutmeg is delicious. Or baby spinach salad with dried cranberries and walnuts – Mmmmm.

Last night I made baked talapia with hot red peppers and soy sauce over brown rice. Problem is…I had four pieces. Portion control baby.

I think it is the sedentary lifestyle and lack of knowledge concerning healthy food that Americans in general have. I know way too many people that can’t appreciate fresh fruit or vegetables, or well….anything that is natural and real. I’ve seen the other side, as I used to eat pizza and fast food and drink soda all the time. But when I started cooking for myself, eating better food, and an ex girlfriend that only cooked from scratch and made wholesome fresh meals for us all the time, I really get sick even thinking of frozen and fast food.

I only eat that stuff if I have to (and sometimes I do, simply because I don’t make enough money).

I am on the skinny now but it is a super struggle. I can only speak for myself. I just love eating. I love eating healthy. I love olive oil. I go gaga over it. I also love french fries and potato chips. I struggle with my weight because no matter what the food is, I tend to love it so much that I don’t stop when I’m full. For me, to maintain a healthy weight, I have to make an extreme conscious effort to control what, when, and how much I eat. I like eating low calorie, high density foods mostly because I get to eat more of them.

I know people who are overweight and eat only healthy stuff. And the biggest problem I see is that many of them think eat less calories than their body needs will be helpful. They only put their body into starvation mode and their metabalism slows down and stores as much as it can.
True some also over eat. Healthy food does not always mean calorie free. One bannana has about 75–80 calories. If you eat 3 in one day, than that is 240 calories. Half a cup of dried fruit is 225 calories. Then lets not forget the salads that can go up to about 500 calories because of croutons, salad dressing, cheese, eggs, and ham.
Like @wonderingwhy said, many just don’t really know how to eat healthy. My husband loves salad and he will eat the salads I just listed above and throw in bacon bits as well. Then wonder why he may have put on some weight.

I used to be fairly fat not too long ago, when I first traded the cream curry and burgers for salads and chicken breast I really enjoyed the meals.

Some times it can be quite a pain in the ass to have to down a undressed salad just because I need to, but most of the time I enjoy it.

Here is the problem the way I see it… There are just not enough healthy options, If you want to be healthy and work out and all that, there is actually very little you can eat. Pork has to go right away, so does butter, breads, pastas, and many things that you could be fooled in to thinking are healthy.

The other problem, is the cash for slop market. It is very profitable to sell microwave food and other crap. It is profitale to pump your cows full of chicken before feeding the cows back to chickens and then injecting them with water to make them heavier. The worst part, it’s all our fault, we were the ones who created the demand for cheap food, and now that we want to get rid of it, it’s too deeply embeded to remove. Even if you want to eat healthy, and try hard to do so, it is hard to actually pull it off. First you need to go shopping almost every day, to more than one shop usually, and you have to read everything you buy, because chances are its garbage.

My brother recently went shopping for me, and came back with some microwave fish meal. It is about 250 grams of food, not much, hardly a starter. On the front it has a series of green stamps… low in salt, low in fat, etc, and it has a big stamp that says “healthy” on the front with a thumb up next to it. However, turn this box over, and you soon learn that it has 1120 calories per 100 grams, and it’s 250 grams total, so thats over 2000 calories, more than you total daily allowance in one small meal that is only going to make you hungry. The company producing it basically cherry picks what good things to promote and hides the rest. Turn the box over, and we soon meet our friend “high fructose corn syrup” and all his additive buddies.

So yes, I enjoy eating healthy food. My own tomato paste is better tasting than the tin stuff, and it is not loaded with colors and sweetners, my chicken soup is better than the poweder in a packet stuff, and everything I make with fresh ingredients is nice and enjoyable. Just try finding the ingredients all the time though.

Not really. My best friend enjoys eating whether it’s healthy or not. However, she hasn’t quite grasped the concept of everything in moderation which, in itself, is unhealthy. She would be the first to admit that.

@Leanne1986 that’s the point I was getting at, though. That, not everyone with a weight problem finds “healthy” foods to be disappointing or unappealing. I’m not saying they eat exclusively healthy foods. It was just an observation about TV shows, really.

@ANef_is_Enuf Oh I see, sorry. All the overweight people I know will admit that they are so because they like food. They don’t discriminate too much between healthy and unhealthy though.

Then there’s faux healthy eating buy big folks. I had a friend, Bob, who would always order something along the lines of, “a double bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, cup of clam chowder and…a diet coke”.

I’d look at him and he’d say, “What, I’m trying lose weight”.

@Pandora You say the biggest problem is not eating. My opinion is the biggest problem is too much eating, especially mindless eating. Heavy people seem totally unaware that their eatugn behaviors are completely different than thin people. I am heavier than when I was younger and I can see how I have changed. I used to hate to feel stuffed, now I will stuff myself. I used to never eat desserts, now I do. A friend of mine who lost 100 pounds she wants toeat and eat eat. Another friend of mine who now instructs at weight watchers, says the people really are unaware of how many calories are in a cookie. I would agree severly cutting calories can pull down your metabolism, and skipping meals is a bad idea, especially because skipping meals usually later means the person will be unable to control their hunger and binge. But, when a person consuming 3,000 calories a day, cuts down to 2,000, all she is doing is cutting to where she should be in the first place. They have to really get down to numbers below the required amount to for sustaining oneself to see a big shift in metabolism from what I understand.

