To ask you all a question about weight?

[Onceinabuemoon]

If you are slim and in good shape. What's your diet like? Do you eat a healthy diet, do you exercise regularly and so on? What I mean is do you work at keeping in shape, even if it's not difficult for you personally? Or are you slim but live on coffee and fags?!

If you are overweight or know you eat a bad diet and don't exercise, do you feel a bit rubbish? Or are you bigger but feel healthy and great?

The reason I'm asking is although I've never been overweight, I've always been bigger than I'd like upper end of a healthy weight. I eat what I want and don't really exercise and I don't really feel particularly healthy. Tired a lot, bad pms, feel unfit.

I can lose weight ok if I try and have often lost a stone but find it a real drag, hate limiting calories, hate cutting out food groups. Always put it back on. I figured I'm going to try a different way. Instead of disliking my body and trying to change it, I'm going to try and forget altogether but try eating better and exercising to feel healthier in the hope things will fall into place.

I'm just interested to hear how others manage their diet/weight really.

[Inadither]

I am age 40 and 5ft 7. My weight is around 14 stone, so I'm obese. I have always been on the plumper side, normally around a size 14. It's only in the last 10 years that I've piled it on. I'm an emotional eater and trying to turn that around now is hard. I'm having counselling.

[MagicMoneyTree]

I'm slim (when not pregnant) and people have always been quick to tell me I'm "lucky" that it's my natural build. Maybe it is to a certain extent (and I'm fairly tall too, which I think makes me look slimmer than I am) but I think mostly it's because all my life I have made healthy choices with food. To me, the healthy options aren't bland, boring whatever. I enjoy them.

• Never calorie count.
  
• Rarely weigh myself (don't own scales, so only weigh myself regularly when pregnant)
  
• Am vegetarian. I think this has made me focus on getting a balanced diet more than if I ate meat. I eat carbs, protein, fat, etc in roughly the advised amounts (at least I think I do- not like I sit there working it all out). On most days I get my 5-a-day, but often more.
  
• I have always followed the "everything in moderation" rule. I love snacky stuff and takeaways but I don't eat them often (unless pregnant). As such, I feel absolutely no guilt when I treat myself.
  
• I automatically choose whole grain/ low fat/ diet options. I know some of these have their downfalls, but it's all I've known since I was young, so it's automatic- I don't really think about it.
  

Exercise has varied massively over the years. I've gone from lazy student with zero energy, to gym member, to frequent swimmer, to occasional stroll every so often. I don't know the exact impact on weight as I mentioned I don't use scales, but in terms of dress size it's never made a difference. It does make me feel better generally if I'm more active though.

[flatbreads]

Not miserable for me either, I love being slim but feel very lucky that I don't have to do anything to be that way.

[hazeltheguineapig]

I'm just under 19 stone - my highest ever weight was 20 st 5 a few years ago. I have a really messed-up emotional relationship with food. It's better now than it has been at times in the past, but it still makes it very difficult to make conscious changes in my diet without knocking my mental health for a loop.

I'm not totally unhealthy but I do feel tired and grotty a lot. I'm working on this but it's a long journey. I wish more people realised how tough it can be. This is part of a wide array of MH difficulties that I've been dealing with since my early teens. Doctors tend to assume I'm an idiot for letting it get this far - well, I spent my twenties frantically trying not to commit suicide (and giving up smoking at the same time thank you very much), so they'll have to forgive me if kicking the doughnut habit took a back seat until now.

[IonaNE]

No idea how many calories I actually burn, probably hardly any
What do you mean "hardly any"? What do you think your body runs on?
TDEE calculator here: [[https://tdeecalculator.net/]]

[SuperBeagle]

If you are slim and in good shape. What's your diet like? Do you eat a healthy diet, do you exercise regularly and so on? What I mean is do you work at keeping in shape, even if it's not difficult for you personally? Or are you slim but live on coffee and fags?!

I'm slim naturally. Took on my dad's beanpole genetics.

But I do make an effort to be healthy and keep fit regardless. Being slim does not necessarily mean you're healthy.

Today's food:

• Breakfast: porridge with banana (nothing else - no sugar) and tea
  
• Snack: a green apple and two kiwi fruits
  
• Lunch: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and a whole red capsicum, and a Vegemite sandwich
  
• Afternoon tea: a piece of homemade chocolate cake that my grandmother made me and I've almost demolished in less than 24 hours and a cup of tea
  

Dinner will likely be curried sausages again, but could possibly end up being something like McDonalds because we're going to a service for someone at 4pm about an hour away from where we live... Will depend on what time we get away from that.

For exercise, I walk the dogs twice a day with the baby and toddler (when she's not at daycare), and swim three times a week.

I'm 5'7" and weigh around 54kg. Had DC4 in January.

