To think that slim people have different habits re food and exercise

[WhatWillSantaBring]

I've been overweight most of my adult life, and find I put on weight very easily. BUT I also think I have had very unhealthy food habits - I think of food as treats, I avoid the scales, I eat when I'm not hungry, I always have the cake, emotional eating etc. I know all the things I do wrong (and that I'm sure a lot of overweight people do) but what I want to know is what do thin people do "right". i.e. what are the habits of people who are consistently a healthy weight (i.e. BMI of 20-25).

I've got some very petite friends who will do things like:

• weigh every day and take immediate action if their weight goes up by more than 5lbs;
• never accept a biscuit
• only drink one glass of wine (unless its a very special occasion when they may have two)
• never order themselves a dessert/ice cream etc (will just eat whatever their kids leave)

- exercise 5-6 days a week without fail, including Christmas Day

• never have seconds

If you're slender, and have maintained a healthy weight for years, what habits do you have that you think help you?

Lots of people saying they skip breakfast.

I know the thing about eating breakfast helping you lose weight has been disproved loads now, but it's still interesting to read so many people saying they dont eat breakfast and that works for them.

I guess it's all down to individuals and for some people a filling breakfast helps them get off to a good start. I'm just biased - I never ate breakfast and for years skipping breakfast was seen as a bad thing. Size 10 here btw, largely slim through adulthood.

I do the - is it worth the calories thing too. I love cake but it’s only worth the calories now and again - if it’s something homemade and delicious. Don’t like biscuits and have coffee in the morning but no tea or coffee through the day so limited snacking. Would usually choose savoury over sweet. I very rarely eat breakfast . I also try to limit portion size.
But if I fancy a takeaway or desert I have it.
I am a size 8 .I exercise now but that’s a new thing for me. Don’t weigh myself much but would cut back if my clothes felt tight

"a surprisingly large amount of people are not honest about their eating habits."

Yes, all these large people who claim to eat hardly anything and skinny people who claim to eat loads, I will only believe when it's done in lab conditions.

I don't weight myself every day and will have the occasional biscuit. However I'm very active for work (walk 15-20k steps a day) which helps with my weight. I'm not a big fan of chocolate so I don't really snack on it but I am a sucker for crisps. I do think I can self regulate my appetite though, so for example if me and DH decide to have a KFC at the weekend (we get a bucket between the two of us!) we usually won't have dinner as we are usually still full. I'm also not a grazer whereas MIL who has weight issues does, and also doesn't seem to know when she is full. However I was brought up where I was allowed to leave food on my plate if I was full whereas DH was brought up to finish his plate regardless of whether he was full and he has more weight issues because of it.

Certainly different habits about food, and possibly (but not always) about exercise.

As a reference I’ll use my sister... she talks about eating sensible, but the reality is she eats a lot of junk. She thinks going for a walk is meaningful exercise, and signing up for the gym matters.

In most cases, I think that if people are honest they can relate their weight to food. There are possibly few exceptions.

I was always slim. Never snacked between meals, no soft drinks, rarely drank alcohol at home. If I didn’t feel hungry I’d skip a meal. In the evening I often just had a sandwich or soup out of sheer laziness.

Then I moved in with OH who has always been fat. He insists on having a cooked meal every night and is horrified at the idea of just having a sandwich. He puts far too much oil and butter in his cooking. His portion sizes are ridiculous. He has a dessert after every meal, even if it’s just a biscuit. He has soft drinks every day. He eats treats and snacks like crisps and chocolate every day. Quite often he has his evening meal and still reaches for snacks shortly afterwards while watching tv. He regularly has one or two alcoholic drinks in front of the tv too.

I gained 3st from adopting his bad habits. I’m struggling to lose it because we live together and eat together, and he gets angry if I refuse his cooking because of the amount of fat he’s put in, or leave half of the portion he’s served out. He keeps offering me drinks and snacks when he has them himself. What was completely effortless is now a real struggle for me.

She thinks going for a walk is meaningful exercise

It can be if she’s going far enough. I walk about five miles a day and I definitely think that’s meaningful.

I'm slim but I don't do any of that really. I don't drink but that's because I don't really like to. I just follow my body and eat when I'm hungry and try to make good choices with what I eat. I do still eat cake and biscuits and crisps, just not all the time. I have no idea what my BMI is but I'm somewhere between a size 8 and 10 and 5'5". Weighing yourself every day and being so restrictive must be miserable, I'd rather be chubby!!

I haven't weighed myself since I was a teenager. I don't have habits with food, I've never been overly fussed by it. I just eat when I feel like it or need to: a meal a day. I drink whenever I want to, I eat a bit more if I want to. If I start to feel uncomfortable then I exercise. I don't think it's always down to habits. There are too many factors at play and people are different.

Slim people value being slim and are driven to maintain this. My friend recently put a stone on. She went from a 10 to a a 12. For the next 3 weeks she virtually starved herself, limiting herself to 600 calories a day. She lost the stone. I couldn’t do that.

I have a very bad heart due to genetics. Don’t smoke, drink, eat beef or pork, etc. After a particularly traumatic event, not only did my heart worsen but my BMI edged up to 29. And even though I really didn’t look “fat” I looked like I was a little overweight. I was determined to NEVER hit the dreaded 30! So, it took a year but my BMI is at 24! Lots of activity, very very little sugar, snacks like fruit worked into my calorie allowance. I use an app and when I gain a couple pounds, I work to take them back off. Losing weight really didn’t help my heart, but I feel better!

@ifeellikeanidiot

Lots of people saying they skip breakfast.

I know the thing about eating breakfast helping you lose weight has been disproved loads now, but it's still interesting to read so many people saying they dont eat breakfast and that works for them.

