How do people without disordered habits eat?

[Frequency]

It's probably the wrong place to ask but how do normal people eat? Why are the not either fat or hungry all the time?

And, most importantly, how do they deal with cravings? Like, how do they just eat what they fancy, when they fancy without worrying about losing control and gaining weight?

If for example, they really, really wanted a portion of Gregg's brownies with salted caramel dip, would they just order them without considering how they would fit into their daily calorie allowance?

Surely, if they did that, they'd be over their TDEE that day? And if they did that say every couple of weeks, they'd gain weight.

Order the brownies. Eat them. That’s it.

Fat / dieting friends order the brownies.

Then go mad, they’ve “broken my diet”

I would have the brownies with the dip if I really wanted it. If it was mega calorific I then wouldn’t eat lunch or just have a small lunch.

If I'd done that, I would not have been able to have any dinner and I'd be starving now.

This is where my confusion comes in. The brownies, IIRC, are 530 Kcals a portion. I'd already eaten two bowls of cereal, so if I'd caved and ordered them then I would not have had any calories left to eat.

Obviously, my thinking is disordered, I know that but how do people just do that and not gain weight? If they've already eaten and they order the brownies and then have dinner and eat normally the next day - which I assume is what they do, how are they not overweight?

I’m in no way qualified to answer this question, but I think people without disordered habits eat three meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Snacks are a treat - not something they eat every day. If they do have a treat eg: an ice cream on a sunny day, they probably don’t then have a pudding with their evening meal - to even the calories out over the course of the day. If the meals they eat are nutritious and filling they shouldn’t get too hungry or have cravings, but if they really, really want something eg Greggs brownies then they have it. They don’t think about it too much.

I think they don't ever have that DEEP, DEEP craving for those brownies that you or me would have. Just that.

I've cleaned the entire house from top to bottom to distract myself from the brownies and I still want them 😭

I actually think it’s quite rare to not think about what you’re eating and be slim. Healthy eating people make a conscious effort to do so.

What cereal are you eating that you can’t have two of them and 530kcal too plus a light supper?

I can’t answer because I’m definitely slightly obsessed with being slim but I’m size 6 and will often have a treat - usual however when it’s really calorific I’m not that hungry for the next meal. And I also exercise a lot.

How tasty could these brownies possibly be? I've had the cookies with chocolate sauce and they weren't that good. Not half as good as I expected them to be, waste of calories 😥

As to your question, no idea unfortunately, I have struggled with disordered eating most of my life and would love to just "eat like a normal person"

I think it is all about habits, probably deeply engrained from childhood. I don’t really think about brownies. If I want a dessert when I’m out, I eat it but I’m not walking around thinking about food outside of mealtimes. I eat my meals and that’s it.

For years I ate what I wanted, now I have to watch what I eat a bit more.

I average my calories out over the week. I would have less calories over the next few days to even things out. I'm quite active though and run a fair bit so I have quite a few cals to play with. A long run for me would burn over 600cals so it would all average out without me feeling deprived of anything.

I just eat when I’m hungry.

Yesterday I ate breakfast at 10ish (toast), a sort of snack thing with fish and potato at about 4, then a cheese salad in the evening. Few good quality chocolates.

Today a smallish 2 course lunch out and nothing else as I wasn’t hungry.

My weight hovers around normal/slim to pretty slim, depending how many weekends away I’ve had in the last 3 months!

I don’t ever eat based on what the clock tells me and I don’t snack on a regular basis.

Often if I have a snack, I then won’t feel hungry for a meal or I’ll have another small, snack sized meal later, so essentially one meal stretched over 2 eats!

What is ‘disordered’? That’s entirely subjective.

I eat 2 meals a day; lunch and dinner. I eat pretty much whatever I fancy, but brownies with a dip would be too sweet for me.