[Groupie123]

@hazel The more you weigh the more calories you burn through exercise and the more calories you need to maintain your weight. So by just reducing your calorie intake by 500 cals per day (doable really when you consider your weight) you will lose weight.

'Naturally slim' people who don't measure portions/calories often gain weight as they get older because as you get older you need far fewer calories & as smaller people don't burn as many calories through exercise generally, the deficit is lost. Even an extra 100-200 cals a day (a couple of apples) over your maintenance intake can cause incremental weight gain.

[Passthecake30]

My BMI is 19.6, I'm 6ft and a size 12. I think I have a small frame, as even though my bmi is fairly low it doesn't take much for me to look a bit podgy. I used to be naturally thin, but these days I keep an eye on my weight (and muffin tops) and try to cut down if I get to the top end of where I like to be. That usually involves cutting back on treats/snack food as I do love hot chocolate, sweets and crisps. My main diet is pretty decent though, so all in moderation.

[sweetbitter]

I generally hover around the upper half of a healthy BMI weight without too much effort - exercise three times a week, eating generally healthily but plenty of treats nonetheless, like daily chocolate, at least one weekly takeaway/junk food dinner, plenty of wine, cheese, never satly no to cake when offered etc...but the basic meals usually "healthy" as in fresh foods, not too much saturated fat, lots of veg etc.

However I periodically start to feel discontented and heavy up at the top end of my BMI and while it's not difficult to stay there without ever going into the overweight zone, it feels disproportionately difficult to get down a bit further towards the bottom of the normal zone! I have to be really strict with reducing portion sizes, reducing snacks and reducing frequency of treats basically.

I have used My Fitness Pal whenever I wanted to lose a few kg and found it's good and works, you can still eat everything (I definitely would never embark on a diet that involves cutting out desserts or carbs or alcohol) but you do have to be quite obsessive about it which is annoying. Currently doing 1300 cals Mon-Fri and then more like 2000 on weekend days.

[ChandlersNubbin]

I'm another one who people assume is slim, just because they've always known me that way. But I was 4st heavier 12 years ago.

I'm 5ft 8 and BMI 19.5. If I don't watch my weight, it creeps on very quickly. So I watch my food intake daily and have done for years (except during stressful/"fuck it" patches, which last a few weeks and then I'm back on it).

I don't exercise but I do a lot of walking and maintaining a large house helps me keep the steps up every day.

I don't have sugar, or white bread/pasta - it's all whole wheat. I buy fat free or reduced fat everything - cheese, mayo, yogurt, etc. I don't cook with oil and I cook everything from scratch.

Wine is my main downfall!

[ChandlersNubbin]

Oh, and I don't eat cake/crisps/chocolate - I don't even have it in the house as I have next to no willpower!!

[Mulch]

Overweight but exercise a fuckton which I love and keeps me sane. Diet on the other hand is schizophrenic

[bananafish81]

I'm underweight but my diet is appalling

I'm a classic super skinny like on the C4 show. I eat loads of sugary crap but don't eat proper meals

I just have no interest in food

I don't work at staying slim, I really had to work at putting on weight

I thought I was one of those people with a super fast metabolism as I could eat whatever I liked and not put on weight

Turned out when I started to track using MFP because I couldn't start fertility treatment until I'd got my BMI up to 18.5, that I just wasn't eating enough. I was massively underestimating how many calories I was consuming every day - I couldn't believe how much I had to eat in order to get 2000 cals daily

I am skinny but unhealthy, I'm probably skinny fat with visceral fat on my organs. Unfortunately when stressed or sad I lose my appetite completely and I can't be arsed to force myself to eat.

I need to get my arse in gear and start to make the effort to eat actual meals and try to get my weight up

[bananafish81]

(I'm 5'8" and BMI of just under 17.5. At my healthiest I was BMI of about 19)

[hazeltheguineapig]

@Groupie123 - I appreciate that the advice was well meant, but this is sort of what I mean when I say I wish my kind of difficulty was better understood. I'm aware that cutting 500 kcal off my intake would result in weight loss. It's the 'doable' that's the problem. I understand that physically speaking it would be a totally adequate, healthy diet. But for my brand of brainfuckery, it's not presently doable. I lose the plot and either binge or stop eating altogether, and then a ton of other MH crap comes along. You should have seen me when I tried doing 5:2 a few years ago - I managed four weeks, and it took months afterwards to get back to some kind of normal. I'm working towards fixing these issues, but it's a slow process.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that my issues are as critical or dangerous as anorexia, but for argument's sake imagine that you just cheerfully told someone with anorexia to increase their daily intake by 500 calories and they'll stop losing weight. It's not always as simple as doing the maths.

[SabineUndine]

Hazel I've got the same problem as you. Watching my food intake when I'm an emotional eater is bloody exhausting. It's equal to telling an alcoholic that they must have three drinks a day, no more or less, imo. I would find it easier to stop eating altogether.

