Is it possible to be a foodie and also be slim/ lose weight

[SeeooelllaaaCola]

Following from my post on another thread. I have only managed to lose weight for the first time by 'breaking up' with food. In the past I could take or leave chocolate and most cake, I ate probably ten bags of crisps per year, I never enjoyed fast food. My typical Sunday would be sourdough bread toasted, eggs and hot sauce, lunch would be an avocado wrap, snacks would be olives, dinner would be a roast dinner.
I now try to see food as fuel and choose foods that will fill me up but not use up much of my tiny calorie allowance. Taste rarely comes into it. I don't go until local businesses and browse the shelves for inspiration. I don't read recipe books. I don't (even when I could) travel to food markets and street food stalls. I feel like I've had to give up a side of myself, and a hobby, but I now fit into size 12 jeans. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.

Anyone managed to combine a love of food with losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight? Please tell me how!

Parents on MN frequently list their dc's v. healthy diet. Only fruit between meals, a limit on sweets.
They obviously don't practice what they preach or they're not being truthful.

Not everybody has constantly drunk so much they ended up puking everywhere and no recollection of what happened.

Some people have genuinely never got that drunk, and at least no more than once or twice in their life. It's not mandatory.

It's the same with food. Not everybody has to eat to excess, if you are used to smaller portions, you stick to smaller portions. Over-eating makes you feel horrible. It's a big joke on MN about "competitive under-eating", but if you are used to be full after 2 slices of pizza, it's no effort to stick to 2 slices of pizza the day you have pizza.

If you are used to have a soup and a yogurt for diner, it's a habit that sticks. You have no reason to suddenly start scoffing half a serving dish of pasta or stew, why would you. And there's no effort involved .

Many people wouldn't enjoy a full fry-up every morning.

@Oreservoir

Parents on MN frequently list their dc's v. healthy diet. Only fruit between meals, a limit on sweets. They obviously don't practice what they preach or they're not being truthful.

No one on MN ever believes a poster stating they don't buy squash, fizzy drinks, crisps and biscuits. Apparently they are mandatory. MN posters are free to believe what they want, it doesn't make it true.

I suppose what I want is validation that slim people work really really hard at staying slim and if they don't they are genetically predisposed to not put on weight

It is both. Once I overcame sugar/carb cravings by going pretty much cold turkey for a short while I found hunger pangs just not as bad. I eat pretty much all the foods I like now but log them and if I ensure I have a deficit I do lose weight. I have got used to smaller portions. My portions were too big which was part of the reason I put on weight a few years ago. Now my new portion sizes are normal to me and I don't crave any more. Similarly I have got used to exercising and feel a bit 'figity' and bored if I don't do any. I am pretty slim now (5ft 7 size 8 to 10) but was over weight (and size 14 to 16).

I have become more of a foodie since I started a healthier eating / shed the excess Kgs some time in the spring lockdown.

I have always enjoyed good food, appreciated flavours, quality ingredients, great recipes, good cooks whether in restaurants or other people's homes.

But I was also eating big portions, happy to eat bacon sandwiches from the cafe, cheap choc as a snack, and loads of ice cream. Lockdown and working from him meant the fridge, bread bin and toaster were just too close. The link between COVID mortality and weight made me think 'This is something I CAN do something about to protect myself'

It took a week to break the habit of unhealthy snacking, and a little longer to get used to smaller portion sizes.

I shed 2.5 stone (ish) and am now happy with my shape, health and weight.

But I am fussier about what food I do eat. If I have chocolate I want it to be the best, something I really enjoy and can savour and appreciate the quality.

Same with bread: I buy sourdough that I love, and freeze it in slices to defrost one a day, and enjoy with butter I really enjoy the taste of.

I love good cheese - so I buy a small amount of good cheese rather than shovel down hunks of Cathedral Cheddar.

Eating a far greater % of veg - so picking and choosing and branching out for more variety.

I never went on a 'diet' as such, just ate less, and made sure a higher % of what I ate was healthy.

