How Can I Be Overweight When I Only Eat Healthy Food?
Posted by Linda Daignault on Mon, Mar 28, 2011 @ 08:43 AM
Dear Eliza,
We have a house full of healthy food. My mom will only buy healthy meals and snacks since I have started gaining weight. I don’t get how I can be so overweight when I am eating only healthy foods. What’s the deal?
-Emma C., Portland, OR
Dear Emma,
A frustrating dilemma I’m sure. There could be a number of things contributing to your weight gain even if you are eating “healthy” foods only.
First, you probably have many hidden biological factors that make it especially easy for you to gain weight. These include genetic forces (something you inherited from your family), certain hormones and enzymes, and a much higher than normal number of fat cells (that are quite hungry for more food). So, that makes this process much harder for you than some of your friends who seem to eat whatever they want and stay skinny.
Second, ask yourself if there are times outside of the home that you might be eating differently? Maybe at school? Maybe at your friend’s house? Everything you put in your mouth counts. As they say, the devil is in the details. So maybe mom is focused on the details at home but when out with your friends you have mayo and cheese on your sandwich and a coke. May not seem like much, but those things add up!
Also, make sure you are paying attention to portion control. Maybe mom is cooking healthy chicken, rice, and vegetables, but if you are eating a great deal more calories than you burn, your body will store those extra calories as fat. Perhaps because you perceive the food as “healthy” you are not paying attention to how much of it you are consuming. This is where the food log (at Wellspring; our self monitoring journals) come in handy. You may be surprised at how many nights you go back for seconds or thirds of rice and chicken because it’s healthy, why not? In reality, even the healthy foods will add up in calories over time if we don’t monitor what we eat. So writing things down is an easy way to take care of that.
Finally, no matter how healthy you are eating, you still have to move to lose weight. It is recommended that you get at least 10,000 steps per day and believe me just walking to and from class does not cut it! We have to move more!
Maybe take the time to incorporate these few things in your life and see if that changes things.
Healthy Regards,
Eliza