This is how a slim person eats

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I have never been overweight, apart from post-baby. Would it be helpful for me to tell you how I stay slim?

Disclaimer: I consider myself very fortunate to have been raised by a mother who a) gave us a love of healthy food and being active and b) never had food issues herself, so I have never learned to be an emotional eater.

I really think emotional eating is a huge issue for a lot of my friends. And I don't claim to have the answer to overcome this. I do know, however, that it's a lot harder to "binge" on healthy food. And I believe the food "industry" manufactures food that is addictive, precisely so that you'll buy more.

My self-imposed rules, because contrary to what people around me believe, I'm not "effortlessly" slim. I work at it.

• nothing is banned, because that would create cravings (I love cake, but I eat it 2-3 times a week not every day)
• food is neither reward nor punishment
• vegetables at every meal
• I don't count calories but I do count fruit & veg - aim for 7 a day
• eat for health not weight - look at the nutritional value and eat mostly whole foods
• carbs are fine but 90% of the time they are brown not white
• drink mainly water or green tea, apart from one coffee & milk a day and approx two glasses of wine a week
• eat mainly dark chocolate (70%), soon milk chocolate will taste too sweet by comparison
• walk everywhere if time permits
• plan ahead so time does permit!
• do a form of exercise you love, 2-3 times a week (I am not naturally sporty but enjoy swimming and cycling)
• snacks are to tide you over till a mealtime, not fill you up (nuts, fruit, yoghurt)
• don't starve yourself, if you're hungry between meals have a healthy snack
• no low-fat or diet anything, it is usually full of sugar or nasties
• cook from scratch every day - not necessarily fancy, jacket potato and tuna is fine, with some green veg on the side! if you cook from scratch then there will be no secret addictive ingredients to make you binge eat
• lean protein with every meal
• don't buy biscuits or crisps (if you're desperate, bake some, it'll probably not be worth the effort)
• don't buy sweets for your children, that way they are not there to tempt you (and your DCs don't need them)
• eat seasonally
• meal plan all the time
• eat at roughly the same time every day
• eat dinner earlier rather than later (for me 7pm)
• if you need something upstairs, get it now, all activity is good (I potter a lot)

Pickled onion.
And don't forget the Marlborough.

I can see from the weight loss threads that lots of women go from diet to diet and it ends up taking over their lives, as well as messing up their metabolisms.

Yes, that's probably because they've spent years trying all the supposedly straightforward and obvious stuff that you recommend, and have still ended up fat. Desperate people try desperate things.

I am still reeling at the idea that you say you 'work hard' at staying slim and part of that 'working hard' means limiting your cake intake to only two or three times a week instead of every day. As I said before, if I am even allowing myself to be near cake, it wouldn't ever be more than 2 or three times in a month, and even that would induce feelings of guilt, depression and hopelessness afterwards. I feel proud of myself if I've gone for a couple of weeks without any eating cake, chocolate, pastry, chips etc. And I do this pretty frequently. In fact I'd say I avoid those foods more often than I allow myself to eat them.

But I am still fat.

I love those newspaper articles where they show a previously fat person slimming down to a size 10.

When they list their previous food is always says things like toast with lashings of butter, pasty for lunch and a large portion of lasagne with chips for dinner.

Their new health eating regime tends to read like this;
Breakfast - 1 slice of plain toast with half a grilled tomato and 1 rasher of trimmed grilled bacon
Lunch - salad, no dressing with half a small plain jacket potato
Dinner - steamed fillet white fish on spinach with carrot batons.

I try to envisage eating only that in one day and I just feel so hungry. I know steamed white fish with a kale smoothie is all Victoria Beckham consumes in 48 hours but my god it's not easy to live with a constantly growling stomach.

I can say I do pretty much all of the OPs original list (I don't eat cake as often as 2-3 times, a week, and I don't drink alcohol at all, and I don't tend to meal plan). I do buy crisps. In contrast to the OP I have been overweight since a young teen. As far as I am aware my mum didn't have food issues, ate a healthy diet, and was always active (also never smoked, didn't drink much, died of cancer age 70).

