Slim women. Do you work at it?

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I always thought slim women could just eat whatever they liked naturally. But looking at the eating habits of my slim friends, they don’t seem to eat whatever they like - they are constantly making healthy, low cal choices and I can’t shake the feeling it’s deliberate in order to stay slim, rather than them just actually fancying the lower cal option.

is this your experience? Is this what slim women have to do forever? When did you start doing this and do you find it easier now?

The slimmest people i know have the. Worst. Diets! One was refused a job because she was so thin they thought she was unhealthy, but she lived on junk. My exDH was a lazy bastard, ate like a horse and never put a scrap on. I have to 'work' at it and still fat! If i ate what they ate, theyd have to cut me out of my house. We def utilise fod differently.

I'm slim, size 6/8 on top and size 8 ish on bottom. Always been the same and I don't really work at it all ,I don't exercise as such although I lead a fairly busy life and have a job where I'm in my feet for 10 hrs a day. I do own a horse but I'd be lying if I said that made me exercise loads because I don't. I eat and drink what I want and it's not necessarily healthy either. What I don't do is snack all the time, I mainly tend to just eat my meals and that's it, although I do eat crisps and chocolate etc it's not all the time. Hardly ever eat puddings. If there's cakes etc at work I'll eat them to excess but we never have them at home.

I'm 39 and fully expecting it to all catch up with me at some point!!

I’m slim and don’t have time to work out with 2 kids and I enjoy eating what I like but I do tend to pick the healthier low carb options just for health benefits

Ive always been slim, could eat what I want but mostly ate healthy 80/20 and always stayed size 10/12. Now peri menopausal for last few years size 14-6 and cannot eat healthy anymore. I stuff my face with crap can’t control what I eat

On the other hand, I've seen size 12 called 'slim' here so many times and it really really isn't unless you are tall.

@AllOfThemWitches well no that's my point, I think size 12 can be slim depending on how the weight is distributed, it's too difficult to generalise by sizes though tbh, there's too much variation to say consistently that a size is or isn't something.

I must admit I am one of those annoying people who can eat pretty much anything without gaining weight or changing shape.
It's not a conscious decision to stay slim, it's just my natural shape and metabolism that keeps me at a slim size eight.
Whether I will stay this way forever I'm not sure, but I've been like this since my teens and I'm now 43.
Maybe once I'm passed the menopause things will change, but until then I'm enjoying eating whatever I like.

When I was younger (under 30a I’d say) I always are what I wanted and was always skinny. At uni I was a 6-8. Terribly diet. When I got my first job I crept into the 8-10 category and was actually bullied about being so slim from a senior male member of staff who was massively overweight. I kind of stayed around the size 10 mark all through my 20s without really thinking about it. I’m not a big portion eater and don’t always like a pudding. I do love a bar of chocolate an hour after though. Lol. When I was 32 I had my first child and after that I gained weight again and hit the size 12 bracket by my 40s. I’m now just over mid 40s and conscious about things feeling right. But I still don’t really avoid any foods or choose only low cal. I eat what I want to be honest and I’m a fussy eater and don’t actually like a lot of ‘healthy options’. I’m possibly going to start watching my calorie intake soon but probably more cut back. We will still have our family pizza night. I’ll enjoy it.

But I do think it’s down to genetics. Im from a family where on one side they’re all over weight and even into the obese side. They’ve all tried diets and have never found they work. The other side of my family are the slim side until middle age where the women tend to have put on weight around the middle. The men have remained slimmer. I think I’ve picked up the genetics from that side. My sister has always yo-yoed in weight. My own two children now have my genes and their dad’s side which is fairly similar. But one of my children is what I would call slim. Not skinny. Probably just a normal weight for her age. Fits in clothes mostly for her age - sometimes needs next size for length. She grazes a lot all day and does have a sweet tooth. She’s also fussy and a mostly beige diet. My other daughter eats a wider range of foods, fruit and veg, probably similar sized portions to me and she is classed as overweight for her age. Although, unlike me who was flat chested til kids came along she developed a larger chest size from 11 onwards and wears bigger bras than me so some of the weight is definitely there!! But she’s on adult clothing similar to me but isn’t quite as tall as me yet. She seems to have inherited my side of the family traits regarding shape and size. May have to monitor. But actually from looking at her compared to many teens her age she isn’t as overweight as some - many many more seem to be much bigger.

I do believe genetics has the biggest role to play in weight - from the amount of ghrelin we each produce that makes us hungry, to the amount of leptin that says we’re full, to the level of fat our bodies say “this is what I need to be safe in case of hard times” - it is all so much more than just calories in and calories out. All prescribed by our genes.

One thing that completely surprised me was in pregnancy, when I was so careful and counted out the extra calories I would need - I still ended up fat, so hoped I would lose some pounds with breastfeeding. Even on a calorie controlled diet it didn’t happen, I was so careful - then when I stopped breastfeeding (after a couple of years) I lost so much weight so quickly it was shocking to me. I had the concave stomach, massive thigh gap, cheekbones like razors - I looked so ill, yet my eating habits did not change.

Pre kids I could eat whatever I liked without changing - size 8. Post kids, I’m a 10 and people still say I’m slim, but under the clothes there’s definitely a very wobbly belly and a wide ass 😂

Should probably add, I’ve never been naturally slim, never eaten just what I wanted, I’ve watched my weight (often in distress!) since I was a teenager and been between a size 8-14.

No I don’t. It’s pure luck. There is no moral value or ‘discipline’ in me being a size 8 and I know plenty of people who are larger than me with better diets.