I need to lose 25 lbs… not because my doctor said so, but because that’s as much as I’ve gained over the last ten years or so and I want to get back into the shape that I was before. My last checkup, HDL and LDL levels are great, my blood sugars are great, I was given a thumbs up from the doctor, yet I am still 25lbs more than I was before.
I eat lean meats from mostly local sources, I buy veggies fresh in season and freeze for future use through the winter months, we eat whole grains, over the last three weeks, I’ve even eliminated “bad carbs” in an effort to pare down (South Beach Diet) I’ve lost 12lbs.
What I know I NEED to do, is exercise, I am aware of this and it’s on my priority list. As screwed up as it sounds, I hate to go to the gym, looking fat! Plus… let’s be honest, with a tweener kid at home it’s a hassle to make the time
I sit behind the wheel of my car for two hours round trip a day
I sit behind a desk from 8:30–5 every day
I come home and make dinner and clean up, check homework, and then I’m tired and so what do I do?? I sit in front of the boob tube and watch tv or read a book or a magazine or go online until it’s time to go to bed, and then it starts all over again.
People who are very much overweright probably have alot of the same issues as I do, just aggravated more so by their size. I don’t believe that ALL large people are sitting in front of the TV ALL DAY LONG scarfing down donuts, candy and soda pop. There’s probably a great many like myself who do their best to eat well, but just eat too much of it and don’t get their body’s moving enough to work off th extra calories we’ve consumed

@ANef_is_Enuf I really hate that media “fat pig” trope too. It’s used as a cheap laugh to make people feel superior and the second a television show goes there, it loses my viewership. My dear friend who has struggled with obesity her entire life always chooses fresh veggies and ground turkey and other low-fat, healthy foods. She doesn’t sit down and scarf an entire box of Oreos. That judginess angers me.

I know skinny people who also balk at anything that isn’t highly processed and would never knowingly eat anything healthier than a Big Mac.

Personally, I have always enjoyed healthy foods. I enjoyed them for the 20+ years I was about twenty pounds underweight, and I still enjoy them now even after my metabolism has slowed and I am now about twenty pounds overweight. Yes, I gained fifty pounds in one year after two decades of not gaining an ounce!

My mother is overweight and loves healthy foods but will overeat anything that tastes good to her.

The majority of the people I used to work with are obese, and out of those, two of them ate healthily while the rest feasted on processed foods and candy or nothing at all.

Most of the overweight I see everyday are that way because they drink too many calories in things like flavored waters, energy drinks, sodas and of course, beer.

I know plenty of overweight people who eat nothing but healthy foods. Unfortunately, diet isn’t everything (unless you just plain stop eating). Some have medical conditions, some don’t exercise, and one guy I know seems to do everything right and still can’t lose weight (or even fat—he thought maybe his weight was stable because he was gaining muscle from all the exercise, but his dimensions haven’t really changed). Some people just can’t catch a break.

@Pandora Several studies I’ve read or seen summarized suggest that the “starvation mode” thing is largely a myth. While your metabolism might slow down because you aren’t eating a whole lot, you still can’t gain weight if you are taking in fewer calories than you are burning. It is literally impossible.

@JLeslie The number of calories required for maintenance is not 2000 across the board. It depends on several things (e.g., current weight, typical duration and intensity of exercise, body composition). Particularly large people might be able to cut back to 3000 calories and lose weight for a little while, though they won’t be able to progress past a certain point without cutting even more calories.

@CunningLinguist Of course.

It ticks me off that I have to work my butt off if I eat 1500 calories or I will gain weight. Why couldn’t I have been tall? ~

@judi You know, a lot of women start to gain weight is when they get married. They serve themselves and eat the same amount as their husbands, which tends to be more than they ate previously, and be accustomed to that serving size and calories. I definitely think that happened to me with both a long term boyfriend and later my husband.

It’s not fair that they get to eat so much more than us! I have a friend who is 6 foot tall and looks stunning at 165 lbs. No one would describe her as anything but glamorous. She gets to eat WAY more than I do!

@jerv I have a co-worker who is in her late 20’s. Every day for breakfast it’s donuts, or some fast food breakfast sandwich.

Every day for lunch it’s McDonalds, Burger King, Chick-fil-a, Hoagies, deep fried sushi rolls, burritos… you name it, if it’s junk food, she’s scarfing down more of it than I could bear to stomach.

Her and I are about the same height and she’s a rail… I mean it.. a total “Skinny Minnie” you can see her bones! We’re good friends, so I said to her, You KNOW, if I ate like you, I’d weight about 300lbs. She just chuckled and said, Yeah, I guess it’s genetic. My Mom’s really thin too. Her mother is in her 50’s… so the slower metabolism with aging thing apparently hasn’t affected this family.

(though, in the long run, skinny people who eat like that can have cholesterol problems, heart disease and high blood pressure too, all the health issues associated with “fat” people!)

@christine215: My niece eats (and feeds her children) similarly. Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch, and Pizza or Chinese Food for dinner. They’re way over-scheduled and she despises cooking (or housecleaning, or…).

Good news for her is that she’s a dance instructor. As such she’s bouncing around for hours a day and stays pretty fit looking. I still figure, even with the exercise, too much of that stuff can’t be good for you.

Yeah, there’s this woman I used to work with. She looked like a balloon, but it was some kind of gland disorder. Her lunches were smaller than mine, and I eat like a handicapped bird. She always had vegetables and cheese and stuff like that. Just healthy things.
I saw her again about two years ago or so, and she got this operation done to get rid of excess weight. Now a lot of her skin kinda hangs down, but she’s way smaller than back when we worked together. She’s still big, but normal big when it comes to big people, and not like, oh wow big.