To let you into a secret about being slim.....

[Yellow1793]

I’m 5’2” and an untoned size 10. Over the last year or so (lockdown excluded) I’ve spent extended amounts of time with 4 different female friends, who are all taller, slimmer and considerably more toned than me. Aside from the fact that they all exercise at least 5 times a week, they also eat like birds. Their lifestyle revolves around making healthy choices, every single day, and I’m beginning to wonder if you do this consistently if you just stop feeling hungry. One of them regularly skips lunch. Another never has more than 2 glasses of alcohol in one sitting. Another always eats about 30% less than I do.....last time I was with her she had a small pasta portion for her lunch whilst serving me 3x the amount of pasta she had AND 2 sausages. No wonder she is tiny. None of them calorie count or talk about diets because their lifestyle choice is one big diet. I’d love to have their discipline.

Of course it is about discipline in the form of will power. If you have no will power and eat all around you but do not have the want to move about, remain sedentary instead then it stands to reason and the laws of science that you will store energy as fat.
No point complaining about it it's a fact of life.
Eat proportionately to your activity and you will remain a sensible weight. I think we all know that by now it's just whether we want to implement it into our lifestyle.

Life is too short.. not when your in pain from diseases from over eating the wrong foods, its long and drawn out even if it is shortened by excess

I’m not I overweight but have been thinner by eating less. Started with the 5:2 diet. I realised I just didn’t need so much food so that even in my 5 days off, I ate more but not as much as before. I functioned well too so I don’t see the problem. Inevitably something happens like a holiday and you slowly start reverting back.

It’s not they eat little. You eat too much.

I think some of just enjoy food too much and the slim focus their everyday lives on other things. Plus, the more rubbish you eat the more you want to eat - there has to be something in it that fires up the pleasure centre of the brain which is why one biscuit is never enough.

Good on people for healthy lifestyle choices and exercise. Fully support this and if there BMI is in the healthy range I can’t see any issue.

I see a problem when people start to calorie count and things edge slowly towards mental heath issues, conversations start to revolve around food/gym only.

I worry for people with a low BMI In terms of the impact it’s having on their fertility. I read an article recently of very slim young women being on the pill for lengths of time and not realising their body would have otherwise stopped ovulating due to their weight. They come to try to conceive and have problems, some have painful journeys trying to find out what the issue is and may use the IVF when they don’t really need to.

Conversation about fertility and weight seem to focus on people who are overweight than underweight.

Being slim doesn't always equate to having a healthy lifestyle.

You can live off cigarettes and coffee and be thin...it's not healthy though.

I've been overweight and exercised every day, eaten healthy food, albeit large portions, I think that's healthier than starving myself.

I am tall and naturally quite willowy so can carry a little extra weight compared to my short friends without looking large.

However, I exercise 7 days a week and always have, so whilst I say "this is my body type" its balanced quite well because I also love food. I love it, I find comfort in it, I take joy in pottering around and making lovely meals and treats, and I love nothing more than having people over to eat. If you are the kind of person who genuinely finds happiness in food and all it's glory, you need to balance that out with frequent exercise or it catches up. I have friends who'll say to me "you don't know what it's like having to watch what you eat" and I think it's madness because I really do think the diet industry has convinced people that diet trumps exercise.

OP this might be of interest; some science rather than anecdote:

www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/why-people-become-overweight

If you walk everywhere you can eat and drink whatever you like, as much as you like, whenever you like.

I lived in central London. I walked almost literally everywhere - no point in getting a bus because the streets are too jammed for them to move, tube only taken if I was late. Train for long journeys out of town.

Mostly, I just walked though.

@Todaywewilldobetter

Yes, yes, yes! I am exactly the same - bring on the butter and the beer!

PurpkeDaisies I would have a great deal more respect for you if you simply said that it was a fatuous thing to say, and that perhaps you don’t really know everything,

To address the “my question hasn’t been answered” comment ... how on earth could the effect of a piece of cake eaten on one day versus over several days be measured?

What would you do? Take identical twins of exactly the same weight, height, lifestyle, calorie intake and activity level, mood (in that given 5 day period) and have one eat the cake on day one, the other spread out the eating of it?

We both know (but you’re being disingenuous about it) that It is common sense to eat moderate amounts.
Don’t come on to a thread where eating disorders have come up and tell people who genuinely want to understand moderate eating to scoff a whole cake at once.

Please have the grace to admit you made an asinine and unhelpful contribution. It really does diminish any sensible comments you might make in other circumstances.

Don’t come on to a thread where eating disorders have come up and tell people who genuinely want to understand moderate eating to scoff a whole cake at once.