I’m obese but my DP is a healthy weight and has been all his adult life. I asked him this recently. He said he feels he has an ‘off switch’. He’ll eat so much then physically can’t have any more. Same with alcohol. He eats sensible portions, some food he cooks but he also eats ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
I’ve just read Ultra-processed people by Dr. Chris Van Tulleken. If you struggle with food, I’d recommend it. I find when I eat UPFs, I’m susceptible to having my drive to overeat/binge getting triggered. Opposite of DP, my switch gets flicked and I eat til it’s all gone or I feel physically ill. Not only is it driving up my weight but it’s a perpetual cycle.
I have significantly reduced the amount of UPFs I eat for 2 weeks. My food diary would look like this before - breakfast: cereal with extra sugar and milk, lunch: sandwich, crisps, chocolate bar, maybe a portion of fruit. Snack: biscuits. Dinner: pasta with homemade sauce, occasionally pizza, homemade lasagne. But also - extra chocolate bars, sweets in the car/on the go.
Now - breakfast - porridge, home made blueberry muffin or ham and tomato frittata, homemade granola bars, lunch: home made salad with potatoes or a home made wrap with salad, yoghurt with fruit and a squeeze of honey, pistachios. Dinner is often similar but no chocolate binges after dinner, no pizzas: more pasta and sauce or meat with rice/potatoes or veg. I’ve had a reduction in chronic pain. I haven’t had to use my in the moment migraine medication. I’m sleeping better. I’ve got more energy. I’m less bloated. My IBS is more settled. Most importantly, my binge habit is broken. I’ve just started with AF. Usually I’d eat loads of chocolate in the PMS week but I haven’t even thought about it. What surprised me was how quickly those cravings went away when I just reduced the UPFs. It’s quite astounding.

I just eat what I want when I want.

I don't eat breakfast because I never want it.

I might want a brownie without a dip (because like a PP it's too sweet for my taste).

If I crave food I don't have, I just forget about it.

I've always been slim, never watched my weight or worried about what I eat. I have put on a bit in last few years now I'm middle aged but still pretty much in middle of healthy BMI (weight myself very infrequently). I do snack. A lot to be honest and have a very sweet tooth. We don't really have puddings after meals so maybe my snacking isn't as bad as puddings plus snacks? Also, I think generally I eat smaller meal portions than a lot of people. Not tiny but I wouldn't eat the amount you'd get when eating out if I was just eating at home. So maybe it's portion sizes for me rather than being able to resist snacks? Not sure.

When you say you want to order the brownies do you mean order them to be delivered? It would literally never occur to me to have something like that delivered so I guess habits play a part too. I've actually never had a takeaway delivered!

I think I eat fairly normally… I don’t think I’d ever order dessert to the house, if that’s what you mean? I’d order curry, or Chinese or whatever, because that’s a meal. But it wouldn’t occur to me to order treats. If I wanted something I’d have a biscuit or a packet of crisps, which presumably would be less calorific.

Like the PP, I wouldn't go out to get special food, or order it in so I'd only have a Greggs if I was already out and hungry.

If I was craving something I'd just think, oh well, I'll have that next I'm passing, I'll just have my sandwich now. I'm not really food oriented in that way. One of my friends and her kids really are, like talking about the days meals at breakfast and it's really foreign to me.

I would usually walk to collect them, to burn off some of the calories from eating them.

I think it looks like the answer is people without disordered eating habits don't ever need to eat something "bad" the way people with certain restrictive eating might.

I didn't put on weight really until I met my dh. Prior to that I just didn't eat THAT much but allowed myself whatever I wanted. Like cake instead of lunch kind of thing, instead of as well as it.

I think it helped that I didn't drink as much tea back then. Now I feel like I have to have something sweet with a cup of tea, which is probably my biggest downfall.

Re cravings, I used to only crave stuff if I was hormonal. If I was craving something before my period I would just have it because I would eat everything in my path until I got the thing I actually wanted to eat anyway. Ignoring my cravings didn't work.

For almost my entire life, until post menopause/50s, I just ate what I wanted when I wanted and never gave it any thought what so ever. I'm not sure how it worked. I just never wanted too much of any really calorie dense food I think. Or if I did fancy it one day, and ate loads of it, then the next day I just didn't. From my mid fifties it suddenly got harder, sadly, and I have to exercise self restraint, which I don't enjoy.

Oh and I don’t snack after dinner…it’s not a conscious decision as such, I just don’t fancy anything. We never ate anything after dinner as children so maybe it’s an ingrained habit.

I'm not perfect, do watch my intake casually, but have always been a healthy weight. If I really, really wanted the brownies I'd have them and not worry about skipping meals the rest of the day or anything but I'd say I only get really powerful cravings for something like that rarely, like once a month or something, and I do also occasionally have days where I must be massively under my TDEE because I'm unusually active and/or accidentally skip meals just because of busy-ness or whatever, so I figure it must even out (or I would put on weight like you say). For me more of a problem is mindless grazing on food I don't even really want or like just because it's there, so I try hard to skip to 2-3 meals a day, minimal snacks particularly while working or in front of the telly. I do have dessert if I want it but as part of a meal, not usually just on its own...

There is no 'bad' when you don't have disordered eating.

Food is just food.

Yeah same actually.

Dinner is at 6pm here and I don't want to snack afterwards.

Then as I don't eat breakfast, I don't eat again until midday the following day.

Occasionally I might have a biscuit or a packet of crisps in front of the TV, but I mostly don't think to.