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.

[Lockheart]

I'm not sure why people are saying life is too short to deprive yourself, it's perfectly possible to enjoy food and be slim.

You won't gain weight if you eat chocolate / cake / ice-cream and so forth as part of a balanced diet.

Just like you won't lose weight by eating salad if you only have three salads a week and eat burgers the rest of the time.

Slim does not equal joyless and birdlike and deprived, just like fat does not mean greedy or out of control.

[MaxNormal]

I can easily eat well over 1000 calories in one meal. Pizza, lasagne, chippy fish and chips... i don't do it regularly but I certainly can.

[LongAndWhiningRoad]

Life is too short, that's for sure. That's why I do as much as I reasonably can to make sure it doesn't end any sooner than it has to! Such as not eating too much and getting significantly overweight.

[PurpleDaisies]

Slim does not equal joyless and birdlike and deprived, just like fat does not mean greedy or out of control.

Definitely, I absolutely love food and cooking, and I’ve got a big appetite. It’s very helpful that I love spicy food and vegetables so it’s fairly easy to cook healthy, tasty food most of the time.

[chillandrelax]

I don't have a huge appetite and started exercising before my 40s. I don't buy things I know I have will power with.

[Hairthrowaway]

I’m slim (6/8) and generally eat whatever I want, whenever I want. If I do gain weight, my body eventually snaps back to normal (luckily). So I don’t have to put too much thought into what I eat.

Today I did make some of those decisions you mention eg not completely clearing my plate at lunch, but that was more because it was a shitty supermarket pesto pasta and wasn’t very nice. A bonus was that I have “extra” calories to play with later I suppose.

I do generally go for low calorie snacks too. It’s crazy how one bag of crisps can contain 300 calories and another under 100. Both are equally satisfying so I’d opt for the low cal

[rainkeepsfallingdown]

Slim can mean joyless if you were fat before and have crash dieted too many times.

There's been some very interesting research into the people who took part in The Biggest Loser - basically, they lost a tremendous amount of weight quickly, and most of them put at least some of it back on quickly after the cameras stopped rolling. Apparently their metabolisms have changed, so they have to have fewer calories than a "normal" person of the same weight to avoid gaining.

Just goes to show that dieting is thankless.

Small, gradual changes, or the long-term effects will be brutal.

[RunningFromInsanity]

This evening I’ve had a huge portion of mash potato with lots of veg. I eat big portions but of mostly healthy food for meals.
I’ve also eaten a family size bar of mint aero and finished off the malteasers.

However I did an afternoon spin class.

I eat whatever I want. I exercise lots because I enjoy it and I enjoy food
I’m a very toned size 10/12.

[CrocodileFondue]

I think age plays a part too, I could eat loads in my teens and twenties and stay slim but at nearly forty, it's a very different story

[PutBabyInTheCorner]

I love food and cooking and eat plenty. My job is office based and I've never done any exercise apart from the occasion walk at the weekend.
I've always been very skinny. My husband who eats around the same as me and does more exercise is overweight. I've had 3 big babies and have always gone back extremely slim straight away, it's just the way I am.
I find all the 'life's too short' comments frustrating, as if every thin person is starving themselves. Quite the opposite for me.

[Aquamarine1029]

Life is too short.

It certainly will be if you're obese. It's not that these women "eat like birds", they only eat what their bodies require. They don't use food as a source of comfort or to combat boredom. They simply want a healthy body, and this isn't dieting, it's their lifestyle.

[cbt944]

And some people eat amazing amounts of high calorie crap and exercise little, but were born with a high percentage of Christensenella in their gut bacteria, and thus maintain a low weight with no effort or intention whatsoever.

[sergeilavrov]

I had an ED, very severely, which I am now recovering from (I see this as life long, as every day is a battle to not let it consume me again). One of the things was skipping meals and sleeping instead until you didn’t want the meal if you stayed awake. It’s dangerous and almost killed me, and can form a part of disordered eating.

