To wonder how you keep your size 6/8/10 figure after 30?

[snarted]

I feel like to do this I would have to really restrict myself food wise and keep to a strict gym regime. Any tips?

I restrict carbs - don’t eat bread potatoes pasta or rice.
I do eat carby snacks like cake but try to limit that!

Salad for lunch every day, smoothie and banana for breakfast and a carb free dinner.

It’s quite easy once you get used to it and keeps my weight down. Once I waiver I get a tummy and wobbly thighs again!

Careful about what I eat and hard workout sessions.

I always look back at what I lived on in my early 20s and know if I did that now i would be housebound by my size.

I used to live on pasties chips Chinese special fried rice mars bars huge bags of sweets Malibu and archers snakebite and black and I was a tall size 8!

Hmmm, for me

Size 6
Child 1
Size 8
Child 2
Size 10
Child 3
Size 12
Child 4
Size 12-14

So my advice... less kids!!

So many responses! Thank you for replying. I suppose I wanted to find out whether people who are that size all try really hard to keep their figures or whether it is just luck. Seems to me from reading this that the majority of people do actually try pretty hard to maintain this size.
It's a shame as I love food and wine and it's one of the joys of life for me. But I hate feeling this way about my body more.

That's exactly it snarted One of the ladies at work said it must be lovely to be as slim as me with no effort. I told her it does bloody take effort and I like being slim more than I like eating biscuits!!

snarted well, if you like the food and drink, the solution is to up your exercise to use it up?

Dumb luck. I don't really exercise beyond walking (am actually quite unfit) but I eat well, cook from scratch and naturally don't tend to enjoy stuff that's bad for you. I think being vegan helps as I can't have a lot of processed food and eat a lot of fruit and veg, it changes your palate I think.

@KitchenFloor I do exercise but have a disability so there's only so much I can do. I am looking to see if there are other forms of exercise that I would be able to manage in addition to what I already do. I am a size 12/14 at the moment.
I think for me it's going to be about cutting out alcohol completely and reducing food intake unfortunately

Doesn't feel like trying "hard" if you enjoy exercise & eating lots of veggies, and know that food tastes wildly better if you only eat when truly hungry. I can't understand ppl who say they overeat b/c they love food... It doesn't taste so good if you aren't hungry.

Almost all my relatives are podgy or plump. I don't believe that genetics matters much for 95% of ppl.

Snarted rather than completely redoing your whole life/diet I highly recommend two things: small tweaks and if your disability allows weight training.

Small tweaks aka. Not 2 toast but 1. Not meat with veg and 3 potatoes but with 1 potato. Not cake but popcorn.

And try not to drink any calories.

Anything little tweaks where you eat that little less and do that little more will help. Like the poster up thread said, a muffin a day and you’ll put on a pound a week. The opposite is true too.

snart I too have to work hard to stay slim. I generally prefer the taste of being slim to the taste of cake and wine, however, in the moment the cake and wine are in front of me it is not so easy.

The biggest motivation for me is actually how damn good I feel when I eat low carb with fasting. I don't want the cake because I don't want the sluggish brain and morose feeling that carbs give me. I certainly don't want the 4 days of feeling crap that follow a carb blow out.

The good effects of low carb and intermittent fasting made a huge difference to me when I hit my mid forties. Before that, any form of restricting junk kept me slim.

48 here size 8/10
Don't snack, walk loads, Pilates
All because I want to mentally, not particularly to keep slim but one has a good effect on the other.
Genetics might help me too.....my granny and mum are were slim too.
None of us snack

It's definitely not just calories in Vs out.

I'm 40, have friend a little younger and only an inch shorter, I eat loads more than her (incl cake/fried food etc) and she does more exercise, and she's 3/4 dress sizes bigger. I have a fast metabolism, she only has to look at a baguette to go up half a size.

45, I was always an 8 until peri then I piled it on and I realised it was a choice between wine and food or the alternative.

Thus far I have taken the wine and food.

I'm actually a 14 now. Which feels MAD.

Buy I feel pretty ok with it.

Size 10 and 40, two kids. Staying slim is a daily choice for me. I love food like biscuits, cheese, cakes, ice cream and pizza and I pile on weight like nobody’s business.

