How do slim people think?

[Episcomama]

...because I really do think there is a difference between how slim and overweight people think. I am very overweight - BMI of 33. So obese rather than overweight, technically.

I've been off and on diets all my adult life, and the only thing I've really had success with is intermittent fasting and keto. When I stick to it, it works. The problem isn't my body, it's my mind. It's as though there's a switch that gets flicked from time to time. A voice in my head telling me to eat in case of famine. Food occupies much of my waking hours - once I've had a meal I'm thinking ahead to the next one.

A dear friend is very slim and once mentioned that she just doesn't really find satisfaction in food in the way I do (comfort, commiseration, celebration, whatever.) When I spent the weekend with her recently, it really became apparent how differently we see food. She was mildly horrified at both the quantity and frequency of my meals whereas I couldn't understand how she was satisfied with what she ate.

Eating disorders aside, do you think there's a difference between a "thin mind" and a "fat mind", to express it crudely. And if you have a thin mind and used to have a fat mind, can you share with me how you flicked that switch?

I don’t have diabetes. I’m not developing diabetes. I’ve been like this my whole life, and getting shaky and sweaty when I hadn’t eaten in a while happened a lot more when I was a student on a shitty diet with irregular mealtimes than now as an adult who eats breakfast and has a mid-morning snack.

I’ve had two pregnancies and all the blood tests that entails, I’ve had my thyroid checked, blood pressure is perfect, BMI of 21-ish.
It’s just how I roll.

@noblegiraffe BMI slightly lower than yours but similar experience. If I don't eat, I vomit and since doing serious amounts of sport from my early 20s I can really feel my blood sugar dropping if I'm in need of more food (I actually went hypo when doing a training session once so I have a baseline to measure against). We think some of the nausea/vomiting is due to excess stomach acid or stomach acid building up with no food to trigger it to empty itself - my DM and DGF are similar to me in needing to eat when they need to eat too!

PS: the leptin thing mentioned earlier is not true. Look up Giles Yeo, and in fact read his book Gene Eating (it's very good) - he's a research scientist in the metabolic sciences at Cambridge.

It interesting reading other people's reactions to missing meals. I am currently doing intermittent fasting, so I am only eating within a 8 hour window every 48 hours. That is zero food for forty hours. I have found it surprisingly easy. I wouldn't have considered it but DH wanted to try it and I wanted to support him as he definitely needs to lose a bit of weight.

"Yesterday, at a cafeteria, I happened to see an obese young woman eating chips and gravy for lunch with a large Coke. I wouldn’t have chosen that. My DH and I had sandwiches and a carton of chips between us. That might illustrate the difference."

🙄 I bet you wouldn't have "happened to notice" if she were slim...

I don't, but I also don't think diets are helpful. I think it's more to do with a healthy eating mindset and stopping when you are full not just eating out of habit. I found post 39 my appetite dropped so I now only need a sandwich made with one slice of bread at lunch for example rather than two etc. Also slim people I know have full fat and sugar but less of them rather than trying to eat the same amount of sugar/ fat free which I have always been suspicious of.

Well I am overweight and hate chips and wouldn't dream of having chips OR gravy. I also never ever drink full sugared pop.

@weathergirl1 OMG I have the same. Lots of previous sports as well. I am overweight due to a number of reasons, including dropping sport due to an injury but get the "nausea if miss a meal" as well. I also think it is related to gastric acid. It's a horrible feeling.

Some slim people are blessed with fabulous metabolisms - I dare say they are in the minority, but not every slim person eats like a bird.

I am slim, but would normally choose chips and gravy if I have to eat at the work canteen. It's not one meal , it's how things pan out over the months

But they do eat differently. You could reframe this to 'how do fat people think' and I think the reaction of slim people would be a similar amount of shock to how overweight people consider slim people's habits. For example, my slim friend and I might eat a whole box of chocolate biscuits between us over coffee, but she would not be reaching for a bacon sandwich an hour later 'because it's lunch time'. She wouldn't really think much about food until the end of the day, when she'd have a decent dinner. She wouldn't be deliberately stopping herself, it just wouldn't be on her radar because she'd be full of biscuits, whereas I'd be watching the clock waiting for lunchtime. She'd look at my sarnie and genuinely ask why I'd bothered to make it as I'm not actually hungry. If you were to ask us, we'd both say we stuffed biscuits and ate what we liked and we'd both be telling the truth.

