to think that women who are a size 6/8/10 are permanently on a diet?

[SabineUndine]

I don't mean diet as in counting every calorie, but diet as in they hardly eat any carbs and don't eat cakes, biscuits etc more than a couple of times a year? I am not a thin person (you guessed?) and I look at what my really slim female colleagues eat and it's salads with no carbs and just a tiny bit of protein, or soup or smoothies. Is that what it takes to be a thin person?

I've had 3 and my youngest is a baby. I haven't been to a gym since I was 19. I don't eat fruit and very rarely eat veg. I eat mainly processed food as can't really cook much.

If I do cook it's stuff with dolmio type sauces, which I only found out this week are meant to only have occasionally!

I'm usually a size 8-10 at 5'6 (just had s baby so more like a large 10) and am classically skinny-fat.

I genuinely eat shitloads and do no exercise, and have a sweet tooth. I don't eat diet anything but I don't tend to have more than one drink a day, don't eat meat, and always choose brown/wholemeal/whole grain stuff if I can. But think it is down to my fast metabolism.

At the moment I'm eating even more crap than normal as BFing and tired but typically my non bf diet would look like this:

Huge bowl of porridge/muesli or 2 slices of granary toast with pbj, sometimes both

Leftovers, or large cheese and tomato sandwich, or lentil soup and a bagel, plus piece of fruit and big slice of cake

Maybe some fruit, toast, chocolate or biscuits in the afternoon if it's knocking about and I'm peckish

Salmon, brown rice and broccoli, or big bowl of pasta with kale, tomato, parmesan, or huge bowl of quinoa with roast veg and nuts

A handful of biscuits, yoghurt and fruit, piece of toast, or posh crisps and hummus for an evening snack

A beer or wine or hot chocolate

Haven't RTFT but I am. When I was 20 I was a size 6 (I think. You couldn't really buy size 6s back then, but the odd 8 I found was too big, and the 10s I ended up with mostly fell off me. At 30, I accepted I wasn't an 8 any more. Now I'm 40, and I've spent the last 5 years hovering on the border of size 12. Clearly if I didn't do anything, I'd be looking at another size up, and I'm not going to accept that, so I'm doing something about it while it's reasonably easy, rather than allowing the problem to get bigger and harder to fix. I'll probably get massively flamed for saying this, but maybe that's the difference in approach that means some people stay slim? There's no point quietly and sadly switching up a size every few years and then moaning that you've put a load of weight on that you can't shift. The time to sort it is the first time your jeans get a bit tight.

Nope I'm not on diet. Always been an 8-10. Actually just seen family now and they've all commented on how much fatter I've got. I'm a size 8 now. I thought I'd lost weight . Oh well. Maybe I should watch what I eat now.

It's all about how much you move imo.

Yesterday I ate:
Slice of granary toast with butter and jam at 7am. Went to gym and did two classes.
On way home picked up decaff cappuccino (one sugar) semi-skimmed.
Breakfast at 10.30 - omelette of two whole eggs, one egg white with some chorizo, tomatoes, cheese and spinach.
Mid afternoon handful of cheap midget gems. Rode.
Supper 7pm bowl of homemade chicken chorizo casserole with all veg cooked in it. Bit of bread and butter with it. Pistachio Magnum, slice of homemade lemon drizzle.

Aside from the cappuccino, all drinks are water with lemon (hot or cold), or black decaff tea without milk or sugar. I rarely drink alcohol so tend not to get any calories from drinks aside from coffee which I have two or three times a week.

The above is a very typical day's eating and activity, with the exception of the ice cream which was an experiment. Dessert would more likely be greek yogurt with fruit compote. Snack would be a couple of choc rice cakes with peanut butter.

I'm 52, 5'4, 55kg.

These last couple of weeks I have been doing the body coach HIIT workouts. It's the only exercise I do. I am MUCH hungrier now than I was before doing them and find my days of feeling ravenous and eating almost constantly are increasing. Clothes are looser though despite the extra food. Not aiming to lose weight as such but I like the high I get from these exercises. It's a nice contrast to the hideousness of actually doing them!

I think sometimes it's the type of foods. I have recently realised I've always eaten the type of foods that are advocated by health gurus, trust me I'm a dr etc.

For example, porridge with water and a dollop of yogurt on top, bit of honey but recently replaced with frozen cherries. Ive always been hungry first thing and it fills me up well for a few hours.

As a teen and at uni, I'd have a bowl of muesli for lunch. (Had to stop as gave me bad wind) but now it might be scrambled eggs and toast, keeping me going for another couple of hours.

