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?

Lweji - why? I wanted to be skinny because I thought that I looked better when really slim. I found if I ate normal food and normal meals I gained weight fast. When I became pregnant I started eating a normal 2,000 calories a day and in 3 months I gained 2.5 stones. In 9 months I gained 4.5 stones.

I hate being an 8. I look great in clothes but awful naked . I sometimes go down to an 8 because if I increase my exercise I don't eat more (there's less time to eat if you're exercising more I find) - not on purpose I just keep eating normally. I hate it.

Other people look great as an 8 but I don't like it on me

I had a good chuckle in American Apparel the other day, their sizing is absolutely absurd, a size 10 to them is something like an XXL!

I thought that too, I'ld eat 2000 calories on a blow-out/treat day, not daily or on weekdays

can'tuse "Can't you just sit with them and have some of it? If you only had a salad and sandwich for lunch it's time for dinner now. Won't you feel hungry and fed up all night if you don't eat?"

Yes I did indeed feel hungry and fed up all night...then I couldn't sleep. But I don't know what choices I have. If I eat more than I won't lose weight. I am losing weight at a ridiculously slow rate as it is, 1 kilo in 3 weeks, and I need to lose weight to be get into a reasonable BMI bracket. I am picking up some extra exercise so I should be able to eat something small three times a day instead of two, which will make dinner time less fraught (and god knows I don't want my DD to see me not eating at meal times)....but it won't stop me from feeling miserable and hungry all the time....because I will still need to have the large deficit in calories between those my brain thinks I need and those my body actually needs.

I wish I still had drinks calories to cut out...I have one cup of tea a day and the rest is water. I wonder if it would help if I drank more water though...

There weren't to start with but there have been quite a few later in the thread who spoke about restricting calories in order to stay slim.

More than three certainly.

IceBeing that sounds miserable for you - surely you can't work/function properly if you are permanently hungry? I've often heard these stories about one's metabolism slowing if you put yourself on too strict a regime, and your body going into starvation mode and clinging on to calories if it's not sure when it's next going to get a decent meal ..... not sure if either of these are true but they sound logical.

Always found the opposite to be true, everyone I know who is (consistently) that size never diet. My boss is very slim but eats tons, we joke about the time she ate 4 huge jacket spuds and 12 sausages in one day. Combination of genetics/metabolism and the fact she's extremely active.

My best friend is a size 8-10, she eats plenty and can put away more in one sitting than me (I'm a size 16) but she rarely snacks between meals, doesn't have much of a sweet tooth and doesn't eat much bread.

I've stopped dieting and stopped obsessing over 'healthy eating' which is nine times out of ten another way of saying dieting. I've been obsessing over it my entire life, have only ever got bigger as a result, and I'm just tired of it. It's tedious and I refuse to devote any more of my life to it. I'm focusing now on eating stuff I actually enjoy, listening to my body's signals for when I'm hungry and when I'm full, and damn well enjoying it - food is one of life's great pleasures, but it's also just food. Not good, not bad, not a 'naughty treat' or a stick to beat myself with. It's just food. I'm far happier and actually far healthier than I ever was. Yes at first giving myself permission to eat whatever I wanted meant packets of biscuits or whole loaves of toast, now I find I'm actually craving and really enjoying lots of fish and veg. I've lost interest in take aways and can have sweet stuff in the house for weeks without bothering. If I never lose another pound I'll still take this over a return to the diet mentality.

There weren't to start with but there have been quite a few later in the thread who spoke about restricting calories in order to stay slim

more workplace anecdotes.. but what I observe is its usually overweigh people who are on endless misery diets. People are are and stay slim generally tend to enjoy food differently and don't do the unsustainable misery starvation diets

just anecdotally

I actually find it quite depressing the number of slim women on this thread who actively limit their calories and spend so much of their lives depriving themselves.

God, some people are just desperate to believe this, aren't they.

Out of a thread of about 700 posts of people saying they are this slim and don't do diets or restrict themselves, you cling to the 3 or so who have said they do.

Interesting.

what I observe is its usually overweigh people who are on endless misery diets. People are are and stay slim generally tend to enjoy food differently and don't do the unsustainable misery starvation diets

This is exactly what I have found too.

Errr. I am quite happy to say that I restrict what I eat. So what? Is it a crime? Does it make me a martyr or a misery? Should be stuffing my face and not giving a FF for my waist line? Nope.

