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?

After going through all that i did slowly regain 4 stone after my DHs heart attack left him with disabilities .

Ive lost the 4 stone regain now but its taken me nearly 3 years. It does get slower I follow the SW plan and even eating their so called speed foods it STILL didnt come off any quicker ( i wont eat their low syn muller yoghurt and other low syn ideas etc because they are packed with sugar and when i followed that advice the SECOND time i GAINED. ) The first time when i lost 10 stone i lost 7 stone in 7 months and that was with eating big plates of pasta.

Not having a gall bladder doesnt help i dont think but i really think there is something to that article.

Clearly the weightier women on here are envious of the slimmer ones

Ahem

www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/blogs/should-we-stop-saying-shes-just-jealous-of-you

"So, how would you describe someone who has to make a concerted effort to remain slim - by watching what they eat, and virtually always eating less than they would like to remain slim? As opposed to the many on this thread who eat whatever, and whenever they like, and remain slim? "

@thedowagercuntess I guess the question comes back to, as has been raised many times on this thread what 'those who eat whatever and whenever they like and remain slim' actually looks like over the long term

I can eat whatever and whenever I like, but I have a small appetite, so whatever and whenever I like is generally not massive quantities. I don't have some magical metabolism whereby I can gorge myself silly and not put on any weight. I needed to put some weight on to get my BMI up from underweight into healthy range. I always thought I was one of those people with a ridiculous metabolism and that's why I struggled to put weight on

Turns out I wasn't actually eating enough. Eating whatever and whenever I liked was simply not very many calories a day. I started paying very deliberate attention to what I ate, consciously trying to eat more (nutritious) food - and hey presto. I had been eating WAY less than I thought.

If you put the two people you describe above - the one who has to make a concerted effort to remain slim, and the one who is effortlessly slim - on exactly the same diet over a reasonable period of time, doing the same amount of physical activity, would the effortlessly slim person stay effortlessly slim, if they were consuming way more than they normally would?

Clearly the weightier women on here are envious of the slimmer ones

Not necessarily

Not in every instance, but likely the majority

Helen that's awful poor you!

I've heard of people being hositalised after meal replacement diets but I always thought slimming world was meant to be the "sensible" one. I'ld well believe that WW causes serious health problems though having done it once.

I wasn't even "Fat" I was in my 20s and wanted to be slimmer for a bridesmaid gig.
I dropped from a 10/12 to an 8. I said I was done and asked to go on maintenance, I wasn't at my leader set "goal weight" but I was already a bit too skinny for my frame and didn't ever want to be a size 6. WW leader set my goal at the very VERY last pound you can be on at my height before being underweight and refused to put me on maintenance instead of weightloss accusing me of trying to get out of paying for meetings (you don't pay when you're at goal weight).

The plan has "healthy options" and reasonable loss weighs on paper, but the meetings was all about praising the biggest/fastest lb losers. And then all about how to save points for wine or low sugar high aspartaime deserts. Was really really unhealthy. The weight watcher brand food products are pure junk!

I quit and never went back, a few weeks later my leader wrote to me agreeing to re-set my goal weight to what I was and begging me to come back

I'm a size 10 - very anxious personality with a high metabolism. I get wobbly if I don't have a snack between meals. I yo yo between being quite sensible about what I eat and sliding into excess for comfort. I really do think it is more of a genetic/metabolism thing. I don't think my insides are very healthy though - and I worry about diabetes a lot. Need to change my ways.

I guess the question comes back to, as has been raised many times on this thread what 'those who eat whatever and whenever they like and remain slim' actually looks like over the long term

This. "Eat what you like". To me, if money was no object, I'ld have a live in raw vegan chef and ocassionally sneak in a seafood chef on vegan chefs day off without them knowing thats absolutely my favourite type of food.

My next favourite is sushi. I love mezze type food too.

"eat what you like", in my case, is mostly fresh and healthy with the odd treat, but I don't enjoy daily treats

I think some people are lucky to not experience hunger the way others do. It is not a sensation that is easy to ignore, it's more like holding your breath under water. That's what hunger feels like to me.