I like snacking on nuts - I always felt bad for not having enough fruit etc. But, I do love vegetables. When I lived on my own 15 years ago I hardly had any bread actually and often couldn't be bothered to cook the carb side of an evening meal. Wasn't into potatoes. Got into sweet potatoes. I like a plain hunk of meat. Not a huge fan of pasta (don't like tomato sauces). I'm not good at eating salads and have to try to force myself, but I loooove spinach, broccoli and peas. I've been eating plain natural yoghurt for years - noticed it helped my tummy. Love peanut butter. So generally a fairly high fibre, protein, GI type of diet. I do have a sweet tooth and do give into the odd pudding fest eg 4 jam donuts in one sitting, but it's probably only once every couple of months!

I grew up nowhere near any takeaways so that kind of food isn't on my mind much.,

The one time binge eating got out of control (eating countless choc digestives dipped in tea while writing school reports and then sitting for hours planning) I noticed I'd started filling out a bit and also then wasn't hungry for proper food. So I trained myself to eat 70% choc (still dipping in tea!) to get that therapeutic choc hit , which is what it was about, but found I couldn't / didn't eat as much.

The only other times I've started to put on weight that I felt was getting a bit much was when I was dating my husband and we had big meals with puddings and also wine, going out drinking, hangover foods etc. I actually think it was the drinking - far more calories than I realised.

I've always drunk tea, only one caffeinated a day, herbal teas and redbush with milk. I'd generally always have one on the go at home. Small amounts of milk probably kept me ticking over.

Typical day:
Mug of milk or yogurt for breakfast
At work: soup, cooked food (meat and carbs - say a serving spoon of rice), salad and fruit
Mid afternoon snack- icecream, biscuits or toast, for example.
Dinner: cooked meal: invariably portion of meat or fish plus one large potato equivalent in carbs, and salad or soup. Rarely fruit or another dessert.
Sometimes a late evening snack of crackers and cheese or paté.

It's true about fidgeting too.
And hunger going up at times of greater activity.
I have only craved McDs when I briefly worked in retail.
And I noticed by body slowing down when I got pregnant. I made a conscious effort of eating a bit more then, such as adding toast to breakfast.

"There's no point quietly and sadly switching up a size every few years and then moaning that you've put a load of weight on that you can't shift. The time to sort it is the first time your jeans get a bit tight."

Yes, but I think that what happens is that you might start off a 10, say, but you have some clothes in a 12 and gradually you're wearing the 12s more, then you go shopping and you buy more 12s, but these are 'vanity 12s' so you're really wearing 14 and hadn't noticed and then all of a sudden find you can't fit into any of your 10s. It's quite easy to go up 2 sizes without really noticing like that.

I am bewildered by the assertions I see that people lose weight when they have small children because they never have time to sit down. I feel like I'm constantly sitting down with mine! Whilst they're small babies, I seem to spend months sitting on the sofa feeding them, too exhausted from the sleep deprivation to move, surviving off sugar and caffeine for energy. I put on three stone while breastfeeding, in stark contrast to every bloody other bugger who loses the same whilst also supposedly eating cake, including my own mother.

Then they become toddlers and my activity levels are still minimal. Walks are conducted at snail's pace as they refuse the buggy and insist on stopping to inspect every leaf and stick en route. Swimming becomes 'standing in the pool holding child'. I can't get to the gym on my way home from work like I used to because I'm racing to pick them up on time. This morning, my 5yo has been building Lego for three hours and my 2yo has been playing shops with his teddy - both activities which require me to sit in the floor or sofa and look interested at intervals. I'm still on my pyjamas. What on earth are people doing that means their toddlers keep them too busy to lose weight? And where am I going so wrong???

I cycled 11 miles to get to a toddler group (tot in seat).
I (usually double) buggy pushed 3-6 miles a day to get to shopping & toddler groups & nursery & school. So that's full-ish buggies fullish with shopping to push for miles.
I spent hours wandering outside with them (the doddering toddlers who didn't want to use buggy) until they got tired enough to go in buggy & then we still had 1-1.5 miles to walk home. I brought snacks for toddler but not for me. And it was often ruddy cold so I kept shifting about to stay warm!!
Pushing them on swings & running back & forth at both sides of a playground (2 toddlers to keep an eye on).
When I was home I had to move constantly to cook-clean-care-do other bits or else the place descended to chaos.

My children sound a lot more energetic than yours, nautical. I find it hard to have periods of sitting still as we have to go different activities, chasing them round parks, pushing them on swings, walking miles, pushing the buggy at top speed to get to work and school.

Then when you have got chance to sit down the kids might but you've got housework and god knows what else to get on with. The running up and down the stairs to attend to the 3 of them is bad enough in itself!