People think that you’re only suffering from an ED when you’re skeletal, but realistically the ED gets you to that point so it starts long before. Before you’re skeletal, everyone just wants your ‘discipline.’ Two colleagues once asked me ‘the secret’ to being skinny, and I wanted to scream that it’s not worth it and that they were good at their healthy weights and to stop obsessing. Instead, I just pretended it was just the way I was, naturally disciplined and sparrow like. One of my most shameful moments.

[MumsyMumIAmNot]

At 5'6 I used to be a size 8 but I was depressed and some days would only eat 1 biscuit and nothing else. I felt ill. I'm now a happy and content size 16 and couldn't imagine only nibbling 1 biscuit 😂🙈🙈

[queenofknives]

Yep an eating disorder is a great way to stay slim.

[AnEleanor]

“People who are slim do not eat huge amounts of bad food. Or even huge amounts of good food. They just eat small amounts of mostly healthy stuff and have the very occasional treat.”

Or were just ‘lucky’ and can eat a load of crap and not exercise but stay slim. That’s me. And I’m not saying it as a humble brag I’m saying it to point out that there isn’t a moral value to being slim. Some of my friends make way healthier choices than me bit they’re still bigger than me. The relationship between what you eat and your weight has always seemed quite random to me.

[SerenityNowwwww]

I was skinny as a rake until pregnancy and middle age did it’s thing. I used to eat and drink like mad and didn’t particularly go out of my way to exercise. Dad was a beanpole too (obviously didn’t have babies though so remained skinny).

[Desperadododo]

@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.

Are you trying trying to say you’re fat by comparison being an untoned size 10? 😂

[TheNewLook]

People who are slim do not eat huge amounts of bad food. Or even huge amounts of good food. They just eat small amounts of mostly healthy stuff and have the very occasional treat

That’s not true I’m afraid.

[chipsandgin]

Being fucked up about food is not worth wasting your time on, that applies both to those secretly eating barely anything and those suppressing their emotions with overeating.

I get it, I’ve kind of been there almost to both extremes and it’s dangerous, but having seen a long term anorexic (recovered..) friend have a hospitalised daughter from anorexia and overweight friends have overweight kids I think it’s a fine line we tread and not always as easy as some make out.

But yes, calories in vs calories out will always 100% give you the weight loss or weight gain equation. It is both that simple and the most complicated equation anyone who faces issues with eating will ever face.

[cleanermam92]

I’m slim and don’t do any of this. It’s different for everyone

[Desperadododo]

@TheNewLook

People who are slim do not eat huge amounts of bad food. Or even huge amounts of good food. They just eat small amounts of mostly healthy stuff and have the very occasional treat

That’s not true I’m afraid.

Agree it’s not always true! My ex could eat / drink 6-7k calories a day and not put on an ounce. We tried with weight gain shakes. But not the norm.

[itsureis]

I'm a toned, size 8/10, 40 something, who regularly exercises for both body and mind.

I recently did a half marathon and afterwards I went for lunch with a friend. With the calories I'd just burnt I could have easily eaten the whole menu but opted for a kids burger & chips (which was still massive) - not because I wanted to stay "slim" but because i didn't feel like a huge plate of food.

I think people get "shamed" for eating sensibly sometimes esp in the company of others - but I'd never over eat just to make someone else feel better for what they're eating.

I never skip meals and have to eat regularly else I get terrible stomach pains but they I never deny myself the oh so good/ bad stuff.

[WorraLiberty]

@Emeraldshamrock

You're really generalising there.
People with small appetites and small stomachs don't feel hard done by for eating less food it is a myth it is simply they don't have to diet as they don't over eat.

This ^^ 1 million times over

Yet so many on Mumsnet seem to want to convince themselves that all slim people are into massive food refusal and miserable with it.

Not overeating is still completely normal to a lot of people even today.

[BeijingBikini]

You make it sound like people are suffering for not binging on crap all the time. Newsflash, those of us that "eat like birds" don't feel hungry all the time. We have smaller appetites/stomachs or IBS that means we get gas from hell if we overeat. We also don't derive happiness or "treats" from food, it's just fuel to give you energy rather than an emotional crutch. I don't feel I'm restricting my life in any way by being slim. I'm not on any weird diets, I eat mainly white carbs and don't think about food until my stomach growls.