To ask how much slim people eat in a day?

[InSpaceNooneCanHearYouScream]

I know this is an odd question, but bear with me! I used to be a normal healthy weight when I was young, but over the years my BMI crept up to 30. I've been battling with my weight for the past few years, and have managed to wrestle my BMI down to 27. But I've yo-yo-ing up and down for a while, and I think I've lost sight of what a normal daily food intake looks like.

My worry is that if I manage to get down to a BMI of 23 or 24, with a reasonable amount of activity per day, how will I manage to sustain it long term? I know how to eat healthily, but I also like the odd takeaway, wine and occasional junk food. I suspect that slim people maybe just don't eat that much? Except for the few with high metabolisms of course.

So, it would be really helpful for some slim people in their 30's, 40's, or older, to give me a quick example of their daily diet. Thanks in advance!

I do wonder if things will change once I hit menopause, it will be important for me to stay at a healthy weight to try and minimise the impact that my arthritis has on me.

ginnycreeper - I have also always been slim, apart from a spell in an extremely sedentary job (well, comatose job almost) where I ate a lot of Mars Bars. Like you I have always eaten exactly as I pleased - sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.

But, now I'm (ahem) 50, one day a few months ago I couldn't do my jeans up. Ah, says I, shrunk in the wash, what poor quality, tsk tsk. But I stood on the scales, and... eh? Half a stone had appeared. I can now see that a layer of fat - not giant, but still a layer - has formed around my middle. I have not eaten any more, or done any less exercise (more, in fact, as I have acquired a dog). I have to conclude that middle-aged spread is no myth and that as we age (aagghh) in order to remain slim you have to eat less. This is not a good thought, but when you look around there are not many older women with wasp waists.

I think what slim people eat is just one part of the equation. What people drink, how much they move, how much they exercise, and how they think about/behave around food are just as vital as the food part. Slim people of a similar size and height could have very different profiles in terms of those variables.

I think a key thing is attitude and behaviour around food and drink - occasionally consuming more food or drink will not matter in the long-term so long as it's not accompanied by huge pangs of guilt and so long as a line can be drawn under it. That way it doesn't become all-consuming, leading to ongoing cycles of guilt, more over consumption, strict dieting etc.

occasionally consuming more food or drink will not matter in the long-term so long as it's not accompanied by huge pangs of guilt and so long as a line can be drawn under it. That way it doesn't become all-consuming, leading to ongoing cycles of guilt, more over consumption, strict dieting etc.

I agree fascicle. As soon as you start feeling guilty it can open the door to days of binge eating on all the wrong foods. And that's when the weight creeps on.
As you say - Have a treat and then draw a line under it and continue to eat healthily.

Brenda blackhead, I miss my waist!

Tobysmum
I often wonder though - surely someone of my height will need more calories to maintain a normal weight than someone 5ft who is 8 stone?
Yes, of course.

Look up the TDEE for different heights and weights and activity levels and ages.

the 2000 calories on the cereal packet was caluculated with a 5'6" middle aged housewife on her feet all day in the 1950's

I'm slim (BM of 19 I think) and my diet is horrendous!!!!

Thankfully medication I have to take for a chronic condition speeds up my metabolism and I never put weight on.

I dread to think what size I would be (based on my diet) if it wasn't for my medication side effects!!

All that stuff about 'eat less move more' is rubbish. Weight gain is generally mostly to do with hormones, especially for women. I'm reading a book called 'The Diet Delusion' by Gary Taubes at the mo and it's been really interesting. I'm 35 and I'm the slimmest I've ever been healthily. I'm a size 6/8 and fluctuate between 8 and 8st 7lb, usually about 8st 4. Today I had berries and plain bio live full fat yogurt for breakfast, banana for a snack, half an avocado and an omelette with tomatoes cheese and kale for lunch and chicken with lots of veg in pesto sauce for dinner, a couple of coffee's and a cup of tea. I still have chocolate and a few drinks a couple of times a week and the odd curry, I just don't eat grains or processed food. I don't do any exercise but I try to walk everywhere as much as poss and I have 2 very young kids to run around after so that helps too I guess.

I don't do any exercise but I try to walk everywhere as much as poss

But that IS excercise!
A lot of people think that it's only excercise if you're pounding away at the gym

Weight gain is generally mostly to do with hormones, especially for women.
UTTER BILGE

I'm 5ft 4 in and weigh 7.5 stone and have done all my life (late 40's now)

I do eat a fair amount of rubbish but I have quite a small appetite and stop eating the second I start to feel full. I eat frequently and never really allow myself to get hungry.

I move all the time. My pedometer says I do on average 13-14,000 steps per day. Do some structured exercise as well.

Today I've had.

Breakfast - porridge and tea, toast and honey
Snack - homemade biscuit
Another snack - banana and apple
Lunch - veg omelette
Dinner - chicken curry, green beans, broccoli and brown rice
More snack - another biscuit
oh and a bowl of sultana bran

All portions are pretty small though

All that stuff about 'eat less move more' is rubbish

Of course it's not rubbish

Have you read the thread? Most of the slim people here don't eat huge portions and the majority have said they don't snack.

Also most of them have said they're always active.

I eat 1000 cals a day and lose about 5 lbs a month. That's not healthy though.

All that stuff about 'eat less move more' is rubbish.

Oh, come on!

So you're saying, if you ate 4 times what you've just listed, and did zero exercise - you'd stay exactly the same size?!