I am bewildered by the assertions I see that people lose weight when they have small children because they never have time to sit down

This is just examples of me with my 8 month old.

I get up at about 6, get him his breakfast and fed by 7. We then play for a bit, he crawls everywhere so I'm chasing him around.

By 7:30 I stick him in the jumperoo and get ready.

8:30/9, we are both ready.

Walk half a mile to the train station, get a train into the city centre. DS is sleeping so I have a quick walk around the bookstore. He wakes. Walk another half mile to the art gallery.

Park buggy and carry huge DS around the gallery showing him paintings. Stop every so often and let him walk holding his hands.

This takes a couple of hours, so it's now about 12. They have a soft play area, so I chuck him on there and we mess about for a bit.

We have dinner at 1ish. We then walk another half a mile back to the train station, get the train and another half a mile home. It's now 3 ish.

DS walks around holding my hands for about 15 minutes. I put him down and crawl around after him. I'm constantly picking him up to stop him opening the doors or getting into things.

4pm. I watch something on TV and put DS in the jumperoo.

5pm, we walk holding hands again. Then we play with toys (which means I chase DS as he crawls away throwing things).

6pm DS eats, then he has a bath and he goes to bed by about half 7.

I'm hardly ever still!

Before vanity sizing I was a size 8-10 for years and are what I liked. I hit 36 and I now watch what I eat and I am a proper new size 10 and about a stone heavier and struggle to maintain this weight. I now healthier but my metabolism just slowed down.
I personally think the UK has a skewed idea of normal because of vanity sizing.
Normal back in the 80s was a size 8-10.

That was me the other day. I should add I don't have a car and usually walk 6 miles a day.

YABU. This narrative that slimmer women must be depriving themselves, eating disordered etc is annoying.

I'm size 10. I've never been on a diet or counted a calorie in my life. I do think some of it is luck. The rest is a mix. Being active (though I don't do workouts etc) must help. But the other thing is stopping eating when you've had enough. Also just serving portions you feel like rather than piling the plate up. I don't eat dessert regularly, but that isn't dieting, just didn't eat it daily as a child so not in the habit. Do eat chocolate and crisps every day though, which isn't the healthiest!

Re vanity sizing... I was a 12 in the 1990s. I bought a size 10 dress yesterday.... . It fits well, but a bit short. Size 10s are supposed to be much shorter than me .

I've got a nice fig roll on a plate in front of me... but meh. I'll eat it later if I fancy.

Well, whilst they've been playing I've washed up, swept floor etc and obviously I was making breakfast, getting drinks, wiping noses and stuff like that so not actually sitting motionless but it doesn't exactly feel like high levels of activity. Pre-children I would have got up and had a workout or gone swimming or for an energetic walk. It doesn't really compare.

I walk quick so my kids walk quick. Is it the Fast Show where the family are all running and the dad is shouting 'quick'? That's me I'm like a Sgt Major!

Honest day's eating from a slim person here.

Small fry up for brekkie with one slice of toast with butter.
Yogurt and fruit for lunch
Some kind of cracker or oatcake with cheddar when DS gets in from school
Pasta with salmon, spinach, green beans and cream.

I do not possess a sweet tooth I do like like the odd bit of really decent cake, not in to booze though not entirely teetotal.

I walk briskly for an hour a day, don't do the gym and am convinced being sedentary and then and doing vigorous exercise a couple of days a week is not good for people. I have no evidence these are just my thoughts.

I'm 5ft 4 and weigh 9 stone post menopausal, when very young I was 8 stone and after having DS my weight settled at 8.5 stone.

Depends how quick you are nautical. I can't do slow at anything, maybe it's the slim people fidgety thing as there is some peoples speed and then mine. I think the children just get it from me.

Nautical my house is always messy because I'm always literally running around playing rather than doing practical things. So maybe that's the difference

I used to be a size 8/10, ate whatever I wanted and stayed that size. Then one day I couldn't anymore and ended up a size 18/20. I've dieted back to an 8/10 after years of failing miserably and have kept this size for nearly 3 years now.

I eat chocolate and crisps nearly every day, cake also features a lot. But what I don't do is eat loads of them, I have a small slice or a small portion. I also don't eat fatty foods often and walk everywhere. If I get invited for a meal out I go and enjoy it with all the trimmings and don't feel guilty, probably because that's also occasional.

The reason my weight got out of control was because the portions were also out of control and the treats weren't occasional

My house is a fecking tip. I'm just saying that I don't feel I've burned a whole lot of calories playing Lego or doing Wind The Bobbin Up this morning. And when we go for a walk, the two year old might be pumping his little legs as fast as they will go, but it won't really be a fast pace for me.