AIBU to ask how people stay slim without strict dieting?

I have lost 6 stone since 2023. So slowly and steadily, and I have kept it off. I started by adding swimming- loads of it- a mile (68 lengths) 3-5 times a week. I tend to do an early morning swim saturday and sunday before the rest of them get moving. It's not like perimenopause lets me sleep anyway. Next I added an aerobics class, then a more active job which took me from 10-12k steps a day to 16-18 steps a day. Then I was slim enough to ride my bike comfortably so I started riding my bike to work. I think exercise is the main thing that has helped.

During all this time I still enjoyed my food but I tended towards better habits

*I love home made flapjack using high fruit and less butter/sugar for a treat. I also make low fat cakes using yoghurt instead of butter, with lower sugar.
*I have a lot of air fried chips and potatoes. Get my crunchy fix without loads of fat.
*I cook from scratch and seldom eat processed food in terms of actual meal items, though I'm partial to an occasional low-sugar greek yoghurt, or my light mayonnaise.
*I never buy things like chocolate bars and I never eat more than 2 biscuits in a day.
I don't buy cake in a café, I only ever get a drink. Things like crisps only occasionally as they are so high calorie and easy to eat loads of.
*I never eat out/takeaway much as its bloody expensive and I can cook...
*I was never a bad cook but I was previously very carb-heavy and sedentary. Now I rarely eat carbs at lunch time but go for high protein. I weigh my evening carbs so I dont eat too many, this is the only weighing I do.
*I gave up pasta because it bloats me and I can eat piles of it- potatoes fill me up for longer and are more nutritious.
*I snack when I'm hungry! I have to with the amount of calories I burn. I tend to go for crackers/corncakes and cheese, fruit, oatcakes, tinned fish. At the moment my go-to "Seriously hungry after exercise" snack is a tin of tuna with light mayonnaise and pickles served on corn cakes with some red onion. Light mayonnaise us pretty processed though I do like it. Sweet things like home made healthier cake/flapjack.

• I do drink but only light tonic with gin or red wine, and only ever a couple of drinks (1 or 2) a couple of times a week, unless its a special occasion like birthday/xmas. If I drink I want a salty snack- I go for gherkins, olives mostly now not crisps! *If I really want a sweet treat in the evening I have a mini ice cream *I'm flexible and not perfect. If its a birthday I eat what I want. Sometimes I have days off, on holiday I've even had a week off. Losing weight long term and sustainably isn't about complete austerity, being miserable won't last for most people. It's about your overall habits. I used to fail because after one bad day I would throw it all out the window. Now I just start again the next day.

Like this I have gone from morbidly obese to "just" overweight. I'm still losing slowly and hoping to add more exercise... because I really love it now!!

I eat 3 meals a day, I have a good relationship with food and I think that really helps. I don’t see any food as bad, which also helps. I run and exercise too but I’ve never been on an actual diet, they’re pointless because as soon as you stop it all goes out of the window. DH does the cooking and he’s good at controlling portion sizes, which is also a big help as I think it’s easy to lose track of that. One of my friends is (to be brutally honest) huge and the portions you get in their house are insane 😂

I eat 3 meals a day, I have a good relationship with food and I think that really helps. I don’t see any food as bad, which also helps. I run and exercise too but I’ve never been on an actual diet, they’re pointless because as soon as you stop it all goes out of the window. DH does the cooking and he’s good at controlling portion sizes, which is also a big help as I think it’s easy to lose track of that. One of my friends is (to be brutally honest) huge and the portions you get in their house are insane 😂

The pasty filling, if homemade, is just some stew. So you're right, that's not junk. Sadly most bought pasties will be made with very thick, refined and processed pastry full of carbs, fat and preservatives. That's the 'junk' bit. The M&S one has palm oil as the 4th ingredient, so definately one to avoid if you're trying to lose weight!

Age has a lot to do with it. I was effortlessly slim until I hit my forties when I had to take drastic action. I'd got so used to being slim that I didn't know what I should and shouldn't do and I could eat what and when I wanted without any ill effects.

Get to 60 and you often realise that staying slim without dieting is no longer in your remit. And often it's diet, plus exercise, plus intermittant fasting, plus anything else you can think of just to keep weight stable.

Pasties, properly made aren't junk food. But they were created for men working down the mines and later, farmers. Likewise the £55 pies M&S do for Christmas, served with vegetables are processed, but not junk. It's just too many calories unless you do a physical job or train/or do a sport. My Dad and my DH could eat them, my Mum and Nan etc would have a tiny slice. Unfortunately I wouldn't hold back and because I'm losing weight this will be the first year they won't be on my Christmas M&S order. But my Dad and DH, would often have busy days at work and probably eat too little.

Sounds nice (except i'd have real ham or a tin of tuna). You've just reminded me i love jarlsberg.

