Serious question, not trying to be mean...

kabel4892

I work with quite a lot of larger people. I see them order lunch or dinner, sure, but never really see them snack. I dont get how they can stay the size they are but not eat much. I sit in my office and snack all day. I figured I should be the size of them by now, but im not. Yet they hardly eat and are overweight. Why is that?

AlexLeeAS

I know someone who snacks at night. Even late at night, and on bad carby stuff. She eats healthy all day, I was wondering the samething

kiangel

I got to 200lbs because I ate rubbish when I was alone , a secret eater

Revonue

Well, everyone is different. Just as some people can eat a lot and not gain weight, some people gain weight relatively easily.

Perhaps they eat a lot of high-calorie food at meals instead of getting their calories from snacks. Also, you probably don't get to see everything they eat. They may do a lot of late-night snacking or eat a ton for breakfast. You never know.

tammycolbert

I was a closet eater, nothing but crap, no one ever saw me, I ballooned and now have to pay for it, but it was my fault no one else's. They might be closet eaters or maybe have a medical issue like Thyroid no one knows about also.

schelly81

One of my friends is very overweight. She doesn't like to eat in front of people, not even her husband. She binge eats when alone. I couldn't figure out how she could be 350 pounds when she ate like a bird but then she confessed to me one day.
I can't speak for your co-workers but there are a lot of factors. Maybe they have a 500 calorie coffee twice a day but eat healthy otherwise, maybe they live on their couch at home and snack all night or drink a lot.

majope

For me, sedentism played a large part. For large parts of my life, I've been very active. Not owned a car, walked everywhere, had jobs where I was on my feet all the time. Went back to school in my later 20s and boom! Pounds piled on. I just continued to eat as I was used to, but without the constant activity, I couldn't maintain my former weight.

iggyboo93

I would go through Carl's Jr, Jack in the Box or Sonic drive throughs after work, snarf down a combo meal and throw the incriminating evidence away before coming into the house. Then I would prepare and eat a meal with my family. Getting fat entailed a lot of fast food eaten in the car or in private.

kabel4892

Thanks for the answers guys. Like I said, I dont want to be mean. I have nothing against them or how they choose to live. And I work with a lot of great people. I just always wondered that.

fun_b

This was me. People would always be surprised that I was so overweight when a lot of times I didn't eat as much as them. It used to amaze me when I went to lunch with Skinny friends and they would eat 2/3 times the amount I did and not even stress over their weight.

lynda3y9

i eat fairly well during the day - healthy choices, reasonable portions, little snacking - and am at least 80 pounds overweight....contributing factors in my opinion .......

1) i tend to eat late evening snacks sometimes - not tons but enough,
2) I have a weakness for sweets (with no 'stop' button) (chocolate, cookies, squares)
3) and lack of movement... sit all day and then would go home and sit.

people who know me and see how i eat ask me the same thing (nicely of course :-)) when i discuss weight...they think i should not have a weight issue when they see my meals. My caloris and eating are always good during the day ---- it's the evening's eating that is the issue

trying to change those 3 bad habits but it is tough. I also think i have messed my metabolism going from too low calories some days and then way too high on others. ...but really think the lack of movement is my biggest issue.

lilacinfinity

I've never been a snacker, my meals were just high-calorie. I did, and still can, easily, top 1000 calories in a meal without even trying. And I wasn't stuffing myself, it was just calorie-dense

As an example: lunch of a chicken & salad sandwich, a banana, a yoghurt and a nut bar along with a cup of tea - 958 calories.

anasantos61

By eating a fast food meal before getting home from work and then cook and eat another meal with the family.

I havent been thru a drive thru in over 7 years.

MandyMH80

Well, I'm overweight. At my heaviest I was 250lb. My BIG problem was soda. I'd drink 4-6 cans on most days. The worst part is that I'd drink it late at night right before bed so I was never burning any of it off. Binge eating when I was alone was also a problem. Instead of having a handful of chips I had half a bag, sometimes more. Snack cakes I'd grab 2 instead of 1. A whole pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I could go on and on... but even with all that eating soda was my main issue. That along with the not getting any exercise at all. Now, I'm eating much better and healthier foods and I gave up soda months ago. It wasn't easy, but it had to be done. I'm now 39lb lighter because of it.

a_mandolin_

Exactly what the others have said, it is usually what you don't see them eat.

Could be like me. I'm a secret snacker. I'll buy things when nobody is around and throw away the evidence. I'll get home from work, pretend I'm going upstairs to go to the bathroom, and quickly woof down half a dozen oreos that I have hidden somewhere. Sometimes I even hide the garbage in drawers so the trash isn't filled with the evidence, thus, giving away my secret.

Or, could be like my boyfriend, who doesn't eat breakfast and doesn't snack. However, he eats out at nearly every meal and drinks a ton of pop. Easily 1000 calories in pop, a lunch at chilis will set him back another 2000 and dinner the same, so while he may not physically eat a lot, he can pack away a good 4k in a day.

Cr01502

ETA: Sorry completely misread your post.

They probably eat more than you think they do.

:flowerforyou:

cwolfman13

When I was grossly overweight, I didn't really snack and rarely ate breakfast. But...

my meals were extremely calorie dense...I could easily consume 1,000-1,500 calories for lunch and dinner; I always had the equivalent of 2-3 servings of whatever I was eating at lunch and dinner. I also drank at least 3 sodas per day...so that's like 480 calories there. My only daily snack was 1/4 Lb of cheese and washed down with about 16 Oz of whole milk when I got home from work...oh, and I also drank roughly a 6 pack + beer per night at home.

