AIBU to ask people who maintain a healthy weight how they do it?

[smoggii]

I know that to lose weight you should eat less and move more but I would love to know what the balance is for healthy (or just slightly overweight) maintenance.

I think I am being unreasonable because i know this should be common sense but after years of dieting (losing a significant amount of weight - still a bit overweight but not supermorbidly obese as i once was) i am struggling to maintain a weight, i'm either dieting or gaining weight and i'm starting to feel a bit stupid that I can't just maintain it.

I'm 5'7 and 11st, I've always been between 10 and 11st since about the age of 15 (27 now). I walk everywhere as I don't drive, but don't walk that far, just little and often. Im not on a restrictive diet, I like biscuits and takeaways but I don't really binge eat. Say for example, I would eat a couple of biscuits but I could never imagine eating a whole pack or I'll only eat half a Chinese takeaway and save the rest for the next day. I'd never eat until I'm uncomfortably full.

I don't see myself as particularly slim, am a 12-14, but could never imagine being a size 18 or even on the opposite end of the scales, I'd never be a size 6 as I'm big-boned.

So my 'secret' is moderation and light exercise, it's more important to be healthy than thin. Cutting carbs will guarantee a healthy weight, much better than a low fat diet. See books like 'eat fat, get thin', 'the cholesterol con' etc.

I raraely eat between meals, watch portion sizes, keep alcohol content down during the week(lots of calories in alcoholic drinks) and stop eating when full. I also run or cycle several times a week.
I have just eaten a Chinese with wine followed by chocolate cake, but that is unusual and I did do an hours exercise earlier today. I normally rarely eat cakes and biscuits, I'd rather eat savoury food.
I don't count calories and divide foods up nto good and bad foods, but know that if I have a take away and cake today then I have to do more exercise or eat less another day to keep my weight down. During the week when working it's often a banana for breakfast and sandwich for lunch and something quick and light in the evening, so I probably gain weight a bit on a weekend and lose it during the week.
The exercise is essential though as I like my food.

I'm 5'5, and I don't let myself get over 9 stone. I'm usually around 8.10 - 8.11.

I weigh myself most mornings so I know when I need to cut back. I try not to eat bread, lovely as it it it bloats me and seems to make me put on weight more than anything else, even brown or wholemeal. Pasta is the same, but I do eat it, but potatoes are fine. I think a lot of it is about working out what your body doesn't agree with.

I only eat one proper meal a day, although if I'm hungry, which I seem to be a lot, I do eat. Just not too much. I nearly always go for the low fat or diet version of things.

I think purpleroses is right - breakfast (although most say it's the most important meal of the day) is the easiest I find to miss, or at least prolong. I have a cuppa when I get up before taking ds to school and then have brekkie when I get back or normally, around half ten.

I'll then have porridge made with water and banana and that holds off hunger until around half one, when I eat a healthy lunch. For tea, I try to be careful.

The above is what I've been doing since starting Weight Watchers a couple of months ago and before that, I'd eat healthy meals but inlcude more cheese and nibble on things whilst making tea.

Bread is another downfall. I think if I gave up bread and wheta, it'd make a huge difference.

DH can pretty much eat what he likes and stay skinny. In fact I weigh more than him - which is extremely embarassing so I don't tell him!

I haven't been able to eat breakfast since I was about 10yrs old

I don't know why but I just can't eat for a few hours after getting up

It's never bothered me though, I just have an early lunch.

I eat what I want when I want but that isn't often or in large portions. Two small meals a day max. Walk everywhere and don't eat meat.

I also smoke like a chimney

But when I start on the Champix I will make an effort to exercise properly. Planning to do Shred, drink more water - that sort of thing.

Personally, I think the key is exercise.

I run for half an hour every day, go to the gym twice a week, teach several hours of dance classes a week and do calisthenics every night before bed.

I suppose diet is important too though. I used to be quite strict about fatty and sugary food but I have an anorexic daughter so have very consciously relaxed about food (and gained a couple of pounds ). But as long as I make sure I don't go over 2000 calories a day and don't eat more than 2 'bad' things I feel fairly confident about staying slim.

I'm 5'6 and usually weigh about 9.5 stone. This is about a stone heavier than in my teens but I'm 36 now. I'm a dress size 10-12. Twice in my life I have hit 10st (once when working late every night for weeks on end, 7 days a week, and eating dinner at my desk and having no time to exercise a couple of years ago and now as I am on steroids). 10st is my own personal limit (and when my clothes get tight). I weigh myself most mornings and if I edge close to that, I try to eat a bit less and move a bit more. If I am not managing that, I calorie count - both food and exercise, to drop weight slowly, by about 1/2 - 1 lb per week. It's quite hard going when you don't have loads to lose, but if I stick to it the weight comes off.

