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?

It would be true if people want to restrict calories but want to continue eating empty calories. If you restrict calories but eat food that has a low calorie to other nutrient ratio then you should be fine.

Great posts sleep. I'd add two other factors to your list which have been proven to have a very big impact on health:

• contentment/mental health
• social connection.

Definitely Mom, did you see the village in Italy with all those people over 100years old? Lots of them slightly overweight, all eating lots of omega3, daily small glass of wine, active but what seemed most significant to me was their sense of community and love - and absence of stress!

Hollin... I went to school with you!

I have just measured my wrist... 5.5cm!

I posted my middle area on page 9. 5'7, 8.2 stone.

Eat like a horse but very good food. While backs of shredded chicken, beetroot, salmon, veg, berries, natural yoghurt. And gym 4x a week.

Life feels good when you eat well and exercise.

one short report about the village

Oh good lord, i am being daft. That's inches!

Not surprised, sleep. Did you ever read Outliers? Gladstone wrote about the small town in Pennsylvania which had incredible low rates of heart disease. When epidemiologists went to study it, they were surprised that the lifestyle and diet of the town were typical of most of America (smoking, little exercise, processed food, portions). What was unusual about this town was that all residents could trace their relatives to two towns in Italy and thus had an incredibly close community. Fascinating stuff.

That's a relief Enjoying - I'd just gone to measure mine and was concerned about how your hands managed to stay attached with such teeny weeny wrists.

I must buck the trend - I've always had tiny wrists and ankles but a big build, so my wrists are 14.5 cm but even at target weight I find it hard to get below 40" hips with broad shoulders and at 5ft 6 I look best at around 10st 7.

It's interesting all these studies that try to demonstrate if you're better being underweight or overweight. I agree there are lots of environmental factors and dare I say it genetic propensity for health and age as well.

Eating a limited repetoir is what'll leave you deficient, but that is true whether you eat 1200 calories or 3200. Higher calories doesn't mean more nutrients, often it just means more sugar and refined carbs, not more vitamins and nutrients.

I just had a low cal dinner. I made a chilli free sweet'n'sour thai red curry sauce for a stir fry (well it came out more brown than red , but tasted lush) with about 40%noodles, 50% veg (pak choi/green beans/carrots), and 10 cashews and seasame seeds. 1tbs coconut oil

I'ld say that dinner is probably higher in nutrient than some of the higher calorie meals I've had this week. The sauce had spices, ginger, garlic, bit of himalayan salt, lime juice, shallots, lemongrass, fresh coriander, tomato puree, and a small dash of rice vinegar and honey (for the kids tastes, I'ld have had it without the vinegar and honey with chillis instead if it was just me)

I've got a nutrient checker, my meal contained:
Vitamin A (carrots)
No vitamin D (but I've had that from other stuff today, and spent all day outside with DD2)
Vitamin K (the green veg)
Omega 3 (the leafy veg)
Omega 6 (I think? cashews/seasame seeds???)
B2 (the leafy greens)
B3 (cashews)
B5 (seasame seeds)
B6 (seasame seeds, garlic)
B12 (nope, but had from elsewhere today)
Folate (cashews & green beans)
Vit C (the cabbage, lime)
Biotin (cashews)
Flavinoids (cabage, onion, lime)
Inositil (cabbage, onions)
Chlorine (cabbage)
Calcium (seasame seeds, cabbage)
Phosphrous (cashews)
Sodium (himalayan salt)
Potassium (garlic and corriander)
Chloride (salt)
Sulphur (nope, had elsewhere today)
Iron (cashews)
Zinc (cashews)
Copper (tomato puree)
Manganese (cashews)
Iodine (veg)
Chromium (black pepper)
Molybdenum (garlic, onion)
Floride (cabbage)
Selenium (sunflower seeds)

I'm not taking into account RDAs, but as a meal I think it covers a good range of nutrients.

that should say 10 PERCENT cashews and seasame seeds .. not 10 measley nuts & seeds lol

I was a size 10 until my early 30's. Literally ate anything and everything, I weighed 51 kilos (under 8 and a half stone). As I got older, I put on weight.