I'm reading a book called 'The Diet Delusion' by Gary Taubes at the mo and it's been really interesting

do keep up Oldn, we covered Taubes a day or two ago on this thread.
he aint the last word on the subject ya know...I mean other gurus are available

I am a slim size 10 in my 30s. I put on 3 stone when pregnant, dd is 13 months now and I have lost all the weight. I eat what I want when I want, the key is exercise. I run three times a week and walk the dog daily.

I am really fascinated by this thread. I can totally relate to what Timefor said and I could have written this word for word about myself:

My personal story: I've been obese and I've been a healthy weight. But mostly I've spent my adult life in between, as an overweight, slightly portly, if still curvy, woman. I've rarely managed to maintain a healthy weight for more than a year at a time. However, in terms of the principles I've learned through the past decade it goes something like this when I'm slim(ish!):

I have no gears, no brakes, no natural mental stopping point - I am either on point, or I'm not. And when I'm not, I mean I'm really not! For example, I cannot snack in a controlled manner. I just can't. It is the highway to hell for me. Therefore I do best when I commit to a fairly samey eating plan, because it removes the element of too much choice. So my breakfast and lunch are almost always the same, six or even seven days a week. I love to cook though, so I satisfy that creative culinary urge through our evening meals.

I am a phenomenal emotional eater. Food has been my solace, my reward, my joy, my guilt, my self punishment even, for my entire adult life. And in combination with the above lack of self discipline, I simply cannot have snack/treat/'bad' etc foods in the house, because the urge to eat when I'm in any kind of emotional state is overwhelming. Utterly overwhelming.

But what is so interesting is that AmericasTorturedBrow then said this, which means she has basically the same mental relationship with food as I do, and as Timefor does, and yet she's very slim.

I'm 5'9" and bounce a few pounds either side of 135lbs (9.7stone) and size 8-10

I have a horrible relationship with food, really relate to PP who says they use food as every emotional response - joy, sadness, pain, boredom, punishment. I have no off switch when I'm in a bad food phase and will eat to well beyond full, go to bed with a painful stomach etc…….I am not sure why I am not fatter….

I am only 5' 2" and I DREAM of being 9 stone 7 lbs again, it is my ultimate goal, and I could never in a million years imagine weighing less than that. I think my body type and my metabolism are such that, knowing how hard I have had to work in the past to lose any significant amount of weight, the only way I'd ever weigh under 9.7 would be if I developed some kind of eating disorder and exercised obsessively to an insanely unbalanced degree.

It's funny to think the weight I would love to be (at 5' 2") would make me deliriously happy and I'd feel like the bee's knees, I'd still be curvy and a little plump but I'd look and feel normal, be able to wear pretty much what I liked and I'd feel slim, healthy and happy, yet I know many lifelong skinnies would be suicidal at the thought of being that fat.

Anyway, my point being that Americas and plenty of other people on this thread have shown that not all people who find it hard to control their food intake are fat. Just as not all fat people eat excessively on an average day.

I think we are all stuck with a default body type and we can alter and manipulate with diet and exercise to an extent, but only to an extent.

hello I think it's true to an extent that some people naturally have a slimmer body shape.

In terms of obesity though I think emotional eating and the psychological side is a big factor. I don't comfort eat if very stressed I lose my appetite. As a result I find it relatively easy to eat healthily and not see food as the enemy.

If the op is the same but has just got into bad habits there is no reason why she can't lose weight. I could lose a stone if I wanted, easy but I am happy with the weight I am.

I urge everyone to try the "hypnotic gastric band system" By that bald guy, honest to god its changed my life, over this summer I have gone from a (large) size 18 to a size 12 ( started hanging off me now :) ), by doing nothing except listening to my body and eating what I WANT!!!

If you have tried everything else, might as well give it a go, like I did!

I am overweight size 16. Recently we went on holiday with another couple .The lady is slim. I noticed the different in the way we ate. I eat much faster and my portion sizes are much bigger. She would refuse a desert or leave things if full unlike me.
It really made me think

I am a size 10- I do have a good appetite, but work out at the gym a lot. I have never dieted.
I do notice that my appetite varies quite a bit day to day. Some days I am ravenous, other I just eat a very small amount, If I am busy or upset food is the last thing on my mind.
I don't enjoy cakes or puddings- I would never order a dessert in a restaurant- I have been known to refuse even if it is included in the price.
I don't bake either- the thought of eating a cup cake covered in butter cream turns my stomach. To me it tastes like eating a big lump of lard. I am not a big carb or bread fan. Makes me feel bloated.

I notice that many of my obese friends are keen bakers and really enjoy cakes and bread. Not sure if there is a link there.

You're not alone InSpace!

As the metabolism drops away over the years, it's natural to be on a downward slide.

The one thing that I've found gets me excited to go and work out is having interesting fitness goals that aren't 'lose some weight'.

My interesting goals of the last few years have been:

2011 - Complete a sprint Triathlon
2012 - Fight in local inter-club Muay Thai event
2013 - Man vs Mountain 23 mile race over Snowdon
2014 - Get stronger (at 40) than I was at 25 = 105kg bench press & power clean
2015 - Complete "Tough Guy" extreme obstacle race

And your goals can be easier or harder than these. As long as you want to do the thing that you're shooting for, your weight will adjust as it needs to through whatever training you do. Whether that's a 5k charity run, a canoeing excursion next summer, a yoga teaching certificate, or whatever floats your boat!

And to get back on topic for this thread... you will immediately find that you will eat to meet the goal. I was on 1800 calories per day (I'm 13 stone & 6'3") to cut weight, but on 4000 calories per day to get stronger.

Find a goal, recruit some pals, and GO FOR IT!!!