But normally, I just try not to eat when I am not hungry. If I have a big meal, I will cut down at the next one - this is partly a conscious decision and partly because I usually won't feel hugely hungry then. We never buy shop bought cakes or biscuits but I quite often bake something at the weekends for us to eat over the next few days. We tend not to eat desserts after meals most of the time, but I do like a couple of squares of chocolate in the afternoons. I find most chocolate bars too sweet so just buy good quality milk chocolate in big bars and eat 2 or 3 square a day. We tend to only eat crisps if we have someone round, or occasionally at the weekend as a treat. I usually drink a fair amount of wine but have cut it out now as we are preparing for IVF. I am surprised that it hasn't made me drop a few pounds but maybe the steroids are counteracting the effect. I do eat snacks when I fancy them. If there is cake in the office, I will usually have a piece. If my husband buys haribo at the cinema or on a journey (he has a thing about haribo on journeys) I will lay into them. But it's not every day.

I also try to keep as active as I can with a knackering full time job. I walk part of my commute whenever it is not pissing with rain (around a mile each way). I run at the weekends and try to get to the gym once or twice on weekdays. I would like to be more active. My mum was about the same size as I am until her late 40s and never did any formal exercise but as a non-driver walked everywhere. She would eat chocolate most days, so I am sure it is the walking that helped her.

I barely move, I can't, I have brittle asthma, I still eat what I want and don't get overweight.

I pretty much eat the way Emsyj's Mum does.

I only eat decent food, or food I want to eat, and other than once a week or so, I can't bear putting crap food in my body.
I don't have a sweet tooth, and I have to watch cheese (my favourite), as it's bad for my asthma and sets off my IBS.

The one thing about being a 'normal' (sorry, can't think how else to phrase it) weight, is that if you really do feel like eating 10 chocolate bars/a week's worth of Gregg's lunches/a whole pack of mange tout dipped in piccalili/bread crusts spread with clover, you can.

I'd just like to make the point how miserable most of this sounds.

My weight is pretty healthy, but a few years about my BMI got up to around 25 and so I took up running, cut out the cakes at work, and generally ate a little less, but ...

... all this talk of "I don't eat breakfast", "if I have a big lunch, I don't eat dinner", "I low carb", etc, just sounds a terribly miserable existence

But how is it miserable if they don't do it because they can't?

I haven't been able to eat breakfast since I was a kid

If I forced myself to eat it, I'd be bloody miserable and for what?

Same as if you've had a big lunch and you're not hungry for dinner, why make yourself miserable forcing food down just because it's 'dinner time'?

It depends what makes you miserable though Bennifer. For me, being overweight would make me miserable. Controlling my diet on the other hand is not a hardship.

Horses for courses and all that.

I think it depends whether it's an active choice to skip a meal or avoid sweets or just a natural tendency Bennifer. If my mum ate a big lunch with bread & butter in a restaurant, she just wouldn't feel hungry at dinner time in all likelihood - but if she was hungry, she would have dinner. Her natural taste is towards the savoury rather than the sweet - so she doesn't purposely avoid chocolate, she'd just rather have cheese & crackers as an evening snack.

I do agree that some of the posters on here have eating habits that would make me totally miserable!

It's just that I'm reading a number of comments that don't strike me as happy and balanced.

I suppose I can't comprehend that possibility of not eating breakfast or dinner as it doesn't fit into my idea of a healthy diet, and I would suspect nutritionists would back me up on that, but I suppose each to their own

You can't decide what makes for an acceptable diet or a miserable life though, it's totally individual; even if the person is consciously restricting what they eat.

I'd be happier eating nothing but carrots ever again that I would be being overweight.

Manic, assuming you're being serious there, that sounds like a very unhealthy attitude to food.

These are the things that I've found useful:

1. Stay away from the word "diet" and stay well away from "diet food". I don't know one slim person who eats low fat spread or reduced fat cakes!

1. Understand your behaviour and be prepared to make changes to modify it. When it comes to cakes/sweets/biscuits/crisps being in the house, I have no willpower and can down a packet of biccies in 20 minutes. So I don't have them in the house. Ever. I still eat things like that from time to time, but I don't let myself view them as normal food to have around the place.