My diet is really weird:

jarlsberg, Quorn ham and pecans for breakfast

avocado for lunch

paneer stirfry for dinner

This is true. I grew up eating all home-cooked meals. We never had takeaway or junk like pasties or frozen pizza, so it literraly never occurs to me to have them. The only thing i do differently to my childhood is i've cut out bread and biscuits.

If i want 'fast food' i microwave a baked potato with tinned tuna or make tomato soup with tinned plum tomatoes and some herbs.

There's no point in posters saying 'I eat what I want', for me that would be, traditional pasties, pies, sausages on M&S sub rolls, a good amount of cheesecake and milky coffees. Everyone would carry body fat eating that. I was overfed as a child. I also used to treat myself with food. It is calories in vs calories out, with genetics and as we get older, what we eat thrown in. So the people eating what they want have developed good habits and have portion control.

Not really if you make an effort and and walk everywhere

For me, get to target weight by whatever means. I used mounjaro. Then weigh myself every morning and if over target, eat very very much less until back to goal. While I have access to scales, I will never be overweight again.

I feel fantastic!

Gosh this is a difficult one. I am 52 and always been very slim, meaning there are no tricks or strategies, just long life habits. What I observe is that I eat smaller portions than others, I stop when I am full (eating too much makes me unwell), I cook a huge lot from scratch/eat healthy, I don't have a sweet tooth and I move a lot (I do exercise 3-4 times a week between weight lifting and running, but I also move my body a lot during the day for a million different tasks).

Hilarious! Long term fasting is great for you. The wine not so much but I love it.

Why would you want to do this to yourself? Is the loads of wine to black out the trauma of not eating for 3 days?

Why? This is terrible. You must feel dreadful as well.

I stay slim in the most unhealthy way possible 😄 I dont eat at all Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday - Saturday I eat pretty much what I like and drink absolutely loads of wine

Is it not genetics for some? I am naturally slim and I could not physically eat more than I do. I assume that’s to do with my metabolism. What I do eat is very small in portion compared to most. So I don’t diet I just eat until I’m full. I think that anyone not naturally slim, such as my dh, has to limit or change what he eats in order to stay slim.

If I did this, I'd be obese!

My appetite far outweighs my actual calorie needs.

And that's eating a healthy diet, 3 meals a day, 100g+ protein, wholefoods, no booze etc.

I just have a big appetite.

It was this, it's still on catch up

Watch The Secret Lives of Slim People | Stream free on Channel 4

However, I think that one of the 8 people they featured did appear to eat more calories than she burned but for the other 7, it was always the case that they didn't eat much, in one way or another, when they looked at everything they ate over time.

A few years ago, I did a work project where a group of us stayed in a hotel for weeks on end, so we were together for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner every day. We saw everything that everyone ate and it was obvious why people were the weight they were.

So the person who always had 3 courses at dinner and was always buying doughnuts for everyone, so they had an excuse to eat them themselves, was obviously heavier than the slim person who never touched the doughnuts and other snacks that were always available and for dinner, had a starter and a main course that they left most of or took for lunch the next day.

This

Go and stand in a supermarket
Its wall to wall carbs
Of course this is deliberate because carbs spike your blood glucose, insulin is produced then your BG drops rapidly
this prompts you to eat
You dont use your stored carbs, glycogen as they are always available
Watch a documentary called " The men who made us fat"
It was deliberate, yep read again
Deliberate because it gets you buying again and again

Add in time poverty, poverty, price and availability, lack of cooking space and knowledge and no eating area/ table plus the instant availability of crap via Just eat etc

Unless you are an Olympic rower or run marathons you do not need so many carbs!

The cherry on the cake
Now we have made you fat, lets invent and sell you jabs to make you slim
Keep the money rolling in !

Don’t focus on losing weight. Focus on getting back in touch with your natural appetite, so that you can eat when hungry and stop when satiated. Once you’ve got this nailed, you genuinely can eat what you want and not gain excess weight. I naturally eat less when I am less active and more when more active. No foods are off limits. No foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ . No weird rules to follow.

It took me a year to achieve this in my late twenties. ( I had a sub-clinical eating disorder of binge eating/ compulsive overeating before this), but I’m mid fifties now, so it worked. I can see now it got rid of ‘food noise’ the same way WLI do, but without using WLI.

@Coffeeloveer its just finding a lifestyle where your food intake matches your activity level.

Once you get this right and it becomes routine it's actually quite hard to put on weight without conscious effort.

My metabolism has dropped off recently (mid/late 40s) so I'm currently adjusting my routine. I've opted for more active for now.

For me it’s lots of allergies which mean that my diet is restricted, strength training (for my mh and bones) and not being overly interested in food (due to mh and allergies).

Or as others like to tell me ‘luck’. (I would love to not shit myself every time I eat ‘normally’).