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.

I think you are stereotyping slim people.
Not all slim people starve themselves.
Not all fat people are lazy.
Most of my family are naturally slum and we all have HUGE appetites.
I have friends who are slum and never skimp on cake or wine.
I think k a lot of overweight people can't handle the fact that a lot of slim psioke are slim because that's their natural build and they have to constantly put them down with catry threads like this.

@Robbybobtail

I think slim people either have massive willpower, eat normally and exercise loads or were brought up in a family/environment where they didn’t eat much so picking at food/eating small meals is the norm.

Or its just how they are.

Also depends a lot on age, definitely more difficult to stay slim as you get older!

Most of the slim people I know just don't eat very much - not in a starving themselves way, just in a low volume of food way. A couple of them are also just people who are just not bothered about food, they can take it or leave it. I am definitely not one of those people!

I remember years ago I travelled to a hen do with one of my very slim friends. We stopped at a services for something to eat - I had a panini and a packet of Crisps. She had half a panini and that was it. Half a fucking panini! She literally just left the other half on her plate. It's always stuck in my head.

I'm never going to be thin!

@GodOfPhwoar well obviously I don’t live with her. But we worked together for many years and I’m not exaggerating. She’d eat breakfast before work (Healthy - usually porridge plus extras), get through up to a pack of biscuits a day, have a pasta pot type thing for lunch usually (say they tomato and cheese ones from Tesco’s), a packet of crisps. And then dinner. We have eaten out together plenty of times and she absolutely packs it away.

She’s a slow eater but she does eat large portions. She said that she has ‘non hungry days’ when asked but I never saw them, presume they were at the weekend.

Definitely not bulimic.

Bit of a generalisation there OP, i'm sure it has a lot to do with genetics too..
I'm 5ft 11 and weigh 10st 2, but eat whatever i want, in fact at 57 i've been trying to put on weight because i think id look better, but just dont seem able to.
So no, slim people are not always eating like birds or calorie counting.

likeamillpond what you’re saying has been scientifically disproven though. Yes metabolisms do vary but not to such a significant extent. Slim people WILL be eating less or moving more than chubbier people. It’s science. Maybe they aren’t conscious of it but it’s true.

If slim means the normal weight an adult human should be, then they are normal and underweight and overweight people have disordered eating.

Most people think healthy weight adults have controlling or disorder eating, hence an evering obese nation.

@Yellow1793 I’m with you op. I have mates who claim they eat ‘loads’ - absolute bollocks. I also have observed skinny people eating a massive meal and (like a snake) taken a solid 24-48 hours to digest it, whilst eating nothing in between.
Yup - some people genuinely have a tapeworm/ hollow legs but they’re v rare. Seen far more passing around miniscule portions of cake whilst pretending to eat it, or eating it and then forgoing food for the rest of the day.

I agree 100% with a previous poster. I am in my late 40s and have always been pretty much the same size - a petite size 8. I don’t “watch what I eat” or have “massive willpower”. I eat normal meals and snacks when I am hungry. But I do eat a pretty wide range of foods and in general i don’t eat much processed food. This is how I have always eaten. I don’t go to the gym or anything like that but I am always doing something active - housework, walking to the supermarket, a quick run last thing at night, etc.

I think it is definitely amount eaten. I am obese, I don't eat massively unhealthy food (don't have a sweet tooth so never have dessert/pudding, hardly ever eat cake/biscuits, limit junk food, mainly home-cooked meals) but I do just eat too much.

The only time I really ever lost weight was ironically when I was pregnant with my first daughter. It was like having a mini gastric band because I could eat much less than usual. She was 'stuck' in a weird position in utero and must have been pushing on my stomach (she was born with craniosynostosis and the doctor said it was most likely positional from how she was in utero).

Now if I try to diet, I lose 2, even 3 stone (I need to lose more like 7 stone) and I am just too hungry, I can't do it. My elder daughter naturally grazes and eats little and is naturally slim - I wish I could be like her.

Well BeaSmithers you are quite, quite wrong and I can now prove it as this thread was started in August

I have eaten 1500 calories a day for about 20 years and have gradually become obese because of it

At the end of September 2020 I had 75% of my stomach removed

I now eat 1000 calories a day (without being hungry ever)

I have lost a pound EVERY WEEK since then (actually I lost more the first 3 weeks as I couldn't eat much as my stomach was recovering)

My stomach is now fine 4 months later.

A pound represents 3500 approx of calories - I have eaten 500 less calories a day every day - so that's a pound a week

I expect to just continue losing a pound a week from eating 1000 calories approx a day

I'm very short so I don't see why it comes as a surprise that 1500 calories makes short/small framed people gain weight - it did for me.

I don't want to be skinny I want to be fit!

Nah, that’s not it.

I really dieted to get to be a size 8 for my wedding, (just diet, no exercise) and it was hard- I ate 3x meals a day but not huge amounts.

