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?

Weight is a far more accurate indicator is size than clothes size. A size ten in some shops is actually pretty well rounded!

5'7 and 8.2 stone. Always been very slim and I eat like a Trojan BUT I work out 3/4 times a week and I eat very healthily. A lot of soup, chicken breasts, yoghurt, veg and fruit.

Big portions of very healthy food. That's the key, as satisfies your appetite but all good stuff. So a one marinated salmon with a a couple of tablespoons of rice and then a mound of steamed veg. Delicious and supremely satisfying.

*my being slightly overweight is caused by a) slightly too big portions b) enjoying the social aspect of eating out and probably doing it a bit too often and c) being perimenopausal.

It's very unfair to say that anyone overweight takes no exercise and is greedy (such a loaded word*

No 'no' exercise, but not enough to stop being overweight.
I find it strange that you know why you're overweight (large portions) but don't do anything about it ie. Eat less.

The privilege thing is a red herring.

If there is such a thing as 'thin privilege' then there will have to be such a thing as 'fat privilege' too.

Where you're privileged to be able to eat more calories than you need to. Or privileged not to have to walk 10 miles per day to collect drinking water.

It's a bit ridiculous and unhelpful really.

IceBeing I do not have a fast metabolism. I eat modestly and even exercise modestly. Crucialy I don't over eat.

I don't know if you do or if you have a medical condition that affects your metabolism but not being over weight is not a privilege. It's normal if your diet is.

If you can eat till you don't feel hungry and not gain weight then you are lucky. What causes others to gain weight is that when they eat till they don't feel hungry they DO gain weight.

This is not something pre-set. It is not something you can't alter

feeling (or not feeling) satated is a response to your choices. You can chose foods that are more likely to make you feel full to retrain your appetite. It's not something you're born with and stuck with.

E.g. again the lady with her muller lights for lunch - that's going to make you feel hungy in the afternoon. its going to make "dieting" feel miserable. A "proper" lunch with a good portion of protein and carbs and veg/fruit might look less diety, but it's going to help to not feel hungry later on in the afternoon.

There's other choices too that affect your ability to feel full, e.g. diet drinks have been shown to increase hunger and therefore increase calorie intake over the course of the day.

Exercise does not make you eat more nor does it make you hungrier

It's loads of factors.

Genetics, relationship with food, activity levels.

Some women are naturally very petite, some are naturally tall and willowy, some are prone to stockiness (I am - I am short, but not tiny framed, I'm a muscular build).

Different shapes carry weight differently and some very slim people can be extremely unhealthy and 'skinny fat', whereas some people can be slightly larger but very toned.

I truly believe that everyone has a natural size/weight that their body will always head towards.
For some women they remain a size 8 with no effort required, for some it will be a 12.

So you don't think there is any difference between someone who has to spend all day everyday watching what they eat and feeling hungry in order to stay a size 10 and somebody who never has to think about what they eat and doesn't feel hungry all day in order to stay a size 10?

Their lives are equally easy? There is no privilege there?

IceBeing does this happen even if you eat foods to make you feel fuller for longer?

I am talking about 'fast metabolism' privilege
there's no such thing. Your metabolism isn't a fixed number, it constantly changes in response to what you do and what you eat.

I could slow down or speed up my metabolism if I wanted to (exercising less/more)

If you can eat till you don't feel hungry and not gain weight then you are lucky

I would say that I eat until I feel nearly full...I mean I could eat more but that would mean feeling overfull for a bit too long, I don't like feeling stuffed with food.
If I didn't know where the next meal was coming from then I would eat as much as I could fit in to guard against starvation but that's just never the case is it.

It's not that I dont like eating but food is much more satisfying if you are very or at least quite hungry.
In order to get to that feeling you need to have not over eaten at the last meal and allowed a good few hours to have elapsed since the last meal.

