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'm in the same camp as curviest - I'm not hugely overweight but a sturdy size 14/16 and about 1-2 stone over where I'd like to be. The only way I got down to being 11.5 stone (1 stone loss) was when I had flu a couple of years ago. I was on nothing but dioralyte sips for 2/3 days, then would sleep for hours and have little more than soup or a slice of toast in a day for the next week or so. As soon as I ate normally the weight went back on. A typical day for me would be:
Breakfast - cup of tea, portion of fruit & fibre or cornflakes (30-40g size) with semi skimmed milk no sugar
Lunch - ham sandwich (1 slice of ham, brown bread, scraping of butter or spread)
Dinner - usually home cooked. Might be chop, mash and veg, homemade lasagne or stir fry. Not mega portions. Don't do puddings - occasionally a yoghurt for pud.
During the day I will drink tea (semi skimmed milk, no sugar) or espresso. If there are chocolates at work I may have one (wouldn't take more than that as there's a large team to share them round!)

That maintains my weight at around 12 stone 3.

Eat less move more. Its not rocket science, ask anyone who has lost weight what they did and this will be there answer. Fresh food not ready meals and eating fast food takeaways ect as a treat. Simples

"You would have to eat a lot less than already thinner people to reduce your weight."

This doesn't make sense. If someone is obese they are eating too many calories (certain illnesses excepted) and a small reduction will lead to weight loss.

"

Interesting thread. There's been lots of talk of metabolism and fat people blaming a slow metabolism and vice versa. That's been extensively debunked? "

I agree with you Deux, but was too scared to be the first person to mention it. There's been so much talk of "naturally slim" people here and I just don't think it exists. Yes, people have a predisposition for a certain body shape and different frames and metabolism can slow down with age, but in most cases it's calories in versus calories out. I'm preparing to be shouted at now.

Portion size is a factor many don't consider. It would also be worth pointing out that being a size 10 doesn't automatically mean you're healthy....

And I agree with the above too: exercise more and consume less calories.. It doesn't mean you have to be on a "diet", it's more a lifestyle change....

Housemum do you actually want to lose weight? if you do, then did you know you need a calorie deficit of 500 a day for 7 days (3500 cals) to lose a pound? the 500 deficit can come from 250 used in extra exercise and 250 from eating fewer cals.
Although you don't eat much, you are eating enough to maintain your weight.

You are having carbs 3 x a day- breakfast lunch and dinner.

If you want to make small changes, cut out the sandwhich 9 that will lose you 200 cals just from 2 slices bread) and make a salad with the ham and some leaves etc.

Eat an egg for breakfast instead of carbs - maybe a 2-egg omelette- fewer cals than cereal and milk.

Cut out the carbs at dinner time- no mash, but more vegs- and no pasta-based meals. A portion of lasagne is mega cals- cheese sauce, meat, pasta- compared to a piece of grilled meat or fish and veg.

I'm very probably TOFI (thin outside fat inside) - I always assumed I was naturally slim because I've always been this shape, which I inherited from my mum, must be my metabolism

Turns out the thing I probably inherited from her was a small appetite

She was a grazer like me, and would eat little and often. Rarely saw her sit down to breakfast or lunch properly. Not denying herself - what she wanted to eat wasn't big meals but nibbling throughout the day

As I've said up thread, that's basically me, although when I'm not stressed I can pack away a massive dinner if I'm hungry

For two years I thought I was struggling to put on weight because of my metabolism. I started tracking what I ate and turns out I ate way way less than I thought. Started eating enough to get 2000 calories a day and I put weight on

Turns out to put on weight I just needed to eat more. And my eating more was very healthy stuff, I cut out the sugary crap I was eating before. I just ate much more good quality food. And gained a stone.

Slim people eat less than overweight people.......hold the front page!

And yet there are so many threads where people are consistently blaming obesity on poverty.

I think this thread (and one other I can remember ages ago), proves that it's not the quality of food that necessarily makes people overweight, but the quantity along with less exercise.

Eating less and moving more is just not that simple for some people, although yes it's simple science.