I've done 72 hour water fasts no problem either.

I think that’s quite unusual to be honest.

I don't think as a country we are very good at giving people the information and knowledge they need to reduce weight
This really isn't true, it's well established now that CICO works, no matter which way the individual prefers to do that.
We also know that many people have emotional issues concerning food which may require support, possibly counselling, and some people have health issues that may make weight loss more difficult, though not usually impossible.
There's also a massive amount of denial, see any thread on weight. The 'BMI is rubbish', 'Marilyn Monroe was a size 16', and 'size 12/14/16 isn't fat' posts soon turn up.

I had a load of blood tests for everything under the sun and nothing came back despite feeling like shit all of the time. Maybe it's worth exploring this possibility, the porridge was an example of low GI that someone upthread suggested, not saying that's what I have in the morning. I don't have it as it's pointless for me from a hunger point of view.

If you feel “ like shit all of the time “ on what you are eating now then it might be worth trying something different. It’s perfectly possible to eat LCHF for maintenance, not everyone does it to lose weight.

Some people don’t react well to a carb heavy diet and you might be one of them.

I think the jobs we do also play a part. It's easier to do a fasting type diet or a 16:8 if you have a sedentary office based job. If you work shifts, particularly late hours, then you may well be either asleep or working during the available 8 of your 16:8.
5:2 is good if you have two days off a week and don't have to worry about trying to do a work shift on very few calories.

I've been quite unwell recently and at home at lot. I've also been eating a load of crap out of boredom and probably feeling a bit sorry for myself at times. Feeling crap, so eating crap then feeling crap again - it's a vicious circle.

I've been making a real effort over the last week - not eating shit between meals (my meals are normally good but my snacking out of control) and replacing my usual sugar hit with fruit. I can't believe how much better I feel after only a week and I don't have constant indigestion either. It's really made me think.

If you work shifts, particularly late hours, then you may well be either asleep or working during the available 8 of your 16:8

I don't see any issue here. Surely you just need to set the 8 hour period to the times when you aren't asleep or working.

The link between shift work and obesity is poorly understood. This article suggests there may be a mismatch between the impact on metabolic mechanisms related to the digestive system, which rapidly 'switch' according to the work hours, and that of the brain's biological clock which moves away from its normal circadian rhythm more slowly.

www.hippocraticpost.com/ageing/why-shift-workers-are-more-prone-to-obesity/

It is an interesting and complicated area.

🙄 I bet you wouldn't have "happened to notice" if she were slim...

Isn’t that the point of this thread? Yes, I’m making assumptions about her eating habits. But I don’t think I’m far off the mark given the population I live in and her size.

I find it so sad that we women obsess so much about food and size. I had a severe eating disorder when I was a teenager and am now cured (completely I think).

I am 48, three children 12, 8 and 5. Size 10/12, 5.5 feet tall.

The though of any diet or restricting what I eat makes me anxious (flashbacks to the unhappiest period of my life), so I always eat what I feel like, which sometimes means a treat, sometimes a healthy snack and sometimes nothing. I do generally eat quite healthy though, lots of vegetables, salmon, brown toast, rye bread etc. I do love dark chocolate, home made buns, marzipan and the odd glass of wine. I also often eat two dinners as I both eat with DC and DH who comes home late.

I love reformer Pilates and go about 4/5 times a week and according to my phone I average about 11,000 steps a day.

