to want to know what all them slim people eat that are not on a diet and never gained a pound....

[FairLadyRantALot]

well, am I?

I totally agree with Hecate. Slim people usually eat smaller quantities and move around more. There may be exceptions to this rule, people with amazing metabolisms etc, but 99.9% of the time it is true that slim people eat less and move more. Once I accepted this and stopped looking for miracle diets I found it easier to maintain a good weight (but I am a size 12 and will never naturally be any thinner than that).

so, that is pretty brill howto...oh I wish, sigh, well not myour weight...but 58Kg woudl be fab...not gonna happen, but would be brill

I am not massively overweight, but that is really because, if I start feeling big (at the upper size 12/;lower end 14...I panic and take action....usually join a slimming club or whatever...

but I never seem to stick to anything long term , even f I generally enjoy...cake and whatever comes into my way...and I do not have the stopping power....addictive personality, I suppose...sigh

anyway, the slim, never gaining weight people willing to give me a time/eating diary, and eating would mean measuring what you eat...and see where I go wiht it? i.e amm I starving, or is it good for me, aswell, as still mmaking me the ideal/ erm slim weight...

Me and my friends were discussing this very subject this afternoon and have concluded it is all about the nervous energy. I have some friends who never diet but they are never ever still. All the other slim ones don't eat. I'm too greedy to be thin

The key is slimming world- i can eat unlimited amounts of meat, fish, pasta, potatoes, rice, couscous and I stay slim. I can also indulge in occasional sweet treats and not worry about gaining weight.

see generally I thin sw is brill...but I can't focus right now...

oh the no diet, eh...hm...maybe i SHOULD TRY THAT... and I am aware that i PUT weight on because I ate more thne I should, more of the wrong thing and not moved as much as I should

dittany - I've been doing NoS for the last couple of months too, hence only snacking on the weekend ... in fact, I think I picked it up from a previous post of yours on it? Someone on Mumsnet anyway. Also doing several other of his systems

IMO the more you think about food and diets the more you eat. Forget diets.

Just decide to eat 3 healthy meals with smaller portions, cut out the crap- cakes, biccies, sweets, crisps etc, too much booze and fried foods- snack on fruit etc- take an hour's exercise daily at least- and Bob's your uncle!

I'm one of those people.I just cannot put on weight.The other night I ate chicken,stuffing,mashed potatoes,roast potatoes,peas and sweetcorn,then I ate dd1's and dh's leftovers.Then I had 4 jam tarts [homemade],and a piece of home made lemon merengue pie.A couple of hours later I had a packet of crisps,as I was feeling peckish.

I don't do any exercise either-the last time I went to the gym was 1995.By rights I should be twice the size I am.

dittany: so much easier than the calorie counting I'd been doing (I loathed calorie counting with a fiery passion - no idea how people do it long term, started having a really unhealthy relationship with food). I'd managed to get down to about 5lb short of my goal with traditional dieting which was hellish, but had reached a plateau.

I've now lost the final 5lb these last 2 months fairly painlessly once I'd got past the initial 3 weeks of "oh my god, I'm going to STARVE TO DEATH without having a snack RIGHT NOW".

I love this from howtotellmum: My weakness is nuts and dried fruit".

My weakness is dark chocolate and ice-cream.

I'm trying to develop a 'weakness' like yours, though!

I can eat what I want and stay slim. I am tall and my weight just gains in the right places. I eat shit loads. Really big portions. Mostly healthy but sometimes indulge in junk. It just burns off as I have a lot of nervous energy and am really really active with DD.

I honestly feel you don't have to live a life of self denial and the secret is in exercising off all your "sins".

I should add here that I am slim (5'7" and BMI 26-ish - just within the 'good' band), but am 1 stone over my ideal weight. It's taken me a while but I've noticed that as I've reduced my portion sizes I have lost inches of fat. I don't actually gorge myself on choccy and ice-cream, by the way! It's just so hard to resist a little bit when it's there!

I would never deprive myself of goodies, but I'm teaching myself to just have smaller meals and very small portions of sugary, fatty foods. That way you learn how much your body needs and you don't end up fighting cravings. It's a slow process but it works in the long-term.

Oh, and I hate FuriousGeorge and Eyeliner.

I probably did eat like that before I had ds2 - I don't remember being particularly hungry between meals or in the evenings before then.

Talking of which, it's the weekend and I'm feeling peckish ... (sticks some bread in the toaster).

Im 5ft 11" and a size 10 on bottom and 12 on top (big boobs).
I have been a size 16 years ago. I used to eat crap and a lot of it and drank lots of wine/beer.
I now only eat when im actually hungry and stop eating when i've had enough, I hate that bloated feeling from eating too much.
I switched my drink to vodka and diet cola, but have now cut that out as have now realised (after years of binge drinking) that I don't really like the feeling of being drunk. I also overeat when drinking and feel miserable and bloated the next day.
I try to get out a walk when I can, but am generally busy most of the day with housework/errands/ds etc

I have always eaten "what I want" - ie crap - yet it is only at the age of 44 that I feel like I am fat. I am 5'4.5 and 9st4. I know that is not fat but there is a lot round the middle.

Stout, actually, is the word I am looking for.

I think I have a fast metabolism. Overweight people often claim to have a slow metabolism - a claim which is often sneered at by dieticians. Yet I feel that I eat a lot, don't exercise a lot, my heart beats fast and I also worry a lot. So why, if I do have a fast metabolism, shoudldn't someone else have a slow one?

I remember at school age 15 we did an exercise in Biology working out the calories in what we ate during a day. According to the food diaries we kept I should have been piling on the pounds; a friend should have been losing weight rapidly. We were both quite small. Fast forward 10 years - I was still [then!] skinny and she was quite large.

Perhaps people who are sensitive about their weight lie a little about what they eat. And people who are proud of their skinniness emphasise what they eat.

One thing I never do though is binge eat. When someone says about eating a whole box of chocolates in one go I gasp. I can hardly eat a Mars Bar in one go. That doesn't mean I don't eat massive dinners though.

I am shocked at the amount of stuff I encounter in popular culture which entails a woman in a disappointed situation eating a whole tub of ice cream or similar.

Do a lot of women actually do that?

Well I can only speak for me, but I stop eating when I'm full. I have no qualms about leaving food on my plate if I can't manage it. Interestingly a friend of mine who has always struggled with her weight blames her mothers attitude to plate clearing for it. Because her mum always told her to clear her plate, she can't leave food.

I'm fairly active, walk a lot, do a bit of yoga but I am not a gym bunny or anything like that.

Does that help?

Oh and i'll add that what I do eat, I try to make it as nutrisous(clearly cant spell!!) as possible, which can lead to a lot of low fat foods, ie wholegrain bread stuffed with loads of salad, half my dinner plate filled with veg. Don't necessarily think low fat, try to think about getting as many vitamns as possible if that helps.