I guess it's all down to individuals and for some people a filling breakfast helps them get off to a good start. I'm just biased - I never ate breakfast and for years skipping breakfast was seen as a bad thing. Size 10 here btw, largely slim through adulthood.

I never understand breakfast. I mean I love "breakfast foods" but I can't eat within say 3 hours of waking up or I feel groggy and slow.

Brunch is best :p

@Shoeshiner68

Slim people value being slim and are driven to maintain this. My friend recently put a stone on. She went from a 10 to a a 12. For the next 3 weeks she virtually starved herself, limiting herself to 600 calories a day. She lost the stone. I couldn’t do that.

So she want slim and had to take remedial action to become slim.

If she hadnt over ate for the mo ths/years before she wouldn't have to do a deficit and 600 is a crash diet that's trying to lose weight rapidly. You could eat say 100 less calories a day (1700~) and get the same results just it would take 12 times as long so 36 weeks

Or any division you fancy using to achieve in a timescale you want and without affecting your eating habits too much.

I think it’s a fallacy that slim people have a really regimented, joyless approach to eating. A lot of people like to perpetuate that myth for some reason...

For most people, the secret is to have normal meals and not stuff yourself with processed crap. What does that mean in practice? Have a piece of cake and a cut of tea when you meet a friend - but don’t have a piece of cake with a supersized double-whipped cream sugary concoction that pretends to be a coffee.

I don't eat carbs.
Loads of fat, protein veg and wine.

Thats it. No secret.

Lots of people saying they skip breakfast.

Yes I was one of them. Interesting isn’t it? Most breakfast foods (cereal, toast) are high GI carb heavy and high GI does me no favours. I also wonder if the mini fast between dinner the previous day and lunch helps.

Oh and I agree that for some people being slim is just a genetic gift. DH eats absolutely shedloads, denies himself nothing and has always been tall and slim. He doesn’t eat junk food but he does eat plenty of cheese, bacon, butter, cake/biscuits if on offer, wine etc. Doesn’t do much exercise, maybe one run a week. It’s annoying.

I gained 3st from adopting his bad habits
He's sabotaging you on purpose, can you escape?

I've always been on the slimmer side - generally a size 10 and green for bmi although I don't think I look particularly toned or slim.

I do almost none of your list (I don't know many who do either!). I'm not sure the secret to being a healthy weight is to obsess about weight. The people I know who weigh themselves a lot tend to be the ones with unhealthy relationships with food. We don't have scales in the house, I don't weigh myself and I don't discuss weight or size in front of my children.

I eat a very varied diet and all our meals are made at home with good quality ingredients and lots of variety. I don't worry about portion size though. I also eat a lot of snacks at times - we regularly have homemade cakes as the dc love baking. We have homemade puddings at the weekends eg crumble, and often have ice creams in warm weather for eg. I'll have biscuits with my tea and butter on my toast. I don't consider food a treat though, I see it as a way of fuelling my body or sating my hunger mostly. And meal times are social occasions to enjoy. I don't police my eating. I am a lot less careful than many people I know and often think it's unfair that I eat quite a bit of chocolate etc and don't really see many consequences.

I think alcohol could be a factor. I rarely drink and the friends I know who drink a lot tend to be bigger. Particularly men who drink a lot of beer or lager - they seem to develop beer bellies quite easily.

I think the main reason for my size is my activity level. I rarely sit down, I have an active job, a dog, and love running, walking, swimming and cycling. I don't watch TV or spend much if any time on the sofa. I will happily walk or cycle instead of drive somewhere and always take the stairs instead of lift etc.

I don't know the answer really but I imagine the psychological side of things is the hardest to sort and perhaps the most significant.

The trick is to not accept being over a certain size or weight. So if your top acceptable weight is 9stone when you go over it you adjust your diet/exercise. If you let your weight go too far it just seems insurmountable to lose it. If someone genuinely can't lose weight on a lower calorie diet and exercise then they should get a blood test to check thyroid, hormones etc

Lots of people saying they skip breakfast
This is indeed very interesting because this is the ONLY way for me to lose weight. I've tested a number of other methods but ultimately, the only thing that works is not eating before 11am.

The main impact I've noticed is that the earlier I start eating the more ravenous I'll feel the whole day. I wake up hungry, eat something healthy, but 1h or even less later, I feel like I'm starving.

When I go back to not eating until 11am, after a week or so adjusting, I actually don't feel hungry at all even by 11am and my appetite just reduces for the rest of the day.

I don't feel unwell on the opposite, I feel much more alert that way. It goes wrong when I get to work and want something for comfort before I get on with the job.

It’s a question of perspective, no? I do most of the things in the OP but I don’t feel like it’s a miserable existence at all. I run because I really enjoy running and exercise.

If you’re sat around feeling as miserable a sin because you can’t trough an entire packet of chocolate hobnobs, of course it’s going to be harder to stay a healthy weight than if you think one biscuit is a totally rational number to stop at.

I don’t eat breakfast, very rarely snack, if I go out for a meal or have a big lunch I won’t eat anything else that day. If I go out for coffee and cake that will be instead of lunch not on top of. I also exercise 5-6 days a week. My diet is rubbish and I drink too often but still maintain a healthy weight.

I think its also genes, I've never done anything about my weight and have always been around BMI 19/20, I'm the heaviest not-pregnant weight I've ever been right now (5m old baby I'm breastfeeding, lots of lockdown baking, and not nearly as active as usual) but my BMI is only 21.

I would like to loose a few lbs though, I look fine but I can't fit into half my dresses and I don't want to buy lots of new clothes.

I'm a size 10-12. I never exercise, drink loads and eat what I want when I want. I just don't have a massive appetite and in comparison to a lot of other people, my portions are smaller and I don't eat nearly as much as they do.