So I exercise every day, step count and am careful with my diet 6 days out of 7, allowing myself Friday “off” to eat what I like. As soon as I put on one kilo (easily) I go back to no sugar no carbs which is my go to weight loss plan.

Size 8, two kids, age 41, also have PCOS and Hashimoto’s.

I’m naturally athletic and I love to be in shape. I can still do a 200m in 28 seconds, for example. So yes, I love exercise, and work out five times a week— a mixture of boot camps, running, weight training and yoga, and I adjust the ratio per week according to my energy levels.

Diet? Today I had:

Breakfast: bowl of berries, coconut yoghurt, cassava flour bagel, kombucha.

Lunch: green hemp protein smoothie, squash and kale salad with grilled salmon

Snacks: bowl of cherries, handful of almonds, bowl of cassava chips, keto chocolate cup

Dinner: Keto beef salad with peppers and cauliflower rice

I’m fortunate to live in the US, in an extremely health-conscious town, and have ready access to a ton of Paleo, keto meals etc. at local cafes, which makes life a lot easier.

Today I had, two cups of tea. Two saveloys, three flat whites, a steak sandwich and fries, a bloody Mary, a passion fruit and basil cocktail. Chicken, clams and squid.

Wine, much wine, couple of benzos and 100 fags.

That's pretty healthy.

Fucking relentless effort with my diet tbh...

If I ate as I pleased I'd be a size 18 and 16 stone. Instead I stick to 1400 cals per day. I'm a 10 and 5'5. 10 stone.

Loads of veg, lean protein, small portions. Not much in the way of treats tbh.

I’ve had to work very hard to maintain a size 10.

I became hypothyroid whilst pregnant, but did not discover this until three years after my son was born by which time I had many debilitating symptoms - very low blood pressure, anxiety, bloated face, carrying excess weight, severe lethargy and fatigue.

It didn’t make sense - the less calories I ate the more weight I put on. When combined with exercise I put on even MORE weight arghhh.

When my thyroid levels had stabilised it came to light that I also had too high cortisol levels (cue belly fat) so I had to sort that also.

Honestly the blood sugar diet has sorted me right out and NOTHING was working for me. This involves very low carb consumption and low calorie but with full fat products to fill you. I lost two stones in a very short period of time and I have kept it off. Now I can have a slice of cake or a few glasses of wine or a sandwich or a meal out and my body devours those carbs straight away .... never showing on the scales.

I do think genes play a part but I also think upbringing plays a huge part. In my childhood it was very much a 'clear your plate' mentality, with huge servings at every meal and you had to leave to the table fit to bursting. It just becomes the norm after a while. Loads of potato, bread and butter, pudding all the time etc.

That mentality is very hard to overcome.

Actually I had to work hard to get back to a size 10 but once I was there on a low carb diet it has been easy to maintain. The cravings for badness are low and sometimes I am overwhelmed by the sweetness in a slice of cake 🍰 that I can push it away.

I've never been on a diet and it sounds fooking grim tbh.

I'm going with what I am.

I'd rather embrace life than have to have to constrain myself in some bollockry way.

I can understand how you feel Hairyhands, it is hard when I’m looking at a lovely piece of cake and saying no, but then I remember that I hate feeling slow and stodgy with my thighs rubbing and stomach straining over my jeans.

Plus I have a higher chance of getting diabetes so I have that added incentive to keep slim. But there’s no denying that for me, keeping slim means willpower and a level of deprivation!

Snarted I also absolutely hated the idea of restricting food intake. But if you up the exercise (where possible for you) then you might find you naturally want to eat less. For me, the idea of undoing all that hard work overcame my wish to have a snack/massive plate of food etc. And after a couple of weeks of that, I really think your body and mentality adjusts to the new normal and it's not such a chore anymore.

Also there's a great thread over on exercise at the moment called 'no ripping or tearing...' which is all about Jessica Smith workouts. She's fantastic and really good for lower impact stuff (though high impact also there if wanted).

Kiki is the OP of the thread and is really generous with her time in finding good workouts for new posters.