I enjoy physical exercise which helps I think, I wouldn't be motivated purely by how I look but knowing how it makes me feel and the benefits to my health and body I find that a decent motivator. I am conscious of what I eat but I don't exclude anything or feel deprived. Most is habit I suppose, I enjoy veg and although if I want chocolate/sweets/something calorie dense ill have some but just not loads. I don't feel like I'm missing out at all but I don't just eat whatever I want either if that makes sense.

I’m relatively slim, size 10. I enjoy some treats, but also enjoy eating healthy food and exercising. It’s just finding a balance that makes you feel comfortable.

I've been pretty much the same size since I was 19, I'm 5'5" and my weight fluctuates between 45-47 kilos. Currently 7 months pregnant and I'm 52kg. My entire body is exactly the same as when I'm not pregnant but slim with a watermelon up my jumper type look.

I normally do no exercise, never been to the gym and I eat whatever I want, although I don't really like fast food (MacDonald's etc) I absolutely gorge myself on cakes, pastries, desserts and eat a fry up most days.

I've a fast metabolism and after I give birth the extra weight will drop right off and I'll go back to normal. My babies have all been breastfed and end up enormous chubby monsters, I honestly feel like my body doesn't 'know' how to store fat and my breast milk is extra fatty and makes my babies chubby.

I usually wear a size 4-6 but I've got big boobs for my body shape normally around 30FF.

If I'm ever unwell like food poisoning or something and have to skip some meals my weight will drop very very quickly, whereas if you challenged me to put a certain amount of weight on in a month I would most definitely fail.

I'm 48, same size since I was 15. 8 stone 4. I eat what I want, when I want. I don't think about any of it. I believe in my case its just luck, although I do cover 20k steps a day 7 days a week.

Is the 20k steps walking or a job in your feet?

Mon-Fri work. Weekends walking and at home.

Isn't there a thing about fidgets burning more calories? I'm not good at being still. I I teach, and tend to pace while I teach. I also seem to walk miles around the school every day, but I still never get past 6000 steps in work. I have long strides though and often do about a third less than friends in walks.

Of course it can.
I’m a size 12/14. I sometimes even wear 16 but I’m not a fan of clingy clothes. Side on I’m slim. I’m just very wide of hip and that’s how my bones are. Not much I can do about it. I’m healthy, within my bmi and have people make comments (in context) about my slim figure.
But I’m also tall.

I’m a total piggy-wig, in the same way as someone who hasn’t touched a drink in 25 years would still call themselves an alcoholic.

I love delicious calorific food (fancy cheeses, homemade cakes, proper Venetian-type hot chocolate, gorgeous bread, buttered pasta), and would happily eat all the live-long day. However, I don’t eat about 85% of the things I want to eat, because I want to stay a size 10. 😩

I eat small portions of healthy (nice healthy not
miserable healthy) food, cook from scratch since DH had a major health diagnosis, and generally don’t eat breakfast. It’s continually dispiriting to realise how very, very little you need to eat in your late forties just to stay the same weight.

I do still eat some of the things I love, in small quantities, but they represent a tiny fraction of the banquet I could quite easily woof down every day.

When people say I’m lucky to be so slim, I smile wryly and think if they only knew that there’s a cigarette-paper’s-worth of resolve between me and morbid obesity.

To be clear, I’m not saying the converse is true, and would never speculate as the reasons why someone struggles with weight. I just know that I personally am slim due to eternal vigilance and mostly denying myself the food I want.

I'm slim and yes I make consious choices all day every day to not over eat. I like to make sure I get hungry in between meals so I actually enjoy my meals and I'm not eating too much. I also make sure I generally make good choices when it comes to food. However, I don't deprive myself of treats, my mum said to me once, "you can have biscuits and treats, just have one or two not the whole packet" and that really stuck with me. I eat treats every day but only one or two and I will only eat them when I'm actually hungry, I never stuff food in, I hate feeling over full. I eat unhealthy food just like everyone else, but in moderation (maybe subway one lunch a week, oven pizza one night and a take away on Friday) bit the rest of the time I just to eat filling, wholesome food like stew or steak and mash or spaghetti bolognaise. I'm carefully with how much oil I put in things but I don't exclude good fats like butter and whole fat milk. I try to stay away from low calorie diet food as it's not filling/satistying meaning you just eat more of it . I have put weight on before but only when making constant poor food choices at uni.

One thing that I have noticed after spending time with friends who are heavier than me is portion controll. One of my friends is probably a size 16/18 (I'm a size 10), she eats healthily and the same sorts of foods as me, however after staying with her for a week I was honestly shocked at the size of her portions. We ate the same food for a week and our diets probably aren't that different, but she would have portions that were 3 times the size of mine, meaning she would eat as much as I would in a while day in one meal. I think this makes a huge difference. If you overeat your stomach stretches and then you need to eat more, it's a vicious cycle.

5’2” and size 12 here (9 st). Where I live, people never stop talking about how slim I am. There are 29 kids in DS’s class and only one of the mums is slimmer than me. It very much depends on your definition of slim. For some, it may be having no fleshy bits at all. For others, it may be a case of shape or measurements.

I would love to be size 10 but can only do so by consuming 1000 calories a day, which I find too difficult to maintain.

However, I am older and go by old measurements. In some brands, I am a 10, but with a 37-38” hip and chest, I am definitely not a size 10.

Nailed it! Portion size is a huge factor.

I know so many women who complain about weight but eat more in one meal than I eat in a day.

I went to McDonald’s recently with a friend and our DCs, both 5. DS had a cheeseburger happy meal but doesn’t like fries, so I eat those and order a cheeseburger for myself. Friend’s DD had a nuggets happy meal PLUS a McChicken sandwich because the happy meal isn’t enough. This was two days after she was huffing that she’d been told DD was 2kg overweight.