It has been sustainable - I stayed the same weight over Christmas, but had a great time, ate something of everything going. But didn't 'stuff' myself like I have sometimes.

Now, a sandwich of sourdough and dry cured bacon once a month seems infinitely more appealing than a flabby bacon sandwich on white sliced from the cafe.

And I am spending less overall, because I am eating more well-cooked veg recipes than ready meals, meat etc.

Crisps and ice cream would still be my weakness - I have them sometimes and enjoy them.

Different things work for different people, but in short - yes, I am more 'foodie' than I was when I was bigger.

For instance I’ve never eaten 3 meals a day, I don’t understand how people can eat 3 meals a day and stay slim unless they are doing a lot of hardcore exercise each day (e.g a 10 mile run per day or something)

What you have done though is swap your lunches for biscuits, wine, takeaways and crisps.
Your choice but a bit wierd to say people dont need lunch when you eat all that over the course of the week/ weekend.

I eat 3 meals daily, never touch biscuits, wine or crisps

Just don't eat all the foodie.

Skip a meal,count calories, exercise, treats in moderation. etc

Fucking hell the spam bots are getting smarter. Actually including something from the topic in the spam😱

@Templetree, yes but that’s the whole point isn’t it. I recognise I do substitute lunch every day in order to have these. I think a ‘bigger’ person would happily eat all of these things too but also eat lunch in addition to.
I think that’s the difference of mindset between a ‘slim’ person and a ‘not slim’ person. The ‘slim’ person will often make conscious or unconscious sacrifices in order to stay that way.

If I ate 3 meals a day I wouldn’t eat biscuits that’s for sure. I would still drink socially with friends and I probably would hardly ever have a takeaway (in fact I hardly ever have a takeaway now, maybe once every 2 months?)

I still think if I ate lunch everyday but cut out the weekend treats, I’d still be bigger than i am now.

[quote SweetShopSurprise]@Templetree, yes but that’s the whole point isn’t it. I recognise I do substitute lunch every day in order to have these. I think a ‘bigger’ person would happily eat all of these things too but also eat lunch in addition to.
I think that’s the difference of mindset between a ‘slim’ person and a ‘not slim’ person. The ‘slim’ person will often make conscious or unconscious sacrifices in order to stay that way.

If I ate 3 meals a day I wouldn’t eat biscuits that’s for sure. I would still drink socially with friends and I probably would hardly ever have a takeaway (in fact I hardly ever have a takeaway now, maybe once every 2 months?)

I still think if I ate lunch everyday but cut out the weekend treats, I’d still be bigger than i am now.[/quote]
Ok then you can understand how some people can eat lunch then and its not such a strange thing.
It was the fact you thought it so wierd.

I guess it depends on what you have -
A few biscuits could be 400 calories which is a pot of salad .
If its BLT, crisps and a twix then yes way more calories and you would be bigger.

[quote SweetShopSurprise]@Templetree, yes but that’s the whole point isn’t it. I recognise I do substitute lunch every day in order to have these. I think a ‘bigger’ person would happily eat all of these things too but also eat lunch in addition to.
I think that’s the difference of mindset between a ‘slim’ person and a ‘not slim’ person. The ‘slim’ person will often make conscious or unconscious sacrifices in order to stay that way.

If I ate 3 meals a day I wouldn’t eat biscuits that’s for sure. I would still drink socially with friends and I probably would hardly ever have a takeaway (in fact I hardly ever have a takeaway now, maybe once every 2 months?)

I still think if I ate lunch everyday but cut out the weekend treats, I’d still be bigger than i am now.[/quote]
Not necessarily if the lunch was mainly salad and veg and lower sugar fruit... which seem to be quite sparse in your diet.

I am a massive foodie: I love reading about food, cooking, eating, visiting farmers' markets etc, but I'm also the same weight and size at 41 as I was at 20.

I think the reason for this, apart from good genes (my father, who I take after physically, was nicknamed 'the racing snake' as a young man), is I eat what I like, but not very often and not too much: I only eat when I'm hungry, so maybe once or twice a day at most, and when I'm full, I stop.