I’ve had a DS but am now back at being a slim size 8-10. I’ve recently lost loads of weight and I can’t work out how! Worried, I bought scales - 8 stone 12!!

I couldn’t work out how I was doing this without trying! Then I realised - I walk DS to nursery and walk back with the buggy most days. It’s uphill- all the way. A 15 min walk uphill with a 2 stone toddler- that will do it.

Because I’m busy with DS this then WFH (busy role) all day I don’t have time to eat much. Small bowl of porridge, sandwiches for lunch, family dinner of something like poached fish, mashed potato and spinach. I don’t drink much booze and aside from having loads of treats in at Christmas, I don’t snack.

It genuinely is that simple- walk uphill for half an hour a day and eat three small meals. I couldn’t believe it.

@Dinosforall

MN is full of people dying to believe that all slim people starve themselves and exercise 5 days a week. Tell that to my kit kat habit.

Exactly this. My dd1 is 20 and dear lord she would survive on crisps and chocolate if she wasn’t living at home with us. Never gets bored of the stuff but also has a healthy appetite for other food too. Perfectly healthy, no issues with food and very slim. As in size 4 slim. Oh and she hates exercise and dh has to force her to come on a walk with us.

@LaurieFairyCake That was a good news callback. I hope the operation went well it is fantastic you're not feeling hungry so not feeling deprived and you're on a steady road losing weight.
Ignore non believers my Dsis is a 1400 calorie a day vegan and has issues with gaining weight.

I eat a lot less than I used to but have chocolate or sweets or biscuits every day. I've taken up running and intermittent fasting. Lost almost two stone. Feel s much better. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Yeah yeah.. Carry on fantasising.

The obsession with being thin is so dull. What about being strong? Toned? So well defined that you're happy to walk around naked?

Nobody cares what the number on the scales says, nobody else sees it! Your weight on a scale is just your gravitational pull to the earth. It doesn't detail how healthy you are.

You could be a skinny untoned size 8, but eat utter shit, so no exercise and drink like a fish and you'll still be more unhealthy than the size 14 who lifts weight and eats food that allows her body to perform effectively.

She said that she has ‘non hungry days’ when asked but I never saw them, presume they were at the weekend.

I strongly suspect that this is the key to it. If she fasts for entire days, or even significantly cuts down intake to say one meal, then this would explain how she can eat fairly heartily on other days and stay slim.

Fast metabolisms are a thing, but most people bodies align with the general laws of nature. It’s almost vanishingly rare to be able to consistently overeat and be very slim unless young.

I remember being in the same position as you and asking the same question. The answer was the same you got, eating small portions, missing meals, exercise all the time. They also said they felt hungry all the time but tried to ignore the pangs. I’m not quite sure how healthy that is.

Not saying that this is the same case as your friends but it is for a lot of slim women out there, especially if they have come to the age when the body naturally starts to burn fat more slowly.

I’m 5f 2 (just) and into weightlifting (we’re talking heavy). I’m around 52.5kg at my heaviest and under 20% body fat. When I’m lifting 4 times a week I eat between 2700-3000 calories a day. It’s equivalent to a lot of the men I know who weight lift. Obviously had to cut back during lockdown. For my size that’s a lot of calories so some must be due in part to genetics.

And I think a lot of people just don’t understand/aren’t good at tracking it. Like those tv shows where the fat person claims not to eat much, but the presenter logs it all and puts it all an a table at the end of the week (usually a shockingly large amount of food!).

One of my workmates couldn’t understand why the other of a similar build was losing weight and not him, as he said he didn’t eat ‘all that much for a big guy’. He was eating 3-4 greggs slices for lunch (about 400 cals each) and his colleague was consuming 1500 cals in the entire day as recommended by his doctor.

The one who ‘couldn’t understand why his colleague lost more weight’ was often eating more in one meal than his colleague was in the entire day!

I find this whole issue of eating/dieting exercise really interesting. Just recently while out on a socially distanced walk with a friend, she’s a size 14/16 I’m about 10/12 we talked about the treats we got for Xmas. I casually said I’d had 3 boxes chocs, tins biscuits etc. I said they’ll last me till summer. She seriously asked if I was joking, saying she’d received more than that and had eaten all but one big bar choc already. It got into a bit of an argument about snacking and she told me she eats snacks throughout the day, everyday. I personally only eat treats once in a while when I fancy them that way I enjoy them more. She insisted that was because I don’t have a sweet tooth?! But I know I do, I love chocolate, ice cream, cake etc but I think it’s about self discipline as I know I’d pile on the pounds if I ate that amount a sugar each day. Welcome your thoughts please?

I’m pregnant at the minute but I’m 5’2 and usually around 8st 9oz. I eat loads, everyday. I don’t take 24-48 hours to digest it without eating anything else. I eat crisps, chocolate sweets regularly, probably more than I should. I don’t do any actual exercise, the most I do is walking to the park or shops. I snack regularly and have big meals. I’m only skinny because of my genetics, my DM and DNan were the same. I really don’t think every skinny person starves themselves