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.

[VeganCow]

@JacobReesMogadishu

I used to work with a lady in her 50s who was a size 8/10 , slim.

She never exercised and ate at least 3 bars of chocolate a day. On top of sandwich’s for lunch, didn’t calorie count for dinner.

Maybe she had a small evening meal, I bet her total calories including the choc bars were what she does burn in a day so, what on the face of it seems eating 'a lot', wasn't really when added up?
Bread isn't the devil its made out to be, I eat lots every day and still slowly losing weight.

[BeChuille]

The secret if there is one, is more fat, few carbs

[Bananabread8]

You can just join a gym OP if that’s all you want to do is become toned. A size 10 is slim to be fair. Portion size is definitely a big thing too if your not willing to exercise I think it’s a case of you have to cut some things out of your diet in order to trim down.

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

Once you get into the habit of eating very little, after about 4 days you don’t feel hungry any more. This is just my experience

I can confirm this (s long as you are consuming enough to sustain life healthily, obviously).

But - there's a catch.

If you just ONCE veer from you scheduled eating times or healthy food choices, then "food lust" kicks in. Your body gets a taste of (say) chocolate non-related to mealtime as a pudding, and it is quite literally like an alcoholic taking a sip of whisky after months of sobriety. It wants more. And unless you fight it again (and it's pretty much like starting all over again) you will find yourself pigging out on all the stuff you worked so hard to stop scoffing. Some foods - sugars, carbs and fats are addictive - REALLY. That is because in nature they are hard to come by, so when you ancestors found a source of these valuable foods, they consumed as much of them as they could to lay up stores of life-saving fat.

It isn't possible (at least not for me) to do "controlled" treats. I can only lose weight by eating set foods, at set times, and any treats I allow myself have to be part of this regime - so, for instance, if we were at the beach and everyone spontaneously wanted an ice cream, I didn't have one because it broke my routine and I knew I'd find it difficult to maintain my food balance.

Re: portions - your stomach shrinks when you don't put so much in at a time, which is why many diet plans suggest (say) six tiny meals a day instead of three big ones.

However, I agree with others - life is too short not to enjoy lovely flavours. I'm overweight but not obese and have kept at this weight for a while. I do like strong flavours and love fatty food (I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure my blood group is butter). I found limiting carbs the most helpful thing to maintain my weight at a reasonable level.

[ChasingRainbows19]

Making healthy choices isn’t always eating like a bird. Some people actually feel and enjoy the benefits of less cake- less sugar! (we don’t really need a huge slice to enjoy the taste!) or more salad/veg based foods. I love wine but as I age I really feel the effects of it on my body when I drink it so I only maybe have it once a week. Because I dont have much I feel the effects more...

We all know we don’t need huge portions of food or cake. Some people can eat them and still stay skinny but others like me can’t!

I love carbs, love all the beige, stodgy ones However if I eat like that all the time I can feel it. I’m sluggish and bloated. So I do have them. Life is too short! however not all the time. I eat more of the nutritious brightly coloured foods most of the time with lots of water and some exercise because it makes me feel better.... I don’t deprive myself if I want cake I have it but small amounts.I’ll Of course have a chippy/takeaway or meal out once every couple of weeks. But you find when you live a healthier lifestyle you want to make better food choices.

I’m not skinny never have been btw. I’m a size 12 but quite healthy.

[sHREDDIES19]

I’m slim mainly because of the movement; I exercise three times a week but also do loads of walking, fidgeting etc. I love being active. I also eat a generous amount of mainly hearty, nutritious food for my size (same as my five stone heavier husband) and will never say no to a treat but I have self control and would never want to gorge on food. I love it but it doesn’t control me and I don’t turn to it for comfort. I think that’s a big issue for lots of people.

[TreestumpsAndTrampolines]

30 mins of exercise a day frees me to eat more normally, but at 5' tall, I just don't take a lot to run, so 1200 calories is a maintenance amount for me (ideally with low carbs too, or I feel run-down/tired).

There is stuff going on that is out of my control though. I can eat a whole packet of biscuits. Even if not feeling hungry really, I could sit and eat the lot, and I have to tell myself not to. But when I was pregnant, I couldn't! Even early on, I just didn't feel any urge to eat more than one. I'd regularly forget to eat a meal because I just didn't feel hungry, or even fancy anything - there were days when I was forcing myself to eat some dinner.

So there's something. Something internal, that would switch off my food cravings, which switches on when I'm pregnant.

[CaptainBrickbeard]

I lived with a friend in my early 20s who was a petite size 6 very naturally - by which I mean she didn’t particularly think about food or exercise. She loved healthy food, didn’t like the taste of alcohol or any sweet drinks, didn’t have a big appetite and went dancing all the time for sheer enjoyment. One day she came home and mentioned she’d been so busy that day she’d forgotten to eat lunch and was now starving for her dinner.