[heron98]

I'm thin and eat whatever I like. My diet is ok, I get my five a day, but also eat waaaaaay too much chocolate and junk. I am active thiough and love sport so it's not a chore for me.

[PingaPenguin]

I'm overweight and have been since my teens (32 now) a couple of times I've gone on diets, lost around 3 stone and been at the top end of my 'healthy weight'
I look better, and feel better in every way but unfortunately the weight always slides back on if I relax the diet just slightly and before I know it I'm as fat as I was before.
I am one of those that just has to look at food to put on weight.
I find living on 1000 cals a day horribly depressing and just not sustainable in the long time and unfortunately I'm an exercise hater!

[bananafish81]

I think in my experience that when I said 'I can eat whatever I like' (and stay slim) it was and is completely true. It's just that my natural appetite brake is such that 'whatever I like' is actually much less than I thought it was

I ate chocolate at three different times of day yesterday. I just didn't eat much else, so energy in wise I was probably still very much under the calories needed to maintain.

It's just 'eating what I want' isn't very much, even when I am eating proper meals. I'm just really not interested in food.

[flatbreads]

banana I totally agree. I hardly eat anything really and if I have one thing it pushes out another thing rather than adding to it. I try and drink Complan to add on a bit of weight but then it kills my appetite for proper food! Very frustrating as wish I wasn't so slim (hate the word skinny and refuse to use it although I know I am). At 51 I suspect I will always be the same.

[Lancelottie]

I find living on 1000 cals a day horribly depressing and just not sustainable

I'm not surprised! That doesn't sound like enough to meet your basic, non-exercising, sitting-around requirements for keeping you alive.

I'm pretty sure that nutritional requirements for people actually in a coma are higher than that ( I have to read some very odd things for work, and that was one of them!).

[Groupie123]

@hazeltheguineapig

I'm an emotional eater too (have PCOS and Bipolar), I tend to binge when I'm upset too but have managed to maintain my weight by bingeing on low calorie food. Went from nearly 17 stones to 11 and a bit and have maintained for 7 years. Counting calories works for me. I think at some point if you really want to lose weight and keep it off you'll find a way.

[stopgap]

I'm 40, 5'7.5 and 9 stone. I lift heavy weights 3 times a week, and mix up the cardio between running, spinning or swimming 2-3 times a week.

When I don't lift weights, I'm about half a stone lighter.

I eat:

Scrambled eggs, bacon, slice of toast, half an avocado

Lunch: high protein salad dressed with olive oil. Handful of cashews and bowl of cherries.

Dinner: whatever--sushi, curry, a stew, grilled fish...

I recently cut out the giant bowl of crisps and chocolate bar I was having every night, mostly because type 2 diabetes runs in the family and I was starting to edge into the prediabetes zone.

[Bumpins19]

I'm a weird somewhere in the middle. I'm currently pregnant but, pre-pregnancy, my BMI was 28, so overweight and I could definitely stand to lose more than a couple of pounds. It is also the biggest I've been and came as a bit of a shock when I realised just how big I was!

This being said, I'm also naturally muscular - I've been much skinnier and I distinctly remember my very worried mother dragging me to the scales because she thought I looked like a skeleton (and looking back at photos of that point, I did not look well at all!). I can't remember my precise weight but turned out my BMI was about 21 or 22 so supposedly healthy so

Baby bump has meant I've had to slow down on the exercise recently but prior to this I was doing a short 10-15 minute yoga session every day plus a longer 2-3 hour session of something (usually weights mixed with cardio, but sometimes yoga, swimming or a jog) at the weekend.

Food-wise, I try to eat healthy but probably have one or two cheat days a week where I eat a healthy breakfast and lunch and then overindulge at dinner. Admittedly, in the run up to the 28 BMI, the cheat days were probably more like three or four a week (combination of stress eating from being in an industry where the workload just shot up on the Brexit vote and having a string of celebration type events to go to back to back) so I'm working on getting that in check now.

[Fantail]

I've lost 20kg in the last 12 months. Gone from 75kg to 55kg. I'm 5ft 4 and hourglass shape. Haven't weighed this little since I was 14/15.

Main culprit I think was a long standing undiagnosed thyroid problem, which is now properly medicated.

At the same time that was diagnosed I was also diagnosed with diabetes, initially thought to be T2, but turned out to be T1. Changed diet out of need. Eat low carb/ high fat, hardly any processed foods. Lots of vegetables, good quality fat and protein.

Am trying to exercise, but managing health issues, being a single Mum and working full time, sometimes means that sleep is more important and energy lacking!

If the weight has gradually crept on and you struggle to lose I think I would advise looking at any underlying health issues like a thyroid issue, evaluate stress and sleep issues, then look at doing a diet like Whole 30 to kick start things.