All in all, even though I wasn't snacking at work, I was consuming roughly 3,500 calories per day...often upward of 4,000.

musycnlyrics

Here are a few reasons:

being sedentary
slowed metabolism
really high calorie/high fat content in the foods they DO eat
what they eat when no one is around

At my highest weight (and lowest point emotionally) I ate alone and a LOT! When I don't overeat and make good choices, I maintain my weight, cut a few calories and I lose.
When you are large and sedentary and eat like crap, the fat just packs on...Your body can't keep up with you.

Not offended by that question at all (I used to weigh over 300lbs and ppl asked me that all the time because I almost never ate in front of people)

MeganKSchultz

I use to hate going out to eat with big groups, because it drove me crazy that i felt all the skinny girls had to order giant cheeseburgers and milk shakes and all the fat girls ordered small salads. We all know that isn't their eating habits at home. I've had large friends who always seemed to watch what I was eating so they could eat a little less. Like say, we order a pizza and they won't take another piece until I do. Now that I'm the large one I have caught myself playing that game.

_SABOTEUR_

I work with quite a lot of larger people. I see them order lunch or dinner, sure, but never really see them snack. I dont get how they can stay the size they are but not eat much. I sit in my office and snack all day. I figured I should be the size of them by now, but im not. Yet they hardly eat and are overweight. Why is that?

When I was really big I was ashamed of eating and didn't want people to look at me when I was eating, so I wouldn't eat much in front of others, but when I was at home I'd easily get through 4000 cals during the evening.

Maybe that is what's going on with your colleagues.

musycnlyrics

Here are a few reasons:

being sedentary
slowed metabolism
really high calorie/high fat content in the foods they DO eat
what they eat when no one is around

At my highest weight (and lowest point emotionally) I ate alone and a LOT! When I don't overeat and make good choices, I maintain my weight, cut a few calories and I lose.
When you are large and sedentary and eat like crap, the fat just packs on...Your body can't keep up with you.

Not offended by that question at all (I used to weigh over 300lbs and ppl asked me that all the time because I almost never ate in front of people)

MariaHammer750

Everything everyone else said plus the fact that many heavy people have slow metablolisms caused by yo yo dieting.

Emtabo01

I work with a morbidly obese lady who eats a small dinky sandwich and banana for lunch about every day, nothing that'd make you fat. She never snacks, ever. But I hear her talking about eating a whole cake in an evening with her family of 5. Eating an entire container of cheese dip and a whole bag of chips in a sitting. I think there is a lot of that going on in her house, nothing we people at work see.

timeformetofly

over eating is an addiction and just like any addiction a lot of people do it when others know nothing about it.. some go through a drive through on their way home and then eat dinner with their family, you get the idea.

missjones93

Not eating a lot at work - either too busy or don't want the embarrassment because other people know they shouldn't be eating much because they are so big. And when they get home they feel like they are starving - even if they aren't and eat a lot! Happens all the time. This is why the "snacking" lifestyle helps people lose weight.

LivMinusTen

A friend of mine never really dared to eat in public and would eat in the evening at home. She would also feel sad about not keeping her goals and thus eating more. :-( It's a struggle. If she would eat something like a hamburger in public she felt like people were watching here and sometimes they would talk to each other about her. Sad, really.

concordancia

I got to 200lbs because I ate rubbish when I was alone , a secret eater

Once I started eating healthier, I found out that my partner had no idea how often I went to McDs. He thought I always went through the drive thru and brought it home, so he thought I only ate as often as he saw it in the trash.

AllAboutThatTreble

I was a secret snacker also. When eating in front of other people, I made healthier choices because I felt like I was being watched, but once I was alone - just crap, crap, and more crap. When I lived with my parents, I would hide the wrappers, containers, etc in my room under my bed or in my drawers, my car or throw them out before I got home. I was so ashamed.

Once I decided to get healthy and realized that I ate most of my calories in secret, that's when I realized that it was pretty much an addiction.

I still struggle with it and whenever I eat too much it's always alone, but the frequency has decreased a ton.

jadethief

I would go to Chik Fil A every morning and get a number 7. . . . . . a chicken, egg, and cheese on a sunflower multigrain bagel (because multigrain is healthy, right?), an order of hashbrowns (because it would cost the same whether I got the hashbrowns or not), and a large sweet tea.. . . . . . . .a whopping 940 calories!

I wouldn't eat anything all day at work and then by the time I got off, I'd be ravenous. Sometimes I'd go through a drive-thru and get a couple of hamburgers and another sweet tea (because I hadn't had lunch and everybody knows you need to eat 3 meals a day!) for the ride home before cooking dinner and eating with the family. More often than not though, I'd pick up pizzas, or a bucket of chicken, a family feast at Captain D's or Sonny's Barbecue and that was our dinner,

I was astounded after I started MFP and took a look at how many calories I had been consuming!

I've only been through a drive thru twice now in the last 70 days and that was to pick up a salad. I get up every morning now and cook breakfast, I eat lunch plus snacks at work, and I cook dinner every night even if I'm going to be the only one at home. 20 lbs down now. It's working!

GiddyupTim

People who get heavy get self-conscious about it. They tend to eat in private.

Dulcemami4ever

When you snack all day on healthy things, you keep your metabolism running. When you eat huge fat laden meals that are starchy you will gain weight. They may not eat so much when they are at work, but most likely they are going home to huge dinners that are not portioned correctly for their activity level.

This is how I gained weight. I didnt eat all day but used to have one big meal. My metabolism was sluggish and I was always tired.