Is it possible for you to exercise enough to eat whatever you want and not gain weight?

[VagueButlmportant]

I don't think it is for me.

I have a very sedentary desk job for 40+ hours a week.

I run 3 x a week approx 5-6 miles each time. I barely do anything else active, although I'm trying to stand up from my desk every hour or so.

I think I generally eat fairly healthily. I don't drink any more. I probably have been a bit too guilty of eating out of boredom at work, but I've stopped that now.

I've been steadily gaining weight with this lifestyle for 5 years (since I went through early menopause age 36). I've gained 2 stone since then. I've recently managed to reverse the trend, but only by calorie counting and restricting what I eat. I hate dieting. It feels totally unsustainable and boring.

I'd love to know if other people have a point where they can eat what they want eg run every day / run 30 miles a week etc?

I can eat mostly whatever I want, I have always had a BMI of about 21 and have never really thought about what I eat. I walk about 7-10 miles a day, swim 3 times a week (in the sea if summer) and do Pilates once a week. In the holidays I climb mountains and surf and if I do a week of that I find that no matter what I eat/drink I loose about half a stone.
However I do naturally prefer home cooked foods and have a fairly active job. I probably eat around 2500-300kcal a day. I doubt I could eat takeaway/fry up everyday and have a sedentary job and still maintain my weight

this article on the subject is really interesting. The studies mentioned seem to find that if you do more than a moderate level of exercise, your metabolism compensates at other times so that the increase in calorie burn drops off...so sort of if you cycle 4 hours a week then that would burn (just for example) 800 calories but if you cycled 8 times you would only burn an additional 500? I can't decide if that's good news or bad !

roarfeckingroar

I was really confused for a bit there - you walk 15k steps every day, not 15 kilometres, right?

I agree that most people who eat what they want and don't put on weight just don't WANT to eat as much as I want to eat.

Mommybunny - please can you expand on the article about boredom eating you mentioned. This is a really big problem for me.

Martial arts training for 2hrs 3x a week
Cycle commuting 8mi a day
AND running 3x a week
Plus a ft job

The only period in my life when I could genuinely eat what I wanted. Having said that I was so bloody busy I often didn't have time to eat!!!

interesting read Sleep :)
I've read various articles/studies which suggest that we tend to gravitate to a 'set point' of body composition, in particular the amount of body fat and if we lose fat various mechanisms start up cause us to want to eat more and/or move less
(oversimplification)
I will (once again) recommend this blog
wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/
(Stephan Guyenet)

I am able to "eat what I want" and not put on weight, but I do suspect it's my appetite and food preferences that allow me to do that.
I exercise, but my taste in food seems to lead me to making low calorie choices.
I'm not a fan of bread, greasy or very sweet food I find unappetising.
The thought of eating a cupcake with buttercream literally makes me heave at the thought, I don't eat cakes , the odd biscuit perhaps.
I don't limit my food- I just eat what I fancy- today I was on my own, I had a seeded cracker from aldi, spread with a thin layer of chilli jam,a slice of chicken and some cherry tomatoes with a strong coffee. Exactly what I wanted.

I notice my kids are the same. They both have unopened Easter eggs still sitting in their rooms, I have a sweet cupboard in the kitchen which they have unlimited access to but rarely take anything.

It's easier for men to do this. Exercise affects weight loss more in men because of their higher muscle mass.
To be eating loads of junk you'd need to do hard except use everyday for hours. It would be difficult and time consuming to do plus you wouldn't be very healthy. Even if you kept slimmer it's not good for you to eat a lot of high sugar, high fat, low fibre foods all the time. Think health not appearance.

wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/body-fat-setpoint.html

Nope, about 15 kilometres.

I found the Kathleen Desmaison book, Potatoes not Prozac, really helpful in helping me give up sugar years ago (17 actually - have since fallen off the wagon but now I'd say cravings are pretty rare). Think she was about the first to start down that route.
There's now an online community, Radiant Recovery, which gives the'seven steps.' It's a gradual thing rather than cold turkey, and it works.

I think one problem is that various factors in modern life predispose humans towards visceral fat storage and once that start there is a snowball effect

actual and metaphorical as the torso begins to resemble a large snow ball
with twigs for arms and legs

How bordeom affects eating

I think yes, you can eat what ever you like and be slim , even with moderate exercise. It depends what kind of food you like.If you genuinely like making healthy snacks and meals , and this is what you want to do, there's no need to be all controlling about your diet. Reading about processed foods and all the ingredients put me off eating it years ago, so I don't crave unhealthy food in the same way as I don't crave cigarettes.

I feel the same way Mislou - although I must admit the imbibement of wine seems to make all the negative evidence regarding chocolate/cake/crap! Doesn't happen too often though.
I actually aim for eating enough protein in each meal that I don't need to 'snack' (that new verb that crept in to the language in the seventies after the Milky Way advert). I do feel slight hunger about an hour or two after a meal, but it fades with a drink. I'm 5'7'' and have to eat about 1800 cals to maintain (am over 50 and my metabolism slowed overnight when I had my gallbjadder out).

Sorry first sentence doesn't make sense - wine seems to make all the negative evidence fade!

Suspect that the experience of hunger varies from person to person, from an overwhelming urge to eat to a feeling of 'well I could eat but I'm not that bothered'

Yeah I do. I don't really have any fat and I eat whatever.

I used to be able to, in fact I ended up having to eat bars of chocolate etc as couldn't manage as many calories as I needed on usual healthy meals.

But I did train an average of 6 hrs a day most days, (dance degree / part of various contemporary groups / irish dancing few hrs a week / county level martial arts / weights / strength training) bmi stupidly low, but totally screwed now as have ME / fibromyalgia, with sugar addiction from years of lots of it being eaten in large amounts so really struggling to not eat so much and lose weight (need to lose another 1.5 stone)

I could easily eat fry ups or takeaways daily and not put on weight. I used to have fry ups daily with work but never put on any weight.

I actually don't get how people can put on a lot of weight. I know it's impossible for me.

I almost never exercise beyond walking (briskly) to the station and other everyday stuff, family walks etc. I have a sedentary job. I'm 45, 5 ft 4 and weight 8.5 st (up from more like 8 st when I was younger, but has been pretty stable for a while. I eat what I want in a normal, non-restricting, but not particularly excessive sort of way. I've no idea about calories. I think it's definitely not low as my work has really nice lunches so I often have two 'full' meals a day, plus a morning biscuit or two.

I don't know if I'm physically unusual? Or it just that my normal, eat-what-I-want diet is naturally fairly modest despite seeming like plenty to me?

I have noticed that these days I do put on a little weight after holidays, Xmas etc when I eat more. That didn't used to happen. But it gradually goes away with normal eating.

I think the real issue here is 'whatever' you want is so subjective! I think people who are serial dieters imagine that if they stopped trying to control what they consume then they would eat crazy amounts of crap that they don't usually allow themselves to have. Whereas the people who have never really dieted and eat nutrient dense, mostly unprocessed food regard themselves as 'eating whatever they want', don't restrict and have no urge to binge on crap. There's a lesson there!

That's what Josie Spinardi says in "thin" (terrible title, good book) in that when you are always dieting, you naturally crave the foods you can't have rather than thinking about what you really want, and once you stop dieting, after a period in which you probably will eat all the crap, you'll reset and naturally want to eat foods based on how they make you feel rather than because they're "bad".

That said, I know people who have terrible quality diets (think mars bar for breakfast) but good portion control who would also say they "eat what they want".