Personally I think your natural weight tendency is more down to genes (or body type, or epigenes or summat - natural inclination), and a lot down to portion sizes and habits learned and not noticed. As I get older (now edging towards 50) I find a lot of things far too sweet, and I think my portions are naturally declining in size (I feel stuffed much sooner) - not sure if they are newly learned habits or a natural development of my aging body.

For what it is worth, nearly all my family (particularly on the paternal side) going back several generations have my same kind of body shape. By comparison, DH's family don't have that body shape and by and large are much leaner.

There is no simple one size fits all. For a lot of people maybe you can argue that the modern western diet is not at all good for them. Others can tolerate it much better.

I have a feeling the cigarettes played quite important part in our 20-something diets.

My mother, sister, niece and both grandmothers all have/had very similar body types to me. I can run but I can't hide.

Even though one of my GMs was not especially plump she had a certain inelegant lumpiness about her, smallish and shapeless solid legs. The other GM was build as more of an hour glass but had short legs, a big arse, big tits and tended towards over-plumpness. I have inherited a figure that hails from both of them. My mother, sister, niece and one of my GM's have all had a tendency to retain weight very easily as well, none of us are enormous but we have all struggled to stay within a socially acceptable range. When we put weight on, it goes on in the same places, and when we lose it it goes from the same places first and last. We all have short, stocky legs with cankles and wide hips. Even when I've been in a slim phase my legs and ankles have not been up to much.

I'm only 5' 2" and I've have to weigh about 7 and half stone before my legs could ever be called slim. On the other hand, if a diet is going well I can have a wicked waist and flat tummy even at ten stone.

Ditto nowbringussomefiggypudding

sorry that should have read smallish boobs, about my GM.

She's be thrilled to hear me dissing her figure like this, I'm sure.

sorry Grandma.

I agree about the smoking, my first question to anyone who says they manage to stay slim without too much effort is 'do you smoke?'

Hurricane , I agree with you. A lot is down to genes. I eat like an experiment in unhealthy food! Never been overweight. My friend struggles with her weight and cholesterol and eats so healthy and well. I would never preach to her.

The only thing I would agree with OP is that I walk everywhere. ( because I can't pass my driving test ! )

OP - don'tforget has nailed it. Read and learn.

Just goes to show the natural assumption that everyone who's a few pounds over the ideal is there because of gluttony or uncontrolled eating.

Anyway, enough of this typing malarkey, I'm off to ram a six-pack of doughnuts down my greedy maw.

I am so astonished by this op and that anyone could think it would actually be welcomed that I somehow quite can't believe it is true .

OP you are the queen of smug

I think it made interesting reading. I am intrigued to know what a size ten person eats! I would love to be that size but I just can't motivate myself!

But Quitelikely thats the thing, it's not about what a size ten person eats. You could take a dozen size ten people and they will all eat differently, there's so many other factors.

I feel quite bad for the OP. It's difficult to tell if this was genuinely meant with good (albeit misguided) faith, or whether it really was just a platform for smugness. I will always love a thread which inspires such great comments from others though!!!

One thing I've noticed with interest is how many people have referenced the OP's list of stuff being "joyless" and "sucking all the joy out of food".

That was really interesting for me, as the OP states that food is just food to her. Likewise, I'm put on weight which I'm trying to lose, but have never been outside of a healthy BMI (I'll be available for autographs between the hours of 17:00 and 18:00) - and to me food is just food. It's nice to eat when you're hungry, but there's no particular joy associated to food or to eating. Cake is nicer than okra (which is pure evil), but there's no joy in it, it's just....cake.

I know it's not particularly relevant, but it's just because we were talking about it the other day - how some people who either struggle with their weight or have to work hard to keep their weight down tend to have this genuine love for food, and find such pleasure in eating and sharing meals and the like. Whereas other types of people just don't fathom that.

It's obvious why one group would struggle more with eating than the other, but it's interesting how different they are. Most of my friends who ADORE food, and will take genuine pleasure in reading menus (????), don't have a history of eating problems or traumatic association or anything. Its just their mindset.

