If you’re thin, what does the voice in your head say?

[SunshineAndFizz]

If you’re offered a biscuit, or need to make a selection in a restaurant, what does the voice in your head say to help you make a healthy choice?

Kate Moss famously said ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’. And my aunt used to say ‘oh I don’t like to feel full’.

If you’re thin, do you have a healthy phrase you tell yourself to help keep on the right track?

Im newly thin thanks to wli’s but i have maintained since april and im now a few months into maintaining with no jabs. I ignore the voice in my head that wants the biscuit or the dessert and tell myself “you are happier now” because it’s true. I was happy bigger granted, but i am happier now. I can go into shops and try on clothes and like what i see, i can go upstairs without being out of breath, i go the gym 5 times a week and dont feel self conscious etc. Its a constant effort, but i am happier and feel good.

I do still eat the foods i enjoy that are high calorie, but i engage with eating instead of disengaging and mindlessly eating watching tv or chatting. The second i start to feel full i stop eating, instead of eating to the point of being stuff. I also limit myself to one latte a day instead of 5. They are the biggest changes i have made, but i can only stick to them by reminding myself i am happier now, and because that is true.

Now I’m old I genuinely just feel shit if I overeat or eat too much fat or sugar. I still sometimes do it but it really doesn’t make me feel good. I do eat a big portion of dinner but it’s generally not massively unhealthy and will have loads of veg. I also eat about 600cals for breakfast but it’s all “healthy” so doesn’t make me feel ill or guilty in any way.

I have always been a bit underweight but am just average now in my mid life age.

Even as a child I could never stomach breakfast so would maybe eat a sandwich at school and then dinner. This just carried on throughout my life, so I suppose I've naturally done intermittent fasting my whole life.

I don't actually get hunger pangs. Instead I will feel light headed or get a bit shaky. If I get a craving for something, I just go with my body needs a bit of sugar or along those lines.

I don't love food I think it the short answer. It is just something that keeps me alive. I don't think I have ever ordered a slice of cake and I don't buy biscuits and the likes, but I do like salty things like crisps, peanuts etc if I want a nibble.

I suppose we are just all made up differently, some people find food as a priority and others it's a means to survive.

I have some ingrained rules although maybe not a ‘voice’.
I would never have more than 2 biscuits at once as I would consider that greedy this means I have never had a situation of having eaten the whole packet because the rule is stop at 2
I have recently stopped drinking alcohol apart from on special occasions. If I think about it I decide to have a glass of water with ice instead and remind myself I will feel better for it
I always take the stairs never use a lift or escalator. I say to myself people pay for the gym so why pass up free exercise
A lot of stuff that’s bad for you I honestly don’t enjoy so it’s not hard to say no to: fizzy drinks, crisps, chips, McDonalds anything (never set foot in there)
If I have a rule on those it’s you don’t like that so don’t eat it.
I do have a sweet tooth and I like cake, biscuits and chocolate but as I have got older I only really like home made or high quality ones so I do like an M&S chocolate covered biscuit but I would no longer bother about a Hob nob. I guess my rule there is ‘is this worth the calories?’ so I would more likely eat a piece of home made birthday cake (worth it) than a shop bought biscuit. If there a dessert I fancy when eating out I will have it but we rarely do go out to eat and if I do it’s a special occasion not a pizza place.

I eats fairly freely but there are some things I’d never do.

The only calories I drink are milk in tea and occasional alcohol (not a big drinker anyway).
I’d never eat obviously unhealthy food. By this I mean pastry or crisps, any blatant UPF (such as my aunt keeps offering me Ritz crackers and Pringles. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll eat a Pringle). I dont eat any supermarket or eg Me Kipling cakes. What a waste of calories when home made taste 100% better. I don’t eat cream and I’d never have more than a few slices of cheese in on sitting.

“I do not need the sugar” …I avoid sugar based anything.

😅😁😅 I hear you and second that

I like food but can only eat small portions. I eat what I want and stop when I've had enough. I make or plate up a smaller portion than most people seem to eat. My only inner voice is the reminder that some foods make me feel unwell so I'd probably be best to avoid or only have a very small amount to reduce symptoms e.g. ice cream or anything deep fried.