When it comes to not buying things, I remind myself that I like being slim. I don't think it's a good idea to count calories, but it helps to be aware of them. If I am struggling with the old willpower, I convert the calories in whatever's tempting me into other things - for example, I spied a good looking pudding the other day, but when I looked at the calories, it had over 800, without custard. For that many calories I could have two big bowls of pasta, which is what I would prefer. I will have the pudding at some point, but I'll wait until it's an "occasion".

At Christmas, I always used to get loads of chocolate and biccies bought for me. I used to find it quite stressful chomping my way through all of them and I'd hate gaining 1/2 a stone by January. Now I just pick out a couple of boxes of the nicest ones and give the rest away, or I'll pick out my favourite chocs from a box and put the rest in the wormery. I know this seems wasteful (and I really hate wasting food), but I tell myself that it's not really food. It doesn't do me any good to eat it, I don't even enjoy it after the first few chocs, so it might as well go.

1. Try not to make a big deal out of it. I think it's counterproductive to start banning things and thinking about dieting all the time. I had a friend who was overweight and whenever we went out to eat she used to get really stressed. I remember once she threw away her whole lunch because there was a bit of butter on the jacket potato that had melted around the plate. After a hungry afternoon, she bought a coffee and walnut cake on the way home and ate virtually the whole thing. I think this is a pattern quite a lot of people end up falling in to. Go for a curry/meal when you want to, have a slice of cake when you go for a coffee and never ever feel bad about it.

I also think it helps to see "treats" as a social thing. I wouldn't sit on my own and drink a bottle of wine (well, not often ), so I wouldn't do the same with a packet of biscuits.

1. Make exercise part of your everyday life. I don't have a car, so I walk everywhere, generally between 40 minutes and 3 hours per day. A 40 minute walk to work instead of a 15 minute bus ride soon makes a difference if you do it every day, and doesn't take that much time out of your day.

Blimey, that post was longer than I thought it would be!

All I'm saying, and it is purely my personal opinion, is that while many on this thread seem to have a happy balance of small portions, healthy food (things that have natural colour, limit the beige, etc), don't shop for the BOGOF stuff in Tescos (it's almost always crisps), there are some comments such as "I'd rather eat nothing but carrots than be overweight" that sound, not quite healthy

I kind of understand what you're saying Bennifer but then when you look at some of the slimming threads or posts from people desperate to lose weight, that's also very miserable too.

I don't know if not eating breakfast is healthy in my case, but that's my point...I'm not a health 'addict'. I just do what I feel my body tells me...and when it's not hungry, it doesn't get fed.

When it is hungry, it does get fed.

I think that's probably a very natural thing.

Bennifer - yes, fair play, I would never recommend my 'diet' and I'm a long way under a healthy weight. I was trying to defend other people's (less extreme) views, I shouldn't have mentioned my own!

I am 5'7, 9 stone and a size 10. But I am in early twenties so my metabolism is probably good. I do drink alcohol, my number one rule when I want to lose a few pounds though is to only eat when I am hungry and to appreciate every mouthful i.e. eat slowly - it makes me feel much more full for longer. (This is somewhat based on Paul McKenna). It always works if I go a few pounds over my normal weight and I tend to go straight back - I think it's because when I eat a slice of toast 'consciously' I'll feel full after one slice as opposed to two if I wolf it down.

Interesting to see the range of responses here. Bennifir: I think one man's miserable lifestyle is another man's heaven - some people don't feel hungry at breakfast, or don't like sweet foods much anyway, or love exercising all week long. It seems the key thing is to find a strategy that suits your lifestyle and tastes.

A few people posted that slim people don't think too much about food, or don't buy low fat products - how can we know if this is an effect of being slim or a cause of being slim?

As I've got older I have found I've gained a few pounds but I'm more sedentary than I used to be. I'd actually like to lose half a stone as I feel a bit flabby now; I'm not remotely overweight but that's the weight I'd feel happiest at.

I'm 5 foot 1 and weigh 8 st 5.

I don't buy things like cakes, biscuits and puddings as I don't really like them, but do have a weakness for crisps. I believe "all things in moderation".

I only drink tea or water, and rarely drink alcohol.

I tend to listen to my body and not the clock; if I'm not hungry at dinner time I'll feed the children and have my dinner later.

I have noticed I snack a lot less than my colleagues, all of who are trying to lose weight; they'll munch on crackers, fruit, cheese, yoghurts etc mid morning which is healthier than biscuits or buns, but I find I don't really get hungry mid-morning as long as I've had breakfast and will wait until lunchtime to eat. They also eat lots of "diet" products.

I do think some people struggle with their weight due to genetics and overeat for psychological reasons.