Anyway, it's something that I find interesting!!!!

I know what you mean, kaykay. Some people really put a lot of emphasis on food. I look forward to food when I'm hungry, and some does taste a lot nicer than others. But that's about it!

I don't go 'ooooh lovely, CAKE/Hummus/Chocolate/Whatever' . I am a good cook and people I cook for always compliment me on my food but I find it a bit embarrassing, It's just...Food?
I don't find it romantic either. I wonder if the joy's not there in my life . Sharing a meal out with DH is nice, because It's 'us' time, but I don't swoon over the food.

Nothing comes close to cooking daily for twenty years for a picky family for sucking the joy out of food. If I go out to eat it means no guessing what the DCs won't eat this week and no washing up afterwards. What I actually eat is beside the point after that.

And I agree about okra.

This is interesting as I am also a 'food is just food' person but it serves a negative purpose in my case.

I don't care about eating anything that is excellently cooked and seasoned or tastes delicious, when I'm hungry I just want to eat and quickly.

I don't make junk choices but I do make choices based on speed and simplicity. For example there was some asparagus in the fridge, I was hungry after getting back from a meeting, so I quickly boiled it and ate it will a little mayonnaise. I probably won't eat much more than that now, I don't tend to eat dinner.

My partner things I am nuts. He would never ever eat one ingredient as a meal. He has three meals a day, no snacking, all well considered and consisting of a variety of nutrients. I am an alien being to him whereas I just want to sti feeling hungry and that's my one motivation food wise.

*stop feeling hungry

Era - that's pretty much how I feel. The only difference is that I really enjoy cooking - I like making up recipes and trying new things, or going back to something I know I can knock out quickly and well. But I don't see cooking and eating as particularly related. I can bake a wonderful cake for someone, and will love doing it (as long as they don't expect me to decorate it), but I won't be particularly interested in eating it.

This all goes down the pan if I'm alone in the flat though. Then it's whatever - a can of spinach, or toast, or cereal or whatever. Cooking for yourself is DULL.

Math - ahahaha, yea I'm pretty sure that's exactly how my mum feels after raising us! Might explain where the disinterest comes from!

I make chocolates and biscuits for christmas but I very seldom will have any. I love cooking but I guess the joy's sapped out of a 'hobby' if it then becomes a job/chore!

Aw come on! Most of us carrying too many pounds are carrying them because we eat too much of the wrong stuff - fact. I've been slim, fat, slim then fat again yo yo style a few times. Currently am bit fat - too much wine and beer and giving up the running did it

Yes there are some slim folk with high metabolisms who can get away with eating high sugar and high fat - but let's not overstate their numbers. A genetic disposition towards weight gain is just that - a tendency to gain weight if you eat too much of the wrong stuff. It's not a get out if jail free card

I do think there is a genetic disposition for using food as your "drug of choice".the effect food has for me is entirely different than for my friend who sometimes forgets lunch! Yet she likes a drink in the evening...

I don't think the original op meant any harm btw, I think her intention was good.

I do remember telling a friend, a health professional, of all people, and I confided with her that I was struggling as I loved food so much and I especially turned to it when I had a low mood. She acted very sternly and said that that was ridiculous and she said her family could have a cake or pie in the fridge and no one would eat it, it would just go off... i left her house feeling even more rubbish....

I do think we have to take responsibility but for some of us ie me, I think it will always be a bit of a fight. My dad's side of the family are all like me, whereas my mum's side like food but they can take it or leave it.

What us eat too much folk need to do is think of strategies, we don't need to bury out heads in the sand and be told it's fine because ofcourse, for me, weight gain, feeling sick is not fine however, being told it's easy and just change or lowering our self esteem is just as unhelpful. Btw again, I think the orginal poster wasn't intentionally doing this I think she offered some great advice I think she thought she could help others.

I haven't read all the posts above apologies. I did notice one post saying she reads the before and after menus in papers of people who have lost a lot of weight. I am I. Total agreement, I look at the after menu and think that would be a starvation diet for me! I would lose weight very quickly but they seem very extreme!