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?

Sleep that is a hugely helpful post unlike some others I could mention.

I'm trying to eat more mindfully and lose a bit of weight that way by trying to replace internal messages of "I love to feel full" and " I hate feeling hungry, with "I like to eat slowly and taste my food" and "I don't like to feel stuffed".

It's important to remember that whilst losing surplus weight I should keep up with my weight lifting workouts so that it's not a short lived thing.

I think I read somewhere that if you can manage to keep weight off for a year, then that lower weight is much more likely to become your set point, rather than the previous higher weight.

All such interesting stuff and clearly not as straight forward as eat less, exercise more due to the psychological elements at play.

Some are, some aren't. Some women work very very hard at controlling what they eat to stay at what they consider to be an acceptable/attractive size. It must be a pretty miserable existence though.

Others are just naturally thin and never pay much attention to whether they should eat less or differently, because they don't need to. They are able to have what they want, when they want it and stay very slim.

Why does it have to be a miserable existence to pay attention to a lifestyle choice? The whole point is it's not about deprivation but about making healthier choices. healthy food and healthier eating does not equal misery FGS!

Some women work very very hard at controlling what they eat to stay at what they consider to be an acceptable/attractive size. It must be a pretty miserable existence though.

What a bitter post.

I think it would be a pretty miserable life if you constantly worked really hard at denying yourself the chance to eat something you really fancied in order to stay thin, don't you? There is a difference between allowing yourself treat foods sometimes (being sensible and disciplined) in order to stay a size 8 or 10, and never allowing yourself to eat what you would really like to eat, in order to stay at a size 4 to 6.

I was coming on to say the same regarding keeping to a certain diet for a year.

It makes sense; if your body is used to a certain amount of food around it for a length of time, it will adjust its management of and fat storage (bit like the 5:2 diet changes how the body responds endocronogically -sp?!) assuming that your environment only has a finite amount of food available.

Plus what sleep says is very true; so much research has looked recently on the way gut flora helps to digest and manage nutrients and the way they are absorbed. So calories may (I don't know for a fact) be actually processed or absorbed differently from person to person. Calories as a measurement are the amount of energy it takes to burn in a controlled scientific experiment I think?

For example, almonds contain X amount of calories per weight, but actually not all the energy is absorbed as they pass through undigested if not fully mushed as they might in smooth almond nut butter. (I think there's been experiments where people eat lots of almonds and don't put the comparative weight on!)

Basically I think there are many, many variables.

I worked with a very slim girl. She never, ever dieted and ate what she liked. I am much larger. What I noticed about her was that she liked "good" food, I mean things like nuts, seeds, fruit, artisan pesto from the farmer's market, cooking nice healthy meals from scratch. I also noticed that she genuinely couldn't finish a large portion of anything; she would get too full and that too many sugary, fatty things would make her feel ill. Sadly for me, I can eat a whole box of chocolates and still feel fine and I rarely feel full!

I agree clarella there is no point in looking at others for what you should or should not be able to be like yourself. We all have different genes, different metabolisms, different tastes in food, different environmental influences, some people are huge emotional eaters, others react to stress and upset by feeling too sick to eat, some people are natural ectomorphs, some endomorphs.

We can work hard to alter what we are to an extent but we can never completely change it and most of us when we take our eye off the ball will revert to type.

sleepwhenidie
Yes, you're right. :)
I oversimplified to make the point that unfortunately to get to a lower weight we do have to eat a lot less than we'd want to. It's not that already overweight people stuff their faces or over-eat constantly.
And yes, once we gained fat tissue it's easier to "fill it up" than to gain fat tissue.
And it doesn't take many extra calories to gain weight. I did during my pregnancy and got a normal weight baby just eating an extra toast and sometimes soup a day.
So, for those who've always been thin it's easier to eat what they like and maintain their weight.

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

Yes.
Although what you mean is probably malnurished.

I doubt anyone/everyone who is a size 4-6 never allows themselves to eat what they'd really like to eat.

Even so, no I don't think that sounds particularly miserable. Certainly not half as miserable as getting up every day and looking in the mirror at yourself when you've allowed yourself to become obese. None of your clothes fitting. Never looking or feeling good and healthy.

But each to their own.

There is a difference between allowing yourself treat foods sometimes (being sensible and disciplined) in order to stay a size 8 or 10, and never allowing yourself to eat what you would really like to eat, in order to stay at a size 4 to 6.

Plenty of people are a size 4-6 and allow themselves treats sometimes/often. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Much as some people don't want to believe that.

But the facts are Mardle that very few people can eat what they like and stay slim because the West is seeing huge numbers of people who are obese and an epidemic of diabetes. The majority of women and men are overweight or obese. So this self regulating thinness is quite rare. Most people in middle age start to put on weight because their metabolism slows down. Increasing exercise, building up muscle and/ or cutting back on cals is the only answer. I don't know anyone who starves themselves to be a size 4-6.

Going back to the OP's original post, at lunch time I see the very thin people in our office with either canteen soup and maybe a roll or a brought in lunch of a very small salad.

I don't think they are restricting themselves deliberately, I now believe it's just because they don't enjoy the sensation of being overly full. I've always believed that f I was to have that for lunch I'd feel restricted and hungry, but maybe just maybe its a question of replacing those messages with the ones about not wanting to feel overly bloated or snoozy after lunch.