I’m a size 12, mid-healthy BMI - I’m not sure I am what you mean by skinny - but fwiw:

Lost 15kg / 30lb during this year. I work in rules - so on a Monday I eat one meal a day for example, on other days I wrap up by 2 or 5pm. I often think something like “You can have it tomorrow” or “I won’t have that in the house, I know I can’t resist it”. But built in are days when I can eat what I like, and a meal out would definitely be that sort of day.

The other thing I find is suddenly really not like McDonald’s type food, which previously I would eat once a week. I genuinely used to enjoy it, and now something has changed and if we go there I will get something just so the kids don’t see their mum sitting with an empty plate.

In my opinion OP, the voice in your head is your brain’s response to an addictive craving. The addiction says one thing, your higher brain another. It takes work to listen to the higher brain instead of the more primal addictive one. Pp who say they don’t have a food voice have no experience with food addiction.
I recommend reading one of Allen Carr’s books on weight loss. It is possible to reframe how you perceive junk food, but you need an open mind and to be prepared to view food differently than most of society.

the calories aren’t worth the taste!!
thats often my consideration to be honest. I make an exception for a Chinese takeaway and crisps. Both are definitely worth it imo. But things like cake, pudding, alcohol, fizzy drinks, kebabs, sweets. Not worth it at all! I can turn down easily. But crisps and Chinese takeaway…

There’s no food voice.
There’s no decision or anything, just eat if I fancy eating, whatever I fancy eating.
Also never owned weighing scales, weight was never on my radar.
Only ever got weighed for medical reasons.
incedentally weight just returned to my default weight after both pregnancies, without doing anything.

I want that, I want that but you can't have it you greedy cow but I WANT it I'm so sad I feel desolate life is crap and I'm rubbish and I WANT it but you CAN'T have it but I want it I want want want but you CAN'T HAVE IT ...

... and so on. Not helpful. I try not to rely on the voice in my head. I go low-carb instead, which at least reduces the cravings.

What's considered thin?

I'm 5ft4 and 8st10 and would be mortified if someone described me as thin. I'm slim, athletic and strong, and have curves thanks to my proportionally small waist.

I only think it's acceptable to have one treat a day - I've always been that way. So if I was offered a biscuit or cake, I'd decline if I'd already had a treat that day, or accept if I hadn't. But I'm also fastidious about the quality of food as i like food to nourish me, so I'm only accepting if it's good quality and doesn't contain additives and preservatives etc.

We went on holiday to the States recently and I thought I'd enjoy the breakfast pancakes and waffles, but as soon as I read some ingredients lists, I didn't touch them - it was all high fructose corn syrups and palm oil.

I'm thin. I genuinely like healthy food and lots of junk food is genuinely disgusting to me e.g. takeaway pizza. Most biscuits are synthetic and far too sweet so I don't actually want one. Every now and then I get a craving for a burger which I think is related to iron levels - so I'll have one.

I think this is true - there is so much addiction - and it is real addiction - to modern food.

@SunshineAndFizz I highly recommend listening to audiobook of Ultra Processed People. It put me off UPF completely and taught me to see processed food very differently. I lost 20kg after reading it. I had gone from about 55kg to 85kg during pregnancy, and after pregnancy I lost maybe 15kg alone but struggled to stop eating big amounts and eating things I’d have never eaten before when I was much slimmer but I relaxed a lot during pregnancy and ballooned. I knew they were ‘bad’ because I’d not eaten them deliberately for all my life really until I was pregnant, but once I started I couldn’t stop. I had food noise for the first time in my life really and struggled with ‘should I have that / I don’t want that / I do want that’ - it reminded me of when I gave up smoking years ago! Ultra processed people helped me to reset my perspective and get back my old mindset about eating real food and just how poor my current food choices were.

so much ‘food’ in the supermarkets today is not food and really has very very little nutritional value.

I hate feeling bloated or over full. If you gave me a choice between an apple and a cream cake, or between salad or pie and chips, I'd chose the apple and the salad (unless I was very hungry) because I genuinely prefer them. The voice in my head reminds me how grotty I'd feel if I ate too much grease and stodge.

Yes, cake for example just tastes of sugar. Tell me when you eat it what the flavour is -if I make a Victoria sponge it tastes mildly of the eggs and butter it contains - bought stuff other than a good cafe -is just sweet.