Plainly larger people do, on average, eat more than smaller people, and if you're gaining you're eating more than you need. This is so obvious that it doesn't even need saying. Often the difference is portion size, and whether someone habitually clears their plate or not.

But within that general "rule of thumb" there are clearly differences in body composition and metabolism that can make quite a large difference. And people's bodies also respond differently to hunger and to changes in blood sugar.

I've noticed that it's quite difficult to shift my body from what appears to be its natural weight (plus or minus a couple of kilos over the years). Eating a bit more or a bit less seems to make very little difference to wherher my clothes fit or not. So while in theory your body is suppose to store unused energy as fat, and draw on those fat reserves when needed, in practice mine doesn't seem to like doing that very much. If I eat a calorie-dense meal the main thing that my body seems to do is to produce heat!

We would need extensive data on the long term food intake activity levels,body composition and metabolic rates of large numbers of people to really get to the bottom of what separates the effortlessly slim from the rest of us

I know there have been studies but much of it involves self reports AFAIK

I agree with some of that worra but there is an element of truth in the poverty factor.

eg it costs less to buy a huge pack of high-fat mince than a portion of salmon. or 100 cheap sausages for £1 instead of a nice lean bit of steak. And a bag of doughnuts is, I assume, cheaper than a bag of apples - or same price. 1kg pasta plus a bottle a sugar-laden sauce is cheaper than a free range chicken.

But having said that, it's possible to eat well and healthily if someone is motivated, using eggs, pulses, cheaper cuts of meat made into casseroles etc instead of cheap convenience food.

The poverty factor is really a combo of lack of education around food values and lack of motivation to cook well and cheaply.

^We would need extensive data on the long term food intake activity levels,body composition and metabolic rates of large numbers of people to really get to the bottom of what separates the effortlessly slim from the rest of us

I know there have been studies but much of it involves self reports AFAIK^

Yes it's the effortlessly bit that interests me. Eating a lot less has always been my natural inclination. It's not that I have some magical ability to consume vast amounts of calories and burn them off. It's that even if I do eat a lot at one sitting, or am seen to be always eating chocolate, overall my appetite is naturally smaller.

When I make myself eat more, I want to eat more. It genuinely feels to me like my stomach has been stretched and my appetite has been increased. I don't know what if anything is happening to my appetite or metabolism. It's just my personal experience (plural of anecdotes isn't data etc etc)

Unfortunately, if you are already obese, then you don't need that much to maintain your weight

Actually the opposite is true, the heavier you are the more calories you need just to exist. To lose 1lb in weight you need to consume 3500 calories less than you expend. Therefore an obese person will still lose weight whilst eating more calories than a slim person and this is why it gets harder to lose as you get slimmer.

Actually the opposite is true, the heavier you are the more calories you need just to exist

Depending also on body composition, fat tissue burn far less fuel than muscle tissue

So I'm a size 8-10. Yesterday was pretty typical for me so here's my day

40g bran flakes with natural yoghurt and fruit.
Pasta salad with Mediterranean veggies, then a salad on the side, followed by fruit.
2 sausages, fried egg, half a tin of bean and chips. Fruit with ice cream for pudding.

Snacked on a 40g lump of cheese! Often have a packet of crisps or a kitkat to snack on through the day

^Slim people eat less than overweight people.......hold the front page!

And yet there are so many threads where people are consistently blaming obesity on poverty^

How are the two mutually exclusive?
Cheap food is often salty and lower in protein so increases your appetite for both sweet and more salty foods.
Go to a tescos in a posh area then visit a tescos in a poor area, the stock is different in different demographics - larger freezer isles in poorer areas, larger fresh selecion in posher areas

eg it costs less to buy a huge pack of high-fat mince than a portion of salmon. or 100 cheap sausages for £1 instead of a nice lean bit of steak. And a bag of doughnuts is, I assume, cheaper than a bag of apples - or same price. 1kg pasta plus a bottle a sugar-laden sauce is cheaper than a free range chicken.

