AIBU to ask how people stay slim without strict dieting?

I piled weight on when I was skipping breakfast, eating very little at lunchtime and having a large evening meal.
Swapped the main meal to lunchtime and I feel much better.

I havent rtft but I think is a lot to do with luck and genetics. (Await to be flamed)

My mum was always overweight but if i think about what I eat now, I probably dont eat less than she did at a similar age, and im not overweight , bmi 21. I do more exercise but you cant outrun a bad diet.
I used to have an ED but I havent counted calories for probably 20 years. Im petite (less than 5ft) but i eat bread, carbs, and chocolate just about every day. I live in fear of it catching up with me, because I feel like I used my lifetime supply of discipline when I had an ED.

@gannett I wouldn't want a big stodgy meal after a run.

I would say a bad diet was one where the food is shades of beige, most of it processed.

I'm putting away about 2500 cals on a lot of days. Easily 3000 sometimes. I'm not somebody who skips to the gym after a long day tbh, even if I enjoy it while I'm there. But not being able to eat heartily would be like torture for me.

I was joking. Well, not entirely as I did eat the whole bag lol. I love cashews but can't eat enough in one go to give me any serious energy. I mainly use them for snacking.

By doing a shit-tonne of exercise.

Some people are skinny because they are not food motivated. (I have a friend who frequently “forgets” to eat lunch.) Not me. I am constantly planning my next meal. When I was injured and couldn’t exercise I had to be really mindful not to put on weight because I’m so hungry all the time and I’m used to eating basically whatever I want. 4 meals a day (breakfast, first lunch at 11.30, second lunch at 1.30, dinner at 6). I have a reputation for bringing a huge amount of Tupperware everywhere I go (filled with food, obviously).

BUT I barely eat any ultra processed food. Bake all my bread, naan, pizza bases, wraps, pittas etc. Almost everything I eat is homemade. Hence all the Tupperware. I really like vegetables. And nuts. I don’t have a sweet tooth.

I don’t eat anything after dinner (at 6). Don’t drink much alcohol. I hate fizzy drinks. Not tempted by shop bought biscuits/cake or chocolate. Cycle EVERYWHERE (hilly commute!). Pre injury was running 20-40km a week (building back up to it now). I dance around the kitchen when I’m cooking and religiously do my physio exercises (weights etc) so I can start running long distances again.

Hope that helps!

I don’t snack, walk a lot, have a very active child that forces me to run often, don’t drink anything other than unsweetened coffee and water.

It’s a WFH day and I skipped my exercise class this morning as I have a cold. It’s a very low activity day, and I’m a petite woman (I should have said this in my post), so 1500 calories is plenty.

Either way, it’s not “dieting” in any sense, which is what I was responding to. It’s eating what you need to eat.

Yes, of course it can be addressed but the point I'm making is that weight gain is not necessarily the result of chips with everything, endless snacks and pudding with every meal.

But the three doughnut person may not have a dinner, so if they missed breakfast, had say 500 calories for lunch with a pre packed sandwich and then three doughnuts, basic glazed then that's only 1100 calories. Or even if they had a breakfast say another 500 cals then thats 1600 so not an amount that would make one put huge amounts of weight on. If you had three glazed greggs doughnuts a day for a month you'd lose weight, you'd be really unwell I bet but you'd be having 600 calories a day.

I eat bread every day. I'm 5 ft 3 and 8.5 stone. Aged 54.

People that smoke cigarettes are normally thin.

I don’t calorie count or avoid carbs but I do only eat whole foods. for breakfast i have oats & yoghurt. lunch will be a meat with 2 or 3 veggies and a carb. snacks will be a piece of fruit and cheese and maybe a hard boiled egg. dinner is always beef potatoes and sauerkraut.

i eat quite a lot in terms of quantity, but it’s never crisps, UPFs, sweets, chocolate etc. And I only drink water. There’s no junk food in the house at all, although I did have a piece of cake at my child’s birthday the other day (tbf i had made the cake and skimped a lot on the sugar). Very occasionally I buy rice crackers but that’s the only UPF we have and it’s not all the time.