Also this idea that slim people are always hungry, as if not having recently eaten leaves you in some kind of agony?
For me hunger is a sort of background sensation of 'I could eat but it's not convenient right now'
Few us of will get to a point where some kind of harm will befall us if we dont have food right now

screen most of what you said was true but exercise does make you hungry because it burns calories and your brain notices that. People who exercise more can eat more without gaining weight. Doing more exercise would increase the number of calories I could eat, but wouldn't change the fact I have to feel hungry all the time to not put on weight.

YABU. And also because salad, too contains carbs: e.g. 100g tomatoes contain 3.9 g carbohydrates, so if someone only eats salads, they still eat carbs.

exercise does not make you eat more nor does it make you feel hungrier

I say this from the perspective of someone very slim who works out a lot. High intensity cardio, swimming and weights.

Yes, it bloody does! On the 3 days I don't exercise formally, I don't every feel hungry and eat very lightly. On the four days I really go for it at the gym, my appetite explodes. And it makes total sense. I'm burning a shed load of energy, hundreds of calories in one go.

I think if a person is thinking about food and eating or not has an unhealthy relationship with food and that sounds difficult

There is a privilege in everything if you look hard enough for it.

Ask anyone in a 3rd world country whether they think fat people are privileged.

But throwing the word around at people, really doesn't help to prove any kind of point imo.

No, Ice I don't.

I am absolutely sick to death of people slapping x privilege labels on things they don't like/envy.

Some things, it makes sense (white privilege), most things it doesn't.

funniest - if you look upthread you'll see that I am doing something about it.

Diets don't work for me and for 95% of the population as if you consciously think about reducing your intake all the time to lose weight, then once it's gone you've not actually changed how you think about food and you tend to regain the weight.

I'm trying to think like a thin person so only eat what I want when I'm genuinely hungry rather than be on a constant yo-yo.
I'd like to think if I do manage to lose weight and become thinner I will be a compassionate thin person though .

It can't be that hard to understand. I don't have an addictive nature so I don't drink too much alcohol and gave up smoking easily enough about 10 years ago. That doesn't mean that I look at folks who drink too much and smoke and go well they should just stop. It's not that easy, but fine sneer away if you want.

Size 8 and my fav is vegan ice cream on toast. Pasta. anything fried

But when I eat post exercising (I come back from the gym , and practically inhale a pack of chicken and soup and yoghurt with berries), I feel like my body is metabolising the food very fast. I don't bloat nothing, still flat tummy and not a full feeling. My pt says exercising hard in the morning means that you do metabolise food in the four hours that follow much faster than otherwise

I have seen perfectly ordinary sized women food obsess about calories and carbs and weight I dont think that is healthy either

Right, so I have to go make dinner for my family now. I am hungry (surprise surprise) but have already eaten a reasonable lunch (sandwich with salad) so I will probably have to just sit watching everyone eating.

I hope all you 'I'm size 10 no matter what I eat' types have a nice dinner though...

I was size 8-10 until I was 36 with no effort. I ate a balance of fairly healthy meals combined with massive amounts of alcohol every few days and hangover munching on chocolate/fry-ups/buns. I did a lot of exercise and walked places a lot.

Then I got pregnant, had 3 babies (not all in one pregnancy) and 10 years later I am a size 12-14 even though I drink no alcohol. I think it's a combination of little exercise, treating myself with bad food choices (I used to be too busy out and about to snack much) and age-related metabolism changes!

I was a comfortable size 10 at 11 stone (5' 2").

I was 2 stone heavier than my friend but we perfectly fitted each other's clothes.
My sister was a stone less than me but 2 sizes bigger than me.

Weight and size are quite an individual thing - it's best to forget about all the numbers and just find a happy size for you.

You may have to diet to get there, but once there you maintain without effort.

I'm trying to think like a thin person so only eat what I want when I'm genuinely hungry rather than be on a constant yo-yo.

Mistake. Big mistake. This is NOT what thin people do.

The danger of waiting until you are genuinely hungry is that you overeat. I eat three times a day,very healthy and moderately portioned meals. I'm not ravenously hungry when I eat (other than post gym!), I just realise that it's lunchtime, dinner time etc and time to refuel my body

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?