AIBU to ask how people stay slim without strict dieting?

What is wrong with English calories specifically? Would you prefer American calories, or perhaps metric kilojoules instead?

The last two weeks has been unusual (precisely the Camino!!) and feasting. I walk about ten miles a day at home if I can manage it, though

I absolutely loathe the English calories on menus thing.

No, I eat out with friends and husband several times a week. Today I had brunch, a chocolate croissant on the train and tonight I'm having pasta (it will be big portions) with fizzy wine. I don't count calories what's the point of being alive then?

@CurdinHenry that's a very impressive but probably unusual amount of walking!

I'm more thinking people who try to get their steps in and do the odd workout but work from home etc. My experience of friends who have lost weight (plus myself over the years) is that radically cutting down the meals out and booze is a big help.

There will always be people who are outliers in all cases - for example I don't deny there are some like those on this thread who are a size 6 and eat a lot every day without copiously exercising. I do know one person like this. I was really just suggesting that for most people who are thin their maintenance calories won't be huge so they are either doing a lot of exercise to burn it off and create a high metabolism or eating at the lower end of 'normal' amounts of food.

My mum for example has been really thin my whole adult life. She never snacks (but will eat a piece of homemade cake if you offer) and eats basically two meals a day which are a combo of fruit/veg/grains/lean protein. It's not as boring as this but that's what it boils down to. Does what she wants on holiday or out for meals but you know in private afterwards she's eating less to compensate. She's very active and healthy at 75. It's what I aspire to tbh but I've got an awful sweet tooth which I have to restrain!

You might find the weight appears in another week or two though? And certainly it would if you did it regularly for months or years

I agree with the poster above- anyone who tracks calories can see how very difficult us is to stay in a decent calorie intake in a restaurant. Things like Sunday roasts can easily be 1500 calories. That’s my entire days maintenance calories

Blimey - you walk on average 13 miles a day, or is this exceptional ie. walking the Camino de Santiago?

You definitely can. I have eaten out for every meal for the last two weeks (and had a few glasses of wine a day) and I weight exactly the same as I did before the fortnight began (55kg/ 5 ft 6). I have walked about 300km in the same period tbf.

I am really lucky that I absolutely LOVE wholefoods, which means that I get quite full on a relatively low amount of calories. It also helps that I can afford to buy the said foods as they can be more expensive.

Other things I do include not snacking if I can help it but eating fruit and a handful of nuts/greek yogurt when I do. I also finish eating by 7 pm most nights. I tend to cook from scratch but will have a take away once a week.

A typical day for me is a small amount of
porridge with seeds, almond butter and blueberries for breakfast. Leftovers or smoked salmon/beans/chickpeas with a big salad, tahini dressing and a handful of nuts or avocado followed by dark chocolate. Dinner is usually chicken/fish/tofu curry/stir-fry/gumbo with lots of veggies and a small amount of rice or pasta with a date for after.

I agree with you about the carbs - I did the Atkins diet decades ago so that I could fit into my wedding dress to look better and it definitely did reduce the cravings for food. But I had to go mega low (less than 20g of carbs a day) to get into ketosis and it was just too restrictive to maintain long term.

seeing what slim people eat, it’s just less. Guy at work walks in fast every day, about 4 miles…does golf 3 times a week eats the same kind of home made sandwich every day, doesn’t snack eats pretty much the same meal at night…just not interested in food.

slim woman who walks everyday, she’ll have a tin of tuna for lunch, skip breakfast and eat a normal dinner.

I’m a stone and a half overweight, was 3 stone. It all went on in my late 30s after always being slim up to then. I’ve lost the stone and a half through cutting out the extra shit I was eating. Biscuits at work, cheese and biscuits for supper, ready meals.

we cook properly now, eat more protein…more fibre.

but when I was slim I was far more active, I did snack but I’d probably not have a proper dinner if I’d snacked in the day…I ate less basically.

@Sunbringer

she probably doesn’t like her clothes fitting tight.

im 5,8 and 8 stone 10 and a size 10, sometimes 8 on top

I have a busy and a social lifestyle so conventional diets don’t work for me

Why not... what is the conflict between lifestyle and a "conventional diet" for U, OP?

Some people just have naturally small appetites and aren’t over fond of e.g. biscuits and cakes.
I was one such - at least until my mid-late 50s. I didn’t need to diet or do anything else to stay at a size 10, even after 2 babies. At one point there was even a rumour that I was anorexic - apparently because I’d declined biscuits at a so-called friend’s house! Probably horrible custard creams, and at the time I preferred a fag with my coffee anyway.

I'm about the same size, 5'8 and 9.5 stone but definitely eat 3 meals a day and I'm not vegetarian but I don't have a sweet tooth at all and have learned to eat what I want rather than the portion given. I do drink a few glasses of wine in a week.
That said, I think some of the answer is metabolism. My father, 5'11, weighed 8.5 - 9 stone all his adult life, ate out most lunchtimes as part of his job and another hot dinner in the evening. Never put on weight.