Yes but that huge pack of mince, doesn't have to be eaten all in one meal. You don't need more than 2 sausages on your plate, just because you bought 100. If you choose doughnuts this week, eat one and buy apples next week. A tube of tomato puree is around 50p and that's way cheaper than a bottle of sugar laden sauce.

Believe me, I live in one of London's (actually one of the UK's) most poverty stricken boroughs and I still see that overweight people mostly eat a lot more food, than slimmer people.

Actually the opposite is true

You missed the rest of the post.
You may need more calories to maintain the weight (if the same activity level, etc)
But the point was that to lose weight you do need to eat less than a naturally skinny person eats to maintain their weight.

Going back to the OP's post, it's not really about Being on A Diet but eating well and healthily.

Most days I have an egg or two for breakfast- occasionally with a rasher of grilled bacon. Some days I have porridge with blueberries and almond milk.

Lunch is always salad of some sort- watercress, lettuce, cold meat, tinned sardines, tuna, salmon, etc or homemade soup.

Dinner is fish 4 times a week usually - hot with veg or cold salmon with salad. Or a roast chicken- 1 day hot veg , next day cold with salad. DH has a jacket spud as well, I don't. Occasional stir fry and very occasional red meat- quality sausages or a lamb chop.

Pudding is always full fat Greek yogurt and fresh fruit or an apple.

Snacks during day if starving are walnuts ( about 3), almonds or an oat cake.

Cake and puds are weekend treats.

Lweji, no, I think you have it the wrong way around, the greater your body mass, the more energy it takes to move around, therefore you need more calories to maintain that weight and reducing it would lead to a deficit. So in theory, someone with a maintenance level of 3,000 calories would lose weight by reducing intake to 2,500, something that someone with a maintenance level of 1,800 obviously couldn't do. As weight drops then calorie requirement would drop. Same reason why men tend to need more calories than women - they are typically bigger and have greater muscle mass (which is more metabolically active).

As for the 'debunked' predisposition, there's more and more evidence to show that gut microbiomes play a huge role in whether we tend towards obesity or not. Google the experiment with mice and fecal matter transplants from overweight subjects.

Also there's a theory that we all have a 'set point' of body fat that our body will fight to maintain. This set point can move up if we stay overweight for a sustained period and it is difficult, if not impossible, to shift it back down.

Added to this, each diet when weight is lost (for most people, the exception being those who weight train and eat very carefully) means less muscle because when deprived of food our body will prioritise hanging on to fat. Once smaller of course, our calorie requirement is reduced - see above. If weight is then regained then most of it will comprise fat (because muscle is hard to build and requires lots of protein and training). You may get back to the same weight as you were pre-diet but because your body composition has changed to have less muscle and more fat, your calorie requirement is lower than it was (because muscle burns more calories than fat does), so the next diet is harder and each cycle like this compounds the effect.

worra I'm not really disagreeing with you:) - just saying that people make bad choices re. what to buy as well as eating too much of it.
I know people who are overweight and who say they 'don't eat much' but the portions on their plates are 2- 3 x what I'd eat and it's obvious that is the 'norm' for them because if I was to try to eat that amount I'd be absolutely stuffed.

I'm an 8-10, got some wobbly bits after my second child lol. Everyone has always gotten on to me about how I don't eat healthy, since I was a teenager the only way I've consumed veg is through soup, I have never in my life eaten a salad. I live off rice pasta potatoes, total carb fest.

Like a previous poster said I am a grazer, always have been, I've never seemed to be able to stomach big meals, I always eat little and often. And I drink far too many fizzy drinks. I should probably try kick that habit before it does all start to catch up on me. My mother had the same figure, and was a grazer also so I'm assuming I got it from her. Genetics or habit, I don't know.

Btw I'm new and this thread came up in the daily email, at the risk of sounding dumb what does AIBU stand for??

Am I Being Unreasonable :)

And yes, you can be slim but still unhealthy and undernourished.

Funniest

I think your post is quite ignorant. People are naturally all different shapes and sizes and health, metabolism, genetics and lifestyle all play a part. Your "blame" attitude is unkind. Weight is not an exact science.