I love to cook, am very good at it, and very rarely eat processed foods or takeaways (although I love eating out!).

Additionally, my tastes run to savoury rather than sweet, so if I snack, it's olives or nuts, rather than sweets or cake.

I've noticed, watching larger friends, that while they may think they don't eat a lot in terms of portion sizes at any one time, their calorific 'grazing' intake over the course of a day is huge.

Yes, I LOVE food, especially proper homemade, rich food, such as homemade beef stroganoff, with cream etc, pasta carbonara, with cream and white wine, lasagne with homemade white sauce.

I usually have low fat/calorie breakfast and lunches, then a more luxurious dinner, I love to cook so I could spend 2 hours cooking a really nice main course, it's definitely possible, although maybe include some excercise

"Parents on MN frequently list their dc's v. healthy diet. Only fruit between meals, a limit on sweets.
They obviously don't practice what they preach or they're not being truthful. grin

No one on MN ever believes a poster stating they don't buy squash, fizzy drinks, crisps and biscuits. Apparently they are mandatory.
MN posters are free to believe what they want, it doesn't make it true."

Yeah, I honestly don't understand why you would buy that kind of thing for your children apart from as an occasional treat. Especially fizzy drinks, it's so addictive and so bad for you. I'm not saying I never drink it, I love a can of coke, but I can't imagine handing one to a small child.

"For instance I’ve never eaten 3 meals a day, I don’t understand how people can eat 3 meals a day and stay slim unless they are doing a lot of hardcore exercise each day (e.g a 10 mile run per day or something)"

I think it's really less to do with the number of meals and more to do with the portion size. I never finish my meals in restaurants. I'm not restraining myself when I don't finish, I just can't finish the size of meals they give you. If I get a Chinese, I'll eat maybe half the rice and three quarters of my meal and eat the rest the next day. I also very rarely order side dishes. My entire family is the same, so it's just normal for me.

If I'm not hungry, I don't eat. If I'm alone in the evenings, I'll often just have a bowl of cereal or something because I can't be bothered cooking.

I eat a lot of vegetables and I guess that helps a lot. We always have frozen vegetables so every meal, I just add a lot of them.

I also love walking. Before I had my baby, I worked about a two hour walk from my house and when the weather was nice I used to walk home. People would always be offering me a lift or thinking there was something wrong with me for wanting to walk home, but I genuinely enjoyed the time to just think, listen to music, and get some exercise. Not to get all 'in my day' but until the 80s or so, a lot of families didn't have cars, or only had one car, so that was very normal. Nowadays, you don't even see kids walking the 10 or 15 minutes to school. We walked every day, we only had one car and my dad needed it for work, so no choice.

It's very interesting about how many people mention genetics, but also the differences in portions and level of movement.
Unless people have some of the rare disorders, the genetics play some, but not the biggest role. And that's also only in small number of people.

I agree with pp though that there have been enormous changes to our livestyles in last 30 or so years. My mum's weight was always ok. Then she moved to an apartment. Doomed. I was always ok, then I moved very close to work and got less active work. That's when it started creeping up (so did denial lol).
Yeah. I believe that if many of us ditched the cars, we would be much better off (not going to happen even in my house). And used recommend portions.

That reminded me. I think it was food unwrapped who showed that ready meals are now nearly double the size they were in 60s or 70s.

I think it's really less to do with the number of meals and more to do with the portion size

There was a thread while back full of MNers indignant because somebody suggested that their meals should generally be smaller than those of their male partners. I think misogyny was mentioned more than once.

@RainingBatsandFrogs

I'm one stone down in a big weight loss effort and this is one of the most sensible things I have ever read about changing mindset and losing/maintenance of weight.

Definitely going to cultivate this way of thinking . Thank you!

@Changi that’s ridiculous! Of course, the average woman needs less calories than the average man so it stands to reason that we need less food. It took me a while to realise that though - I gained my weight originally by serving myself the same size dinner as my husband, who is much taller than me. Stopping this habit was a big contributor to me beginning to lose that weight. Now I look at his plate and think it’s crazy I used to eat that amount.