I still remember the (utterly disproportionate) rage and despair I felt inside when she said this. Since age 9, every day of my life I have thought about food, what I can and can’t eat, berating myself for my hunger, planning when I am allowed to eat or despising myself for how greedy I am. It would be impossible for me to genuinely ‘forget’ lunch. I might not have it but I would know about it every tick of the clock. I comforted/punished myself for not having her carefree attitude to food by going on a biscuit binge. I still remember it nearly twenty years later.

I can’t switch off from thinking about food - how much or little I’ve eaten. It’s a constant background hum in my mind. It makes fasting difficult because it’s always on my mind even when I’m not hungry. My exercise sessions often feel like a chore to get myself to do it (though I do enjoy it once I get going!) My default is stillness. I am never jumping up and tidying or sorting things. I have been everything from a size 10 to a size 20 in my adult life but at every size, I have never stopped thinking about food. So for me it will always be a battle and no matter how strong you are, no one can fight a battle every day of their lives and win. I get diet fatigue, I give in and it all starts again. To ‘eat less and move more’ forever will require vigilance every day in my case.

Low carb does work the best for me in reducing hunger but I don’t only eat because I’m hungry. So it doesn’t fix everything. It is the only realistic way I will keep my weight manageable though.

[SmileyClare]

Perhaps people react to hunger differently? I'm not that bothered about feeling a bit hungry and often don't notice it until I think about it.

I'm also quite a "fidgety" person. I don't sit still for long.

And I drink a lot of coffee and smoke.

[Leflic]

@Hairthrowaway

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

Agreed. I believe it’s a coping mechanism that people use to feel better about their own size/diet. It’s like they can’t fathom that it’s possible for someone to be naturally slim without any additional effort - slim people must have an eating disorder etc

I think it’s the other way round.
Thin people always say “I eat what I want” or it’s “fast metabolism“ or “I eat loads of junk food”
Whereas overweight people who are actually eating what they want (as soon as they fancy it), who aren’t exercising much and are eating junk food every meal ( or between meals) realise that there must be a difference.

I sort of agree occasionally other things sometimes happen. I broke up with a very special boyfriend and moved back to my parents. Despite being massively over fed, as is their way, I went down three sizes because I was so heart broken and miserable.

[Eyewhisker]

Interesting. I agree. I am now relatively slim (size 10 in my mid 40s) and weigh 2 stone less than I did as a teenager, so not ‘naturally slim’.

I maintain by a mixture of moderate exercise (run twice a week) and making an effort to keep my steps up. On food, I would say that I eat what I want, but I consciously try and make healthy choices most times. When I do for for something less healthy - big slice of cake, burger etc it’s often after a particularly active day and I will consciously wait until I am hungry before eating again. I love chocolate but try not to buy it as when I do I crave it, but if I’m not in the habit my cravings go.

We have stayed for weekends with friends of varying sizes and those who are heavier tend to have lots of snack food - crisps, percy pigs, grab bags of sweets, jars of nutella in the house. Those that are healthy weights tend not to - home-baking but not processed food on tap.

I love food and can cook really well. We’ve a gousto subscription and I really recommend it for getting varied and reasonably healthy family meals. Much much tastier than a supermarket pizza and great for when you can’t think what to cook.

[Vodkacranberryplease]

My skinny friends eat far less than I do. Thanks to saxenda I now eat the same. Two drink like fish and we are all drinking on hols currently. A lot. But I've still lost weight eating like them. It's not the alcohol it's the food you have with alcohol - your body is busy using the alcohol calories and the food ones just stay (an actual science based thing I read in the times lately not a Facebook fact). One is also hyper

[Laiste]

Only scanned thread but yes, at the end of the day if you burn off what you put in you wont put on weight. (with the usual rare health complication exceptions).

It's the 80/20 thing. Or is it 90/10? My eldest DD works in an office environment. She routinely eats small portions of healthy food. Day in day out she'll eat a tiny thing for a meal or two or skip it altogether. Her main meal of the day is nearly always lots of veg and low carb. But on occasion she will sit down and eagerly eat a bloody great bowl of pasta and join in with the big ol' pud with eyes like saucers. She loves food! But because 90% of her meals are low calorie she stays skinny.

I find 3 weeks of each month i can eat very little without being hungry. Especially if i'm busy. One week of the month though - i could eat everything in sight and it still wouldn't be enough! Those are the bad weeks

[ChasingRainbows19]

Also one of the smallest people I know cane at whatever she wants and does no real exercise yet she is pretty much the same size as when we were teens. That’s just how she is. She could eat far more than me portion size wise.

[dontdisturbmenow]

You amazingly get used to it. I'm through the throw of the menopause and it's doing a real mess of my ability to keep my weight down.

Reading much about it, I had to accept that cutting down on carbs and sugar was only going to be good for me. I thought it was an impossible mission. I looooove bread and have done so ever since I was a kid. I also absolutely love pasta.