(not a low cal dinner to diet.. I'ld planned something heavier but just didn't fancy it after eating lots earlier on (including cake) whilst on the go with DD, so did a last min top-up shop for something fresher/lighter to undo the 'ugh' feeling from my heavy lunch)

That dinner sounds lush Screen.

My idea of heaven (lottery win stuff) would be a house with my own gym & pool and a personal chef who whips me up personalised gorgeous, nutritious, healthy meals & snacks.

My problem with food is that I'm a shit chef, I hate cooking and I'm not interested enough in food to do it myself.

Lol at Enjoying having 5.5cm wrists!!

I'm impressed and that you have smaller wrists than mine, Enjoying.

Donna are you sure?

I'm a 5'9" size 8/10, my maintenance calories are about 1,650 and if I'm doing loads of exercise then 2,100.

Maintenance for most men is about 2,000, so 3,000 is a lot.

I'm slim with little effort but it's because my parents were extremely healthy, plain eaters (meat and 3 veg night after night) so I eat the same way as that's what I know. I haven't got a sweet tooth at all, so there's no choc or biscuits at home. Growing up we could drink either water or milk, so I really only drink water.

A typical days food for me - Greek yoghurt, muesli & black coffee for breakfast, a big salad with chicken for lunch (bought as I work), piece of fruit around 5pm to tide me over and dinner is nearly always meat with a few sides of veg. Tonight was trout with new potatoes, green beans and sprouts. I don't cook pasta or rice at home & we have toast on the weekends.

There is definitely a genetic element to weight as my sister has PCOS and is very large (20+ dress size) - she stayed with me recently and I was floored at the amount of sugary foods she ate. Not obviously "bad" foods like sweets but sugary instant porridge and lots of dried fruit. We had the same upbringing but our eating habits are worlds apart.

Enjoying wow! Secondary?

According the the wrist thing I'm large boned. Which surprises me. I think my frame is fairly small. Don't wear big shoes, wear small gloves.. must just have weird wrists :-D
And have no prob staying well within my BMI, I'ld be very "fat" for my frame at the top end of healthy for my height. I'm happy sitting around the mid-mark of healthy BMI wise, don't look boney and don't look fat. IMO anyway.

Hollin... Grammar? Your height has thrown me somewhat. You look literally identical to this person but she was probably slightly below average height when I last saw her at 17/18

Absolutely sure.. obviously you have to take my word for it as it is blank that I havent put my stats in as a 6ft male
This is before I put in exercise or food.

That was yesterday. The exercise I did was 60 mins of zumba and 3 hrs heavy duty cleaning (think moving furniture and scrubbing a house top to toe not light housework)

Dona mfp is quite useful for showing nutritional info and breakdown of macronutrients as well as calories - do you look at it? (Not sarky, genuine question!)

Yes I do. I was at how much salt was in a Greggs soup. Absolutely gobsmacked. Funnily enough when I saw it it was all I could taste...
I've only been logging for a few days but I am pretty repetitive in my eating habits so apart from the cheese toastie its clear that my diet is low in saturated fat which of course is a good thing

Saturated fat really isn't as bad as it's made out to be - I'd be more concerned that (assuming from what you say that this is typical), your diet is low in protein (and the protein you do have there is mostly from poor sources), high in sugar and almost devoid of any good fat, fibre, vitamins and minerals....unless you are some freak of nature your health will suffer (if it isn't already... noticeable signs may be dry or greasy skin and hair, headaches, digestive problems, poor nails, low immunity, big energy dips....)

Salt isn't necessarily bad either and there is a lot of evidence that adults with normal blood pressure don't necessarily need to worry about their salt intake.

Agree about saturated fat not being that bad either - butter and cheese are good foods not bad.

The real enemy is probably sugar and the sugar industry has spent the last 40/50 years quietly making the population overweight and unhealthy while letting people think that fat and salt are to blame.