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.

Sorry 56kg. At your height that’s a bmi of 20!

You cant exercise your way out of an excess of 600 calories per day (approx)

Supposedly you can. My resting BMR is under 1200. My TDEE is 2000-2200. I’m athletically fit, (well on my way back after being largely bed ridden from mid-March to end of June) and my activity levels are more than high enough for me eat a lot of food!

@RedSky100 well I apologise if you were joking. Unfortunately though your joke is the genuine opinion of many people.
Of course you can overindulge on occasion! But when "occasion" is three times a week there will be consequences.

Obesity is a huge drain on the NHS and the vast majority of cases are completely preventable.

@pinkbalconyrailing

I'm 'moderately' active. I run 3x a week (c25k) plus cycle and walk everyday.

@pinkbalconyrailing

Ha! You and I think that but post on other threads and you’ll have hundreds of posters telling you that you’re obsessed and obviously have an addiction. Mumsnet can be eye opening sometimes - and make the articles I read about obesity and poor health seem a lot more real (live in affluent SE town where fitness (and to be fair money) is free flowing and a focus

A huge problem seems to be the fact that people equate enjoying life with eating processed crap.
I find healthy, flavourful meals with lots of veg far more appetising than a greasy burger.
Good healthy food is filling, delicious and good for the body and mind. It is amazing the difference good diet has on the mood.
It shouldn't be about a restrictive diet, losing teo stone then going back to old ways. It's eating well every day with occasional treats and plenty of excercise and good hydration.

You cant exercise your way out of an excess of 600 calories per day (approx)

I don't track calories, but I do track exercise, and averaging 600 calories is almost certainly what I achieve - obviously I'm over 70kg run a minimum of 35 miles a week so running alone does it for me almost certainly, I also tend to do multiple cycle rides of around 600-1000 kcals (based on power produced and likely efficiency) a time.

So yes you can, but of course, most people don't, and I am certainly fortunate with my health to enable that exercise.

I agree @Riojasmoothy. I was out with friends and ordered the superfood salad with grilled salmon, olives,to start and you’d think I’d just ordered a grilled puppy with a side order of kittens. “You can’t order that on a night out!”

@lilgreen that sounds delicious to me!

I find healthy, flavourful meals with lots of veg far more appetising than a greasy burger.

Definitely. That’s my diet most of the time. But now and again it’s nice to have a greasy burger!

You cant exercise your way out of an excess of 600 calories per day

I do... I mean, the fitbit says I do . For instance, Saturday the fitbit identified 3 activities x 140 kcal + one event x 300 kcal, so that was ...720 kcal in exercise (says the fitbit). Day total was 3146 kcal (says the fitbit). My activities were: hour dogwalk, 2 x 15 minutes cycling to run an errand, afternoon shopping for 3 hrs using public transport (requires walking to get to stations), plus housework & gardening.

I tend to assume that all the cleaning freaks on MN must be ultra-slim & fit because any of gardening, DIY, housework add up to a lot of calories for me (I usually do bare minimum).

But then your appetite should decrease accordingly.

See, here's the weird thing about menopause. You can feel like you're eating the same, possibly even less than before. You know you're exercising the same, maybe even more. However, the scales are not agreeing with the basic calories in -- calories out equation and you start to put on weight. It just becomes harder work to stay where you naturally were before.

There is no secret. It is a bance of what you put in and what you put out. Overweight? Then eat less, move more. We all know this

I would struggle to eat less than one meal per day.

(Actually in this weather I probably could go without eating as long as I had water)

@Oliversmumsarmy- there's not much point in keeping telling everyone that eating less and exercising are not going to work. If what you say is true- that you eat well under the recommended daily calories, always feel full quickly, only eat once a day and get in your 10k steps but are still obese, then clearly you are an exception. It's not the advice people are giving that is wrong- because eating less and doing more exercise works for the vast majority. I honestly don't know why you are overweight, but you need to try other approaches if eating one meal a day isn't working for you. Have you tried eating little and often?

You cant exercise your way out of an excess of 600 calories per day

I might. Ignoring any normal just existing type of activity: walking about, shopping, housework, gardening etc., my activity tracker says that I burned over 900 calories exercising at the gym today. Obviously, that isn't in addition to what I would have burned sitting on my bum instead and activity trackers are notoriously inaccurate, but even so, 600 is a possibility. I don't spend that long at the gym every day though.

Nothing tastes as good as slim feels.

Oh, it does.

I’m very slim. I’m very strict with nutrition and exercise religiously the week but eat/drunk what I like at weekends. There are many things that taste that good 😁

Drink, not drunk!

Well, ok, it has been known .....

15- playing spin the bottle!

Nothing tastes as good as slim feels.

You’re eating the wrong food

Nothing tastes as good as slim feels.

You don’t have to not eat things to stay slim. Less often yes, or smaller portions, but there’s no need to miss out.

Iv recently lost quite a bit of weight and I know full well how I put it all on , eating far to much and drinking far to much alcohol .

Now I’m back at the weight I want to be I honestly don’t find that I have To eat like a bird or live a depressing life to stay this way . Yes I try make good choices a lot of the time but that doesn’t equal boring or tiny portions. I also don’t stress about what I’m eating for example on occasions such as meals out . Just generally I stay within the recommended calories for my age / build / activity level and it seems to work out fine

You cant exercise your way out of an excess of 600 calories per day

Of course you can. According to the BUPA calorie counter, I burned just over 500 on a 15 mile bike ride at 12mph (a moderate pace).

Just to wade in on @purpledaisies cake theory, it actually is better to eat the whole thing at once rather than an extra 100 calories a day.

When a normal metabolism is faced with a calorie excess it temporarily ramps up to cope with it. It can't do this every day. So of the 700 calories eaten in one go, an extra 300-400 might be burnt up leaving you with only 300-400 to store, rather than the 700 you'd get if you ate 100 calories daily which wouldn't trigger the ramping up of your metabolism.

In addition, a normal body would also recognise an excess of 700 calories in one day and would naturally compensate by eating less the following day. We're much less likely to differentiate an excess of only 100, and so wouldn't compensate (plus the hypothesis was that you ate the extra cake every day regardless).

So all in all, purpledaisies is actually correct in the science, although I wouldn't recommend it as a lifestyle choice 😊

The above only applies to people with a normal metabolism though.

Those of us who've messed up our leptin-grehlin-PPY axis with yo-yo dieting, or who are overweight probably wouldn't find this.

You can fix your metabolism by cutting out carbs. Obviously i dont mean completely because brussel sprouts and courgettes and nuts have carbs, but carby carbs!

I did that. Had drifted up to 150 lbs and i wasnt binging, drinking, over eating, i was just living on carbs. As a vegetarian who forgot to eat anything except pasta and pasta sauces (eg). Now i know how to eat to get rid of hunger.