Yes this is the same for me. I never lost weight doing 16/8 fasting, and I have lost a bit now I have gone back to yoghurt and fruit for breakfast. I do have a genetic predisposition to diabetes in my family and I wonder if that may be the difference.

I think it must have been this - BBC Horizon Why are Thin People Not Fat?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB1DA2AB38FEC9F96

Its the other was round, 10% genetics and 90% habits / environment
Until the 1970s everyone was fit and slim with the odd exception
The way we ate, what we ate, food type and availability, how we travel and our daily habits have changed enormously
A small example
As a child we would shop frequently for food, fresh, what was in season and on offer.
Mum walked to the village shop and back, she baked, her friend would ring up and ask if she wanted a cabbage, a lettuce etc as they had a glut
She walked to collect it

Then supermarkets came in
Marvellous!
Mum was ecstatic
She drove 12 miles to the fancy new supermarket once a fortnight
Of course it wouldnt keep so she started buying frozen stuff, dinner that was once fresh meat,veg and potato was now a Findus crispy pancake

Just a small example of how environment and availability changed

I remember some years ago there was an experiment shown on TV where a selection of 'naturally thin' people went on a diet where they had to overeat for a period, I think it was 3 months and they had to eat about 3500 calories a day.

The first point of interest was that they all struggled to do this. I remember a popular method they used was to eat pots of clotted cream - high calorie, low volume - to get their calorie count up.

The second point of interest was that they did gain weight - but only a relatively small amount and for a short period. It was something like, they put on on average of half a stone in the first month but then they didn't continue to gain, it was as if their bodies had adjusted.

I may have some of the specifics wrong, I will see if I can find anything about it online.

I wonder if what you consider to be loads is the same as what someone is overweight considers to be loads. It would be very interesting to do a real side by side comparison, which would be impossible on here as people over and under estimate how much they’re consuming.

I’ve never really been over weight but have been towards the upper end of my healthy weight bracket eating whatever I liked and not really doing any regular exercise. I had a very obese friend who swore she barely ate a thing. I saw her shopping being delivered and she had 3 blocks of cheese for the week. I asked her what she was making with the cheese and she said “nothing much but you can eat half a block of cheese while you’re making dinner can’t you”. She wouldnt have thought to include that in a list of what she ate that day because it was just part of the cooking process.

so I do wonder if it’s less about genetics and more about minds set. Yes, genetics will play a part, as will health conditions but essentially if you eat more calories than you burn you gain weight.

I think it's 90% genetics and 10% habits for people who are naturally slim.

I've always been slim, never had to work for it. I have noticed it's easier to put weight on as I get older. I don't exercise deliberately but I do walk the dog and I walk quickly compared to others.

I eat 3 meals a day and usually have a yoghurt as a snack. I don't deny myself if there are snacks in the office but I don't buy snack food so I don't snack at home.

I don't really like sandwiches so lunch is usually leftovers from the night before. I love cooking and don't eat much processed food.

My husband eats roughly the same diet as me and he finds it harder to stay slim, which is why I think it's mostly genetics. The only difference is I eat until I'm full and he will eat until the plate is cleared.

I don't think you can be slim and eat out all the time and drink alcohol. Not an issue for me as I have small kids and don't get out much, but I have a friend who is super social and has recently lost two stone. She's basically replaced socialising with the gym!

These replies are all different but they are mostly people who

1. Don't eat that much

1. Exercise a lot

Never a free lunch, or lunches in your case Op.

I am and always have been very slim/thin, with no fat on my upper body barely at all but with some on my hips and bum. I’m 37 with two kids. I don’t know how much I weigh but clothes I’m somewhere between size 8-10 and I’m about 5”8. I never ever put on any weight. I lost my baby weight with zero effort whatsoever and my stomach is as flat as it ever has been. I eat whatever I want anytime of day. It is absolutely just my metabolism, it is not in any way anything I do and it is not something I work to maintain. I don’t do much exercise at all, except maybe a few dog walks a week and riding my e bike 5 minutes to school drop offs and pick ups.

I only ever have full fat dairy, have full cream milk in my tea and coffee, drink alcohol, love cheese, bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, fatty red meat, take out, chocolate, cake, crisps. Sadly not enough fruit and veg. But at least three meals a day with snacks. I’m not a huge fan of UPF food or sweets but other than that I love and eat as much high calorie food as I can get.

100% I think people don’t understand the role genetics play. Two people could eat the exact same things and exercise the same amount and one put on weight and one not. I think my genetics are pretty unusual considering how many people carry more weight than they’d like but I’m not the only person like this I know. Weight has become a marker of worth, whether you’re lazy or not, but ultimately people are surrounded by UPF food/high calorie food and don’t do much exercise and most people will gain weight, and a lot of people will only ever lose weight or maintain a “healthy” weight when they obsess over calories/use weight loss drugs.

Maybe one day it’ll change but maybe it won’t. To be honest I know I’m not healthy enough on the inside but at the minute I don’t have the motivation to do better and you’d never know by looking at me.

It's simple, albeit not easy

We eat less