The reasons are - I'm quite old and I don't need the same amount of food as in my 20s, 30s or 40s when I was more active , both working full time, or running around after DCs. I also have a job that is desk-bound. And at my age my metabolism has slowed down. I actually don't eat much less than I did in my 20s, but what I do notice is that if I eat more than I need the pounds creep on very fast and take longer to shift. I don't really like junk type food anyway ; too much sugar makes me feel lethargic , I never buy crisps or sweets, they don't 'do it' for me, and my only weakness would be cake. We have a weekend treat and that is fine.

The fun of being able to wear what you want I suppose and being happy to wear a swimming costume in front of people.

Larger people can do this, smaller people can do this, bang-on-average people can do this.

It's called being happy in your own skin & liking yourself, something which we seem to be encouraged not to do.

what I observe is its usually overweigh people who are on endless misery diets. People are are and stay slim generally tend to enjoy food differently and don't do the unsustainable misery starvation diets

I think this is actually true.

I am currently very overweight following a couple of years of illness, no activity (used to be v active) & steroids.
I know I will have to work hard to get back down to my natural weight (not slim, usually a big size 10, but in proportion & a size I'm happy with), but once I'm back there then I'll be back to in=out and easy maintenance with no special effort.

The misery comes with the work involved to get back to that easy, happy equilibrium.

That's not what I meant mango. I meant the people who always misery diet but never maintain weight loss. They seem to be the ones on the miserable diet foods for whom "dieting" is a miserable experience

Sorry, I meant the misery will come with the work involved to get back to a good point after my recent 5 stone weight gain.

Prior to the realisation (at about aged 32), that I was never going to be a slim and petite size 6-8, I was on constant diets and was miserable about my body.

I was always fit and strong, but not slight or delicate looking - at 5'2" I was around 11 stone; I was a comfortable to big size 10.
In my early 30s I finally accepted my shape & build and never looked back.
I stopped the dieting cycles and just ate & exercised well.
I may not have been petite, but I was toned & had a very flat stomach - no wobbly bits anywhere.

This is the happy size I am now working to get back to.

Exactly Aye.

And why? Because the idea that many many slim people actually manage to eat a full and varied diet and still stay slim is a concept that we overight posters on this thread don't want to accept. So keep telling themselves that slim people must live a miserable existence. As they chomp through another biscuit. And another. And another.

Quite the opposite. Being slim and able eat a shed load of filling healthy food with the occasional treat is an utterly AWESOME existence! Likewise, being slim and able to eat a shed load of unhealthy food is also utterly awesome. Conversely, being slim and carefully monitoring one's diet is unappealing to a tiny minority on this thread, but others accept that it is the life they lead in order to wear the clothes they want, like what they se in the mirror and enjoy the health benefit of being slim.

What IS a miserable existence is being slim as a result of an eating disorder. That really would be a miserable existence, and one that I don't recall any poster on here saying that they suffer from (amongst the slim posters anyway).

Look, I don't look at fat people and think, 'cripes, look at you, bet you've been scoffing your face constantly today. Lardy arse.' Not at all. If I think anything at all, I think 'shit, that looks uncomfortable'

'Is a concept that a few overweight posters on this thread'

Ahem, don't know why you're casting me as a disbeleiveing overweight person, I'm a size eight as I said before, and yes, there are quite a few posters who have said they restrict calories in prefer to stay slim, I'm not making it up...

Restricting calories does not go hand in hand with deprivation. As you see it.

You have enjoyed a slice of cake.

If it was a non calorie cake, then pretty sure I'd would go for another slice or three.

But that fact I know it has 300 plus calories in it means I stick with just the one slice. Is that the deprivation you speak of?

Well certainly eating one slice of cake rather than several doesn't sound like deprivation to me. I'm not a great cake eater anyway, and if I'm having a bit tend to share with a friend after a walk ( she's size 6-8, I'm size 14).

However I'm not sure that making a Covent garden soup eke out for 3 lunches with the grand addition of an apple sounds that much fun or indeed particularly healthy.

Oh rookie, you're right. That was extreme. Someone who does that I suspect is also being vvveeerryyy careful with money

Sorry rookie but unless you are a qualified dietitian and have looked into a month's food consumption of mine, how the heck are you able to pass judgement on whether I am healthy- or happy?

I have an extremely healthy diet, thanks. I gave that example to show how it's possible to eat smaller amounts of something. And it's not Covent Garden soup, btw!

Maybe you ought to take into account the 2 eggs I'd had for breakfast, the handful of walnuts or almonds eaten mid morning, and the nutritious dinner I'd be having later before making stupid judgy comments about whether I eat healthily or not.