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.

I’m naturally slim and realised that I do the 16:8 fasting thing without really thinking. I eat my first meal anytime between 10am and noon. I’ll usually have quite a big meal then (today for example I had two boiled eggs and two slices of sourdough) which keeps me going until the mid afternoon where I’ll have a snack. Then for supper (always eaten by 6pm) I’ll have something healthy because that is what I fancy. I don’t think about calories because I know that I must routinely eat around 1200-1500 per day and that, I believe, is enough for me. I walk the dog briskly for an hour plus each day and do yoga and floor exercises three times a week.

I don’t crave sweet things however if I fancy some chocolate or cake I’ll eat it. My weakness is a glass of wine or a beer just before supper and I have to make a conscious choice to abstain 3 or 4 nights a week!

Your body actually needs different calories on different days. So, for example, if you're on your period I believe you need something like 200-300 more cals a day. That could be the brownie you're craving.

Our bodies are quite good at regulating weight if you eat mainly whole foods - I think that's the thinking behind it. Eat good quality, macro balanced foods but don't count calories

Not evreybody thinks about calories when they eat. The fact that this is an obsession for you doesn't men that it even crosses the mind of other people.

There is plenty of people who eat lots of calories and do not gain any weight. It is just not calories, many more factors involved, like genetics, hormones...the human body doesn't behave in a mathematical way. I ate like mad when I was yonger and i was slim as a stick, I eat less and healthier now but I am at my heaviest

People can certainly eat lots of calories and not gain weight, if they are not eating in excess of their requirements.

If they eat in excess of their requirements, they will gain weight, simple as that.

Because proper nutritious food fills you up, supports healthy gut bacteria, provides healthy fats, complex carbs, fibre and protein. When you eat properly you feel satiated and don't need to calorie count because you fall in to a natural rhythm of eating well and the occasional treat does not make you fat.

Also, managing your blood sugar. Look in to the glucose goddess as I previously said. I lost 3kg in a month after finding out I had insulin resistance and didn't change what I ate at all, just how I ate it. With your diet I'd be surprised if you're not heading towards insulin resistance.

If you can afford it, see a nutritionist. Your posts and your diet show such a basic misunderstanding of food and nutrition. I invested in a nutritionist last year for three session and had some private blood tests done. Has changed my life. Though she did advise I completely cut out takeaways, which was a step too far for me 😂

The problem is that you can't eat intuitively with UPF. They are designed to give you cravings.

I have been there and it was shit.

I take lunch to work. Normally a throw it all in salad with a protein like a boiled egg or some chickpeas or chicken. Then some fruit. Everyone else at work does the same, some have sandwiches, some bring in leftovers. Eat what you want at lunch.

I eat when I’m hungry.
The mornings are quite hectic in my house so I don’t normally eat breakfast till about 11ish.
I have a hearty portion of whatever it is (usually involves eggs and tomatoes)
I don’t really snack, if I do, it’s usually fruit.
We have our tea quite early, between 4.30/5pm.

I do eat sweet stuff 2/3 a week. I had an ice cream out today, for instance. I just don’t have it everyday.
Sweet stuff in moderation.

My opinion is that some of us have the Labrador gene and others don't, I struggled for years and years with disordered eating, skipping meals etc. theeeeeen mounjaro. It completely switches off this and you suddenly realise how other people who don't have food noise all the time can eat sensibly. I'm not advocating mounjaro btw I'm just saying what I experienced. I spent thousands on the diet industry never worked because my brain overruled all the time.

I eat breakfast every day - usually porridge and eggs. So kind of two breakfasts.

Lunch is usually a salad or a sandwich and fruit. If I'm more organised it will be quite substantial. If I'm less organised I will probably have a packet of crisps with it. If I'm paying more attention then I'll make that a banana or some chocolate rice cakes which is slightly healthier.

Snacks during the day if I'm organised - some breadsticks, dates, Celery, maybe a mini baby bell light, walnuts. Dates and walnuts are my alternative to a massive cookie.

Dinner is protein veg and carb in some format. If I'm still hungry yoghurt and fruit.

After that I'm really not hungry and don't eat after dinner (c8pm) until next day (c7am).

I do have things like bacon (fat removed) and the occasional treat. Generally if its a really calorific sweet treat its best eaten after a meal when blood sugar is raised anyway.

And I generally know if I've eaten a lot over because I'm not that hungry the next day.

I can fluctuate 4-6 lbs in a month and I think that's pretty normal.

I'll also tend to carb load more at the weekends then be stricter in the week. Because I focus better at work that way.

And I eat more carbs the week before I am due on and around ovulation. Generally quite high protein.

All quite intuitive. I do think a period of tracking is helpful if you're going astray a lot, then just go back to intuitive.

Experience and having a basic structure to meals. Plus, you do gain weight with a treat, but you just don't care about it, because it drops off again.