Nothing nice about them.
Choc biscs I like sometimes but they are a choc snack rather than biscuit.

I don't have a food voice and there's no 'food noise'.

I didn't realise this until a couple of years ago when my partner commented on it.

We meal plan for evening meals, cook from scratch and so always know what we're having but I could still not eat if im not disciplined in making myself do so. He'll quite often ask if I'm hungry and I always have to stop and think about it. Quite often I'll say, "I could probably eat," because I know I haven't eaten yet but by the time thought about it some more, I can feel really hungry. But I can often go a day without eating because I just don't feel hungry and haven't thought about food. I have to deliberately think about and 'tune in' to whether I'm hungry or not.

So if I'm offered a biscuit, I don't have a voice telling me I can't eat it or I shouldn't eat it because I don't have a voice telling me I want it either.

When I go out for dinner, I usually look and see what I fancy eating. I don't consider whether it's high/low calorie but what I have the appetite for. But I also genuinely don't like feeling full - it's uncomfortable so I suppose I usually choose things that don't look too 'heavy'. I don't deny myself anything I want but I rarely want things that would be considered 'treats' (like cake, biscuits, crisps, chocolate) because I'm not particularly fussed by them either way.

I suppose I don't ever feel food temptation. It's hard to explain when there is such food talk around temptation, being good, making good choices, denying yourself because I just don't experience it.

I'm not thin but I'm in the healthy weight range.

I was slim until the menopause - never gave food much thought - I was a physically active person and ate what I wanted.

I did not fancy conventional calorie counting and had picked up a few health problems, so I signed up for Zoe. My weight stayed the same, but my energy levels improved a lot, and that enabled me to exercise. The weight came off once I was eating better AND moving more.

I still eat burger and chips very occasionally but I don’t crave it and I now try to make healthier choices wherever I am, most of the time. So my inner voice says, what will be good for me?

My bmi is about 19.8. Similar to others I prefer fruit over cream cakes, don’t eat packet biscuits, have self imposed rules (eg only a couple of bags of crisps a week, buy a large choc bar and make it last the week). If I don’t enjoy something I won’t eat it if not hungry. I snack a lot but it’s generally fruit and a couple of nuts, a carrot, a cracker, etc. I go to exercise classes 4-5 times a week and get my 10,000 steps in a day.

My partner is bigger, BMI around 26. He says I eat more than him - I eat more often with all the snacks but he eats biscuits, cream cake, much more alcohol, more potatoes, has butter in sandwiches, thick slices of cheese, likes puddings. He’s alot less fussy than me too.

I generally never buy snacks for the house - when I’m hungry it means I have to make the effort to eat something proper. I also would never order takeaway by myself, and hate popping out to the shops after I’ve got in. That makes not snacking or eating rubbish much easier at home.

If someone offers me something while I’m out I try to remember how I’ll feel after I’ve eaten it. For example in a restaurant setting: if I’m hungry I want the pizza with the most cheese and fat, but I hate wasting food and will inevitably either have to leave some or feel ill after. If I manage to remember that then I’ll pick something lighter and feel better for it.

The trick for me is no snacks, moderate portions, and an active life (lots of fast walking for instance). That’s not to say I don’t sometimes want to murder a bag of crisps and some chocolate, but it’s not an every day (or every week!) thing my body has come to expect.

so much ‘food’ in the supermarkets today is not food and really has very very little nutritional value.

This is very true.

In terms of food, we really only go down the meat, salad, fruit, dairy, veg aisles and only buy ingredients.

Eg If I buy yoghurt, it's only plain Greek yoghurt and never flavoured or dessert type ones.

I don't buy any UPFs and haven't for over a decade. Long before people started talking about it and I didn't buy much before.

It's not food and your body just doesn't know what to do with it.

I just have one or two. I always have chocolate and crisps in the house.
I will genuinely eat half a packet of crisps then clip it up for another day. One or two biscuits a day. I'll leave food when I've had enough, never eat until stuffed. I happily tolerate being active too, better than the alternative.

If I could bottle whatever it is then I'd be a billionaire.

You say I won’t eat that biscuit and after five minutes the longing goes away.
If you do this for about six weeks the longing generally goes away. If you then eat a biscuit because it’s forced on you, you think urgh what’s this fake shit when it’s in your mouth.
Your tastebuds literally do change.