Still I decided to give it a go. Its been three months without any bread at all, not one little piece or variant, only a handful of brown pasta in my salad, no rice at all and I am amazed how I don't crave any of it at all. Its there for my family but I can look at it and feel no desire for it at all.

I don't miss it and therefore it doesn't feel like my life is miserable without it.

[BurtsBeesKnees]

I'm petite and used to be really slim and held my weight with no problems. But I just wasn't that fussed about food, it wasn't something I celebrated with, didn't drink much and a lot of the time I couldn't be arsed to cook, so a bowl of weetabix for tea would do. I was also single.

I've now had two kids and I'm in a happy relationship with someone who loves food. We are both now overweight, but my diet is so much healthier. I just eat too much

[itsaratrap]

After a very slim youth, I yo-yo dieted for years after having children but became fatter and fatter, it was miserable. The harder I tried the fatter I seemed to be.
Drastically paleo dieted a few years ago, lost stones but that kind of diet obviously isn’t sustainable long-term. So gradually introduced a more balanced diet, but weekends only and began exercising vigorously (hadn’t before).
Several years in, its worked. I’m disciplined Monday-Friday evening then eat/drink what I like at weekends (it’s interesting though because my tastes have changed and my only real “bad” food now is kettle chips 😁). Weights been constant for a long time now and I feel much better for the exercise.
For most people, unfortunately it really is calories in/out.

[TheChosenTwo]

We recently bubbled up with my brother and his family and went away for a week. Both he and sil are slim. Dh and I, not so much.
Our eating habits differ - they just don’t ever snack. Ever. So while I’d often put out a bowl of crisps early evening before dinner for everyone to share, I noticed that they never touched them. Same for when we went out, we would get ice creams, they got ice creams for their dc but didn’t eat them themselves.
We cooked meals together in the evenings and they would eat what appeared to be good sized amounts of dinner (I wasn’t really paying close attention but I remember that we all tried a bit of everything) and when we went to the pub they certainly didn’t choose salads but they just eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and nothing inbetween.
Sil also does a 5k run 3 times a week. Brother has a physical job but then so does dh. And I walk about 8 miles a day.

[BertieBotts]

People have different levels at which they feel hungry, much like people have different frequencies with which they crave sex.

Someone on one of these threads once said if they skip one meal they start feeling faint and fluttery and light-headed (that low blood sugar feeling). It takes me about three days of not eating proper meals to get to that stage.

[Laiste]

@dontdisturbmenow fellow bread lover/craver here. I gave up bread and bready things plus pasta and potatoes for about 6 months a few years ago (continued eating fatty meat ect) and the weight Fell.Off. It's not even as if i was eating stupid amounts of it either.

I had a headache for the first week but that went away. I forgot the crave, and no longer 'looked' for carbs in every meal.

When i finally had bread again it tasted awful at first. Like cake!

When i cut out a food group i find i replace it for a craving for something else. Low carbing makes me desperate to guzzle milk

[Pukkatea]

I don't share your experience with my circle. Everyone I know who is overweight is either on a diet, eating salads or generally always aware of what they eat, the slim people I know don't give a crap and eat what they want. I'm a size 8 and I eat more than my DP. I think in this world that seems built for us to become fat, the slim people are mainly that way genetically.

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

I'm finding all these threads rather dull now tbh.

Plenty of people who eat a lot are nevertheless naturally slim. My sister in law is slim and eats like a horse. She is 50 now and her diet and her body have changed not a jot. Her parents and siblings are all slim too.

My mother in law is slightly (not related to sister in law) is slightly overweight but it's all on her hips and thighs and she remains fairly healthy and active at 75. She has 4 younger half siblings who had a different father to her and they are all thin as rakes - to the point of looking unusual.

Watch the documentary about faecal donation to see the truth about so called fat genes and thin genes. It's absolutely fascinating.

Yes. Some women stay slim by eating very little and exercising hard. That doesn't equate to all overweight women overeat and are lazy.

[dentydown]

Obesity is in our family. My great grandfather got put on the cholesterol diet of the 70s (think ultra extreme) and only went down to 14 stone. He was still overweight! My mum used to skip meals and smoke 40-60 a day to stay slim. I had to stick to a 1200 diet. (Which then went on to a 200-300 a day diet) . I am trying to get back into 1200 because at 2000 calls a day I’m obese! Lol!

[a12345b]

Mumsnet is full od overweight people eating 1000 calories per day and exercising constantly...

[DorsetCamping]

Yes it's interesting. I'm currently staying with a friend who has always been enviably tall and slim but seems to lost a stack of weight since I last saw her.

Having observed her habits she only eats meals on side plates, rarely drinks, zero junk food, Yoga and 30 mins of an online body conditioning class everyday. We have been out several times this week and she has declined an ice cream or any kind of cake when we stop at a tea shop.

There's no denying she looks great (especially sat on the beach in her bikini yesterday ) but I just think how boring it must all be being so restrictive. Also In the same way it's worrying that some parents feed their kids junk I do worry about attitudes and habits she is forming in her teenage girls.