Well, that's not entirely true. You have to overeat by 3,500 calories to gain 1lb of weight. One brownie is not going to be 3,500 calories.

You have to eat well over what you should each day to gain weight. It’s not about what you consume in one single day. I had a day the other week where I had a cake ice cream and a pastry. I didn’t worry about putting on weight because I’d never eat like that normally. I doubt I ever eat what I am supposed to each day in terms of calories, so guess if I go over it doesn’t matter as other days I am under?
It isn’t something I think about. I have zero idea what calories in what.

This made me laugh, because I’ve just found my lab eating the cat food again. Twice today! Have had to move it higher because train as I might she cannot leave food alone.

I never have a craving for brownies with salted caramel dip. I am 5’6’’ and 56kg. I just eat 3 healthy meals a day.

This was in the news recently. Discovery that labradors and some humans have an overeating gene.

I dont subscribe to the idea that eating a sole diet of wholesome (whatever definitioin someone is using for that) means people dont crave. Doesnt apply to me, my cravings are cheese, nuts, butter. I have a 'fat' tooth. I dont largely eat what is termed UPFs as I make my own food most of the time and always have done. I have the odd time when that doesnt apply and Im partial to bacon fries of course. Oh and pork scratchings.

Well you wouldn’t be starving would you, that’s slightly hyperbolic. You’d be a bit hungry which won’t kill you. Have a bath , go for a walk.

Or just have a lighter meal like some cheese and crackers or soup. Or nuts

I was brought up overeating both at mealtimes and sugary snacks/juice. It has taken decades but I've gradually managed to recalibrate. I still love food and I still have a very sweet tooth. I put my love of food into planning and cooking tasty meals that tick good boxes nutritionally (aiming to include nutrients rather than cut out anything). I cook everything from scratch including any sweet treats. When I bake cookies I will overeat and could eat a batch in a day but then feel grim and don't do it again for a while.

I also move a lot and am very busy. These things both mean that I'm keeping active but also have less time to spend eating.

I eat three meals every day without fail, sometimes with snacks if I fancy them or if I'm hungry but I make sure all the food I eat is satisfying. If I inhale a packet of Maryland cookies I don't actually actively enjoy it but a big slice of homemade cake is really satisfying.

Those Maryland cookies are horrible, I dont know how they make them so horrible. When I want something in the office, thats all thats hanging around and its not even worth it! I think they got a massive slating on the 'most awful biscuit' thread.

I think that those of us maintaining a healthy weight don't count calories.

I have lost two stone, but Ive never calorie counted in my life, just changed what I was eating and how Im eating it

Right now I got hungry for the first time today - weekends I eat only when hunger hits - and Ive just had a slice of rye bread, piled with cottage cheese and rocket leaves, couple of slices of sliced chicken and all topped with a handful of grapes sliced over it and sprinkled with chilli flakes and pepper. Sat with a knife and fork and took a good 20 mins to eat it - Im stuffed now and am fulled for my cycle ride

Next meal will be about 7:30, Im doing BBQ roast chicken, roasted veg, salad leaves, coleslaw and wedges - all prepped here apart from the BBQ sauce

Haven't even thought about calories because I know instinctively that all that veg on my plate there will be very few, some for the oil I shall use on the veg, some in the BBQ sauce , some in the coleslaw mayo- negligible in everything else - and I will eat till I am full. I don't go to bed hungry

Right off for a cycle ride before the rain comes, build up an appetite

Like others have said though, there's never thinking about calories and there's obsessive, disordered thinking about calories, there's something in between. I would say I'm not dissimilar to you in that I most eat fairly intuitively, I certainly haven't ever gotten obsessed to an unhealthy point about calories and on a day to day basis I don't count because I know my normal healthy diet has roughly the correct amount of calories for my height and activity levels and some fluctuation if I have a little treat one day or accidentally skip a meal another day evens out over time.

However I do think education and awareness around calories has been an important thing for me in maintaining a healthy diet over the years, which has on occasion been informed by keeping a food diary with counted calories. I personally (and appreciate this doesn't work for everyone) have found it useful to see for instance how many calories there are in restaurant or takeaway food compared to homemade versions, or how many calories there are in alcohol, or easy it can be to wildly over-do it on processed junk food for relatively little satiety, or contrarily how you can have an enormous pile of veg for basically no calories. Maybe you have always intuitively known this without having to think about it but I suspect I and others have found it helpful to learn and apply to our own diets. So I don't think I agree that everyone that maintains a healthy weight does it without calorie counting ever, at all. Calories are just a unit of measurement after all, they're not an inherently evil or dangerous thing to think about (of course some people do have unhelpful patterns of thinking or trauma around food but that's separate I'd say).

I don’t think I have ever craved a brownie. I don’t have a sweet tooth. If I ate something like that I’d get a huge sugar rush and feel unwell after.

Move somewhere where there is nowhere to walk to to buy them and no takeaways or takeaway deliveries.