I sometimes wonder why I'm a small 10 instead of 8 when I eat well and work out...
Then on nights like tonight when o have a chocolate brownie and a raspberry daqari, I realise why

Screenshotting have you seen the latest Slim Fast advert with Alexandra Burke in. Its all about FAST weight loss and slimming down for an event

a. fast weight loss is dangerous and can make you ill.
b. slimming down for an event is the wrong way of looking at it Its a long term health change. (not having a go btw )

c. at the end of the slim fast ad she says "Come on GIRLS you can do it.) so its about more pressure on women to look aesthetically pleasing and not about health at all (see point a.) #everydaysexism

Interesting you should mention Weight Watchers i saw a doc on BBC3 years ago and a young woman developed an eating disorder when her body just would NOT get down to the lowest weight on their scale .....the same thing they did to you.

Many of the doubters of slim people who eat whatever they want think this because their personal view of "whatever I want to eat" is probably different from the slim person's "whatever I want to eat". I don't find stuffing my face with biscuits or eating entire cakes pleasant at all. I don't find beige food appetising in the least. I never have. My mum tells a story of a lady who came to visit us when I was a toddler and brought a box of special biscuits for me to have. Because I refused to eat beyond one tiny nibble, she secretly ate a couple just so that the lady would not be offended.

I find salads to be delicious and comforting, and love the crunch of raw vegetables. Me eating what I want are these foods. I love ice cream - the ones I make, but am satisfied with 2 teaspoons a day. I really do eat what I want without any thought to calories, fat, etc - it is just that what I want is healthy and I don't think it is at all pleasant to feel full. Those people who think thin people deprive themselves are looking at the world from a different perspective.

You can train yourself to not like junk food, that's a fact and sugar is so addictive I try not to go there. I'll always be 10/12 my shape is a bit divina McCall and I think it's fine. If I eat what I want I'm a 14 and I hate that.

Helena I didn't know slimfast was still going? Bit 80s that one isn't it I remember the old ad though: "slimfast makes you thin fast"

(you're right I wouldn't slim down for an event now, I was young and the bride was putting us in styles I wasn't comfortable in)

Ahhh. the one good thing about being as big as i was was i was never asked to be a bridesmaid.

Pissed off im a 14 and perfectly happy. i was a 28.

There is also the interesting theory that some slim people are natural fidgets.

Certainly a very scientific observation of a few slim people I know/ have known supports this theory. All of them when sitting, kicked one foot furiously in time to an invisible beat. Must have used loads of calories.

I was very slim for years pre children and pre car. Walked and cycled everywhere. Ate loads but burnt it all off. Exercise for the purpose of getting about as people did for thousands of years and mostly stayed slim as a result.

Mominatrix - exactly!

A friend i was at school with was very slim but not neccassrily healthy up until now. Shes the same age as me but in her case from what i can tell its the binge drinking.

Could the fact that she was younger mean thats how she got away with it and its now changed because shes older.

Genuine question Im teetotal so know fuck all about booze. She drinks cans.

Im a fidget Grandma. DH moans about it.

I eat what I want - but like others on this thread, I want to eat wholesome, healthy food because it makes me feel good and means I can run without feeling sick and sluggish.

Yes, I like cake, but I'll have one small slice rather than the massive slabs that seem to pass for "slices" in most coffee shops. I never have fast food - it's just something we as a family don't do, as it's expensive and leaves you feeling kind of full, dehydrated and hungry at the same time.

Put simply, I'm not depriving myself by not eating three biscuits in a row, or not having fizzy drinks or McDonald's ever, because I genuinely don't want to eat shit food. If I eat badly I feel bloated and it affects my running. I'd rather be healthy and fit than eat crap every day.

I also don't associate food with every possible occasion in the way my obese relatives do. They eat ice cream in the cinema, will stop for a frothy coffee when shopping etc. Even if they've just eaten.

Re. treat i only eat cake on ppls birthdays and my own Works out as around 5 times a year.

I'm somewhere between a size 8/10. I do eat what I want and don't eat particularly healthy food. But I do get full easily and don't eat when I am full. So if I have a bacon butty mid morning I then won't want lunch. Its not fair, I didn't earn my body, I don't exercise, but that's just how it is. In my case it is pure luck. However, I m aware it all could change as I get older!