Can anyone help me?

If you've eaten that healthily and that little for most of your life, I'd recommend talking to your doctor anyway- because you may have a problem that causes you to put on weight (I have a thyroid condition, for example, and if that was left untreated I'd put on a lot of weight no matter how well I ate. I'm not suggesting you have that- it's usually diagnosed in women, and usually women much older than you or I (I'm 25, I'm just unlucky I was diagnosed with it very young)- but you may have something that needs checking out). If you haven't been eating that healthily, then it's your previous habits that got you where you are (that's not a criticism, I'm in the same boat) and you need to re-evaluate to get yourself where you need to be). It's not so much about the amount of food as the calorie content (have a look at that list I made- it's all healthy, but check out how many calories are in some of the things I listed! Yes, incidentally, that was deliberate- those things are good for you but all but banned from my own diet because they're so high in calories)

The reason why weight is a problem for most people is that our bodies are set up for scarcity- the African plains and such. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, if you stuff your face and your body stores it for later (as fat), then if you don't eat for a week you won't be as likely to die. That and the fact that scarcity isn't a problem for the vast majority of people nowadays, we can eat when we like. Our bodies still act like they don't know where our next meal is coming from, though, so any excess is stored as fat. How this comes in for you, apart from the obvious, is that if you're eating so little, your body's trying to hang on to that supply for as long as it can because it thinks the next meal might be a week away. It's known as the "starvation response". If you keep it up, you will lose weight anyway, but not in a healthy way, and you'll cause yourself long term health problems (slowing down of metabolism- trust me, as someone with a functionally dead thyroid, having a slow metabolism is really not fun- and weakening of muscles and bones). Those health problems are compounded by the fact that you're still growing, when the nutrients you need are all the more essential to you.
 
I'm just going to challenge the negativity about baked beans.

Yes i am sure there is a fair bit of salt in it. I wouldn't be surprised if there is sugar in it too. In fact i am sure there is.


But i'd read the label to be sure.

I don't think the sugar in baked beans is too much of a problem. And the salt would only be a problem if you already eat a diet high in salt.

Otherwise baked beans are very good food.

Baked beans, being made from beans, lowers cholesterol, is high in fibre, protein and carbohydrates. Not high in fat. Beans are considered a vegetable. They must also contain vitamins but i am not too sure what ones. You could find out on the nutritiondata website if you want to know.

That site will give you the whole rundown of whats in baked beans. It would probably be quite interesting.

In the tomato sauce, is the sugar and salt. But there's unlikely to be anything else. Cooked tomatoes are said to be good so that makes this tomato sauce fairly good too. I've made baked beans myself and its amazing how easy it is to replicate the taste of heinz
baked beans.

I would recommend the ones with ham or cheese.

I think for young men who are not big into cooking, baked beans must be one of the best sort of foods out there in terms of quick nutritious food. So on balance, i am fairly confident that's ok to eat them when you are famished and at a loss as to what else to eat. Baked on wholegrain or even multigrain toast will make whole protein. So that's a good combination.

About that apple juice. I wouldn't even credit it as any better than junk food. Sorry Shaun, its just apple flavoured sugar to me. Drink water and eat apples. And if you need energy, eat something like the above instead or have another tuna sandwich, preferably with some salad on it.

I probably agree with everything else Amy says.
 
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