Traditional diets tend not to work because you still aren't thinking like a thin person. I was never as obsessed with food as when on WW due to having to work out the blinking points of everything you consume.

Threads like these are tremendously useful to me apart from the judgemental posts on either side as it helps me understand what "thin" eating really is like and it sounds like listening to your body a lot, not being overly interested in food and probably exercising more - maybe not at the gym but being fidgety ( my thin cousin never sits still) and walking a lot.

Some women work very very hard at controlling what they eat to stay at what they consider to be an acceptable/attractive size. It must be a pretty miserable existence though.

What a bitter post

Agree. Why does it have to be miserable? I know several women who are very into body building. They count/weight literally everything they put into their bodies. Every thing, and their food choices are dicatated by what part of a training cycle they're on. It's not for me, but they're not miserable, they get great joy/enjoyment from the results they see and the progress in their training.

So on the lesser extreme end of the spectrum, someone who is just working at maintaining a size 10 who does have to work at it. If they're working at eating healthily (not just low cal) they're probably enjoying better energy levels, enjoying looking forward to a more active old age, enjoying feeling comfortable in their skin, enjoying better skin&hair, enjoying not feeling bloated, better, erm bowel habits, my sex life is better the more healthy and active I am…..

I'ld be miserable if I ate more, sluggish and constipated, tired, grumpy..

Some lucky people can eat loads and never put on an ounce, don't you just hate 'em? Maybe they're more active 'fidgety' types with nervous energy which burns it off? A skinny pal of mine does eat smaller portions though. We were at a function once and she suggested we share a snack with the question, "that's enough, isn't it?" Well, no it wasn't really but I agreed to be amenable. I would have preferred a whole bacon butty to myself. That's why she's thin and I'm not.

Plenty of people are a size 4-6 and allow themselves treats

People that size (me, most of my life a 6) (and exception to those with eating disorders) don't see it as allowing treats.
E.g. birthday cake is more of a chore because we're expected to eat it. But if you put nuts in front of me, I'll just nibble and eat quite a fair amount. Cake in the fridge is eaten mostly so it doesn't spoil. I don't have the urge to finish it.

I have a good friend who is a size 4, she loves haagan daz more than life itself! But she'll get it out of the freezer, let it thaw to perfection not try and excavate it straight away when it's too hard & cold to even taste then she'll take a spoon and eat it really slowely and really enjoy it while I'm shovelling it in and put it back in the freezer after a few spoons while I'm looking at my tub thinking, there's only a small bit left.. migh as well keep going

However, where she always has a tub on the go, I only fancy it very occassionally (usually when I get together with that friend) and then won't fancy it again for ages. So it all balances out

And she doesn't enjoy square meals and prefers to graze. I like my 3 meals a day and don't really pick at food in between

Chip monkey describes how I realise I mostly eat compared to colleagues who are larger and often starting and restarting diets. My routine diet is pretty stable but at a lower level amount wise to theirs as well as the types of food.

I also don't recognise some of the descriptions of regular take aways. Most takeaways make me feel quite ill too!

If I came on here saying that all women over size 16 ate nothing but cake would you thing I was unreasonable and judgemental. Please keep your ignorant views to yourself.

"Not as miserable as getting up every morning and looking in the mirror at what you've allowed yourself to become"

That drips with loathing and contempt for fat people. If I got up and berated myself for how hideous I am, I'd dive head first into the biscuit tin and never leave the bloody house! In my case, I fell pregnant with my second at a healthy weight. Miscarried and comfort are. Fell pregnant again and developed hyperemesis. Was so ill, I lay in bed or on the sofa for months and could only eat salted crisps and drink lemonade - water would come straight back up again. I was signed off work and my doctor urged me to not worry, just eat and drink what I could. I got better later I the pregnancy but was doubly exhausted from recovering from the illness whilst looking after a toddler. Baby was born with some health issues that meant I didn't sleep more than an hour in one go for over a year. I was so exhausted I hallucinated every day. I cried every day. I was too tired to exercise and I ate sugary, rubbish food to get through.

I'm now losing the weight but I don't look on the mirror full of hatred for what I've "allowed myself to become". I'm glad that my body produced two lovely babies, that it recovered from illness and that I survived stress and exhaustion. I'm losing weight now to look after my body so it can be healthy, not because I despise it.

LOL

I am about 6 stone...slim but very unhealthy

I don't eat anything healthy. I constantly eat chips,crisps,chocolate etc. I drink tea with 4 sugars and Sprite.

I have issues with food which is why I eat like I do.

So no not all slim people are on a diet. But there is a difference between a healthy slim and an unhealthy slim

Need are you very short? 6 stones is really tiny. Are you bulimic or do you just eat tiny amounts of food because it's all you feel you want? It seems odd to eat a diet like yours and yet be so very light. I agree with slim doesn't necessarily mean healthy and being slim isn't necessarily indicative of a healthy diet or lifestyle.

I don't like the presumption that people who eat healthily are somehow martyrs too.

I agree that I'd rather go without and eat less of certain things than allow myself to indulge and then have to buy new clothes because I'd put on weight.

I am also vain enough to want to look good naked and that means looking trim. Yes, it's subjective, but don't put people like me down because we don't want to look in the mirror and see rolls of shapeless fat.