I absolutely did not say that.

@Sheenais

How old are you and your friends OP? Because there comes a time you choose arse or face. I choose face and enjoy all the decadent things that keep it fat and wrinkle free.

Thats the first time I have ever heard that ..... choose arse / face.

Brilliant!

If you walk everywhere you can eat and drink whatever you like, as much as you like, whenever you like

No you can’t. I walk a minimum of three miles every day with the dog. I eat less than I did ten years ago and weigh substantially more. That article’s really interesting @florascotia2, thank you for linking to it.

I also agree walking doesn't overcome all indulgence. I walk about 110k a week, but if I don't watch what I eat I'll still put in the calories.

I believe its genetics.

Your appetite will decide whether youre not bothered about food and forget to eat, or, it’s all you can think of and youre never satisfied.

My parents ate huge amounts, full english breakfasts, chocolate, pudding, pies, chips, snacks, alcohol etc, and both were thin and fit. My sister and I have to keep to 1000 calories a day if we want to avoid becoming overweight.

Ive had friends say, “oh, you dont need to diet, youre slim.” Yes, because I watch what I eat.

Life’s unfair.

@GameofChess I won’t be responding to any more of your posts.

You are determined to see everything that I have written as advocating for people stuffing their faces then starving themselves. I have said time and again that was not what I meant. I would encourage you to go back and read the entire sequence of my posts after the first one. It was a theoretical question about whether anyone knew from a weight loss/gain standpoint whether one large calorie intake was the same as many smaller instances over a longer period. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question.

Basically be naturally thin, good gut health, high metabolism, no insulin resistance or eat like a bird and exercise like a dog.

Most will fall somewhere in between the two.

However I want never choose to eat like a bird and exercise like a dog to meet someone else's beauty standard. I have never thought thin was attractive. Size 10 12 14 16 18 and some even larger people are attractive but some size 8s and size 6 and below, the thin thin then no, I would never ever want that for myself.

I'd personally be no smaller than a size12 I like curves and bum and a nice toned body. I also have ginormous breasts that do not disappear with weight loss.

You can be toned at most sizes. I know size 18s and 20s with good muscle tone but obviously most people equate being bigger with being untoned. But I've seen just as many wobbly thin people as wobbly bigger people.

There are lots of unhealthy thin people walking around but this society only has a real dislike for bigger people and especially bigger women.

@Desperadododo whichever app you’re using is wrong - it’s telling you you’ve burnt way more calories than you have. I’d recalculate it using a couple of the free online calculators.

The best way to be a healthy weight is to care for your body. Don’t make food or exercise all about calorie and stop seeing food as an exciting treat or something ‘naughty’, food is nice or satisfying at best. And to all the people saying their metabolism is slow, it’s been proven that it doesn’t make that much difference, sorry. That’s why no one who has been starved (through famine or war etc) is fat.

I’d highly recommend this article www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/05/truth-obesity-five-fat-myths-debunked

And I've seen attractive size 18s who are more attractive than the size 10 standing next to them, so its about time that size stopped being equated with attractiveness.

If you are a women that does not carry weight well then that's you, do not equate how you look and feel about yourself to other people. If you don't look good being a 14 16 or 18 then fine thats you but don't apply that to all women.

they also eat like birds.

One person's eating like a bird is another person's sensible portion size. I suspect some people think I eat very little but to me it doesn't feel restrictive. And I tend to eat healthily because I like it, not because it feels like a chore. If I eat a lot of refined sugar I feel bloated and anxious. It's weird when people criticising the eating habits of people who are healthy - I mean they're getting something right, so leave them to it.

I do think it is tough to be slim. I’ve been slim most of my life, and used to eat what I liked, but looking back I was an erratic eater, often skipped breakfast, and was naturally very physically active. My diet wasn’t great so although I stayed slim, I wasn’t get enough nutrients and probably could have done with eating more but better.

Now I’m older, the metabolism has definitely slowed down and I’m no longer racing around as part of my every day life, I don’t socialise many nights a week or go salsa dancing etc! And so for me now to stay slim is a complete and utter pain. It’s so boring. I love a glass of wine and lovely dinner. I used to enjoy baking biscuits and cakes. I miss being able to make creamy chicken with rice or homemade lasagne. I have to think about everything that I eat and it sucks!

I eat like a bird.

Unfortunately it’s a fucking gannet.

Only certain people can lose weight by skipping or reducing meals. Some bodies go into starvation mode where it stores everything and slows its metabolism.

This is not true. You simply lose more when fatter and less when you are thinner because you use up sugar stores first. Starvation mode is fat burning which us overweight ones need.