@ArnoldWhatshisknickers

That was an interesting read. I've known for a while that shift work and specifically night shifts mess with health. I put it down to natural rythms being disrupted, and the steps we take as shift workers to counteract the effects of staying not just awake, but needing to be alert during the night. Things like the circle I described of craving sugar for an energy boost and then the come down and then the crave again, using caffeine etc. Also the effect of sleep deprivation. It's very hard to sleep as long, or have a decent quality of sleep during the day. It's just a fact, and that leads to sleep deprivation, and that deprivation will usually make itself apparent during the small hours because that's when you naturally should be asleep. Since going back on nights I've put some weight on, but I also get minor illnesses more frequently too, maybe because my sleeping/eating patterns affect my immune system. Add into that busy shift jobs where you don't always have the time to eat a proper meal, and the effects of daytime sleeping meaning I'll prioritise another hours sleep over getting up and preparing a decent meal from scratch, I tend to exist on toast and sandwiches because they're quick, easy and satisfying even for a short time. Unfortunately I earn more on nights than days, and in a low paying job the need to pay the bills is overriding everything else. In a perfect world I'd have the time and resources to look after my health better as well as earn enough to pay everything, in reality it just doesn't work like that.

@namechangeforthis555 like you I had an eating disorder as a teen and see eating what I like now as a sign of being happy and financially secure. Was neither growing up. I'm not extreme but eat out a lot, get snacks in, weekly (relatively healthy) takeaway

Can I ask what you weigh? I'm 5'5" too and a size12-14. I weigh 11st5 and am determined to lose a stone to become size 10-12 again but cant remember what weight tipped me out of this dress size as it has crept on over the past 5 years...

Olga, thank you for the fantastic diabetes uk links. It explains things really well.

What people don’t seem to get is overweight and especially obese people feel genuine dogged hunger which is very difficult to tolerate. A slim person just can’t imagine the feeling. It is alien to them. They have never been this hungry. Yet people with ‘plenty of fuel’ already on their bodies are utterly utterly desperate for food. Because physiology which Olga’s links explain.

I have always been one of these people and have been a hungry Horace as long as I remember myself, always had a stocky build and put weight on immediately if I had any cake/sweets. Fortunately, now the science can explain why some people can eat junk and be unaffected (for a very long time at least) and some can’t get away with a single biscuit. It has nothing to do with a better way of thinking or higher personal restraint. If anything, fat people have to use restraint all the time and it is exhausting while the ‘normal weight’ folks don’t think of ‘discipline’ in their day to day life. They happily forget to it, never feel overwhelmingly hungry, aren’t bothered about cake and their lives are so much easier!!!

I can say that as I have experienced both sides of the coin. Since hitting a rock bottom weight- and health- wise after my third child, I desperately searched for answers and educated myself on aetiology of obesity. I realised my genetics played a role in my metabolism, my low tolerance to carbs, my propensity to pile on weight, my constant unabating hunger. All are symptoms of insulin resistance, even down to PCOS.

After this light bulb moment I realised calorie counting was never going to work for me, or ‘everything in moderation’ was just never gonna work. Every piece of cake and every spoonful of sugar was throwing a spanner in my body works. Like an alcoholic trying to get dry by drinking a bit of sherry every night. It was madness. I realised why having low-calorie foods like bread, rice and pasta made me climb the walls with hunger and made me feel weak. Because they are easily digestible carbs!!! Calories are irrelevant. The white carbs set off processes in my body which make me feel lethargic, starving and depressed.

People who haven’t got a metabolic problem will have no idea, and will bang on about ‘everything in moderation’. Same as somebody who has never been in the grips of addiction will not understand what’s so bad about a glass of wine at dinner time.

I urge OP to listen to her body and to do what works for her, not copy somebody who hasn’t got and has never had this problem. Their experience isn’t going to be in any way helpful. They live in a different reality to you. Don’t blame yourself, just search for the solution to your individual problem. Once you have found it, it will feel right

I put it down to natural rythms being disrupted, and the steps we take as shift workers to counteract the effects of staying not just awake, but needing to be alert during the night

Yes, it seems that disruption to natural sleep/wake patterns are detrimental in various areas and particularly so for those who are changing shifts on a weekly or sometimes even daily basis. My mother in law was a nurse (now retired) and as someone who worked shifts in the electronics industry myself, where we had a fixed shift pattern (early, back, night three week rotation) I was always shocked by the way her shifts changed week to week. Often working back shift one day, early the next, an odd week of all back shifts, a week that ran Wednesday through Sunday immediately followed by one that ran Monday to Friday. It was madness in my view given the actual human lives she was responsible for to not have a more settled pattern and to often be short of sleep and prone to illness.