I’m not particularly sporty but I’m generally active. I try to workout at home a few times a week (not very intensively though to be honest), and i walk a fair bit too. fortunately i don’t have an office job anymore which has helped with this.

when i had an office job i was much less healthy. i would buy food out often and snack on chocolate. Eating healthy would have felt like a difficult chore. I wasn’t overweight exactly but i definitely had excess fat stores around my body so didn’t look so good naked and my periods were painful as i wasn’t taking care of myself.
I’m in a place now where healthy eating is just woven into how i live my life, largely because i changed my habits when i had children. i didn’t want them to see me eating crap and then ask for it too!

My job (farming) is very helpful for this. I milk cows on my own, and it's a lot of walking up and down the parlour! As a bonus, I eat whatever I want, don't have to skimp on portions, and the job is unintentional strength training. This means that any new sports requiring strength are ridiculously easy for us at work!

I remember that too. There was the opera singer who 'only ate healthy food' yet her portions were mind bogglingly enormous, eg a breakfast fruit salad that was a punnet of grapes, bunch of bananas, multiple oranges etc and filled a washing up bowl.

Plus the traffic warden who 'lived on salad' but failed to mention that she was getting pasties every time she passed Greggs on the high street while at work.

There was a programme years ago where people swore blind they weren’t overeating, were counting every calorie yet were overweight and/or gaining. When they were watched with cameras, they were all eating a lot more than they thought or were admitting to. One woman ate hundreds of calories of dinner whilst cooking it, then had a full dinner. People underestimate what they eat and others lie.

If you weigh yourself every few weeks, you can cut down your food a bit before you realise you’re a stone heavier after a year though. You would probably notice clothes getting tighter after a few pounds anyway.

don't have any rules because I've never put on a lot of weight and I think I just naturally adjust (eg I'll eat 3 doughnuts and obviously then not be hungry late
See I don't understand this bit! I could never eat 3 doughnuts. I have never in my life eaten a whole packet of biscuits in one sitting like some. I snack a lot which is my downfall but things like one packet of crisps or 2 biscuits a couple of times a day. I cook from scratch every night, and I'm still fat! I don't put on weight because I exercises a lot but I'm still overweight. I need to lose it but unless I count every calorie it just doesn't come off!

I stop eating when i'm full and often leave food on my plate

You only need to gain a quarter of a pound a week to put on a stone in a year, which is a very small overeat in calorific terms, apples vary in weight but it probably could be done with apples.

But surely you can see that

porridge with strawberries and chia seeds
tea and coffee
salmon and vegetables

Isn't very much food, even if it is enough for you?

Which goes back to my point earlier in the thread that people who stay slim without dieting don't eat very much. And while they might be 'eating what they want without restriction' not everyone would be happy with so little food and would feel restricted if they only ate two low calorie healthy meals a day.

Because even if that's a large bowl of porridge and a large amount of salmon and vegetables, it's only going to be 1500 calories a day tops, which is fewer calories than most people burn.

I don’t know a single person who is not aware of what they are eating and keeping a tally in their heads. Of course there are metabolic differences between people and some have a genetic propensity to put on weight others don’t. I know a woman who eats loads and is very slim. But even she takes note of what she eats.
And, there’s not much in maintenance calories between a 100kg weight and 60kg. About 500 calories, which can be 45gr of almonds and an apple or a protein shake or a latte and a croissant. Of course it can also be a large salad and a roll with ham or chicken and rice but I’m just saying is it’s quite easy to eat not a lot more but enough extra calories to maintain a much higher weight.

It’s not dieting at all.

My body does not need 3 meals a day.

Today I’m WFH (a naturally less active day than when I go into the office). I had porridge with chia seeds and strawberries late morning and I’ve been drinking coffee and tea. I’m having salmon and vegetables for dinner. If I tried to stuff in a third meal for the sake of it, I would just make myself sick. 🤷‍♀️

I never eat carbs. Very fit and healthy for it

Because it's not that simple. Your metabolic rate changes. And not all calories are the same. 100 calories of apple will be processed by your body very differently to 100 calories of chocolate.