Spent the weekend with slim people and I now see why I'm overweight

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After having spent the weekend with slim people, it appears that they:

a) don't need as much food to feel full,
I couldn't believe that after X amount of food, they were full - I could have happily carried on eating.

b) can go much longer between meals without eating,
At one point in the afternoon, I was ready to gnaw my arm off, I asked if anyone wanted to stop for a snack (thinking they'd be starving) but no, they were happy to keep going

c) don't crave sweet stuff in the way I do.
I I need sweet things as pudding, I was almost desperate for some chocolate, whereas again they just did not seem to feel that urge.

I am a size 14 and they are 8-10 and now I can see why. It's led me to wonder is it something innate, something physical? Are you just born like that, not to have the appetite or the sweet tooth? Am I simply fighting a losing battle in the vain dream of being a size 10 one day?

The term "naturally slim" really winds me up! I try so hard to stay relatively slim but don't make a big deal of it, therefore I hear it all the time from people, oh you're lucky that you're naturally slim, no I'm not!!!!! I just have willpower and self restraint!

It's true that going cold turkey from chocolate etc for a few days really helps, after those first few days it gets so much easier, most of the time I will have small amounts of something I fancy and that will suffice. I would rather be slim than stuffed full of sugar

I disagree slightly. I am naturally slim.

I believe that is because I’ve never dieted or had parents wih food issues that are slim themselves that I remain so.

As well as genetics. I suppose I see it as a head start on healthy attitudes to food and knowing how to eat.

I probably would be bigger if I just didn’t care and ate crap all day. I gained half a stone when I went to the states for 3 months.

Fell straight off when I came home because of the difference in food. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything fried for months after that trip.

Interesting thread. I've always been fairly slim - around a size 10 from age 15 to 38 except for pregnancy - and I LOVE my food. I always thought I had good metabolism and that may be true but reading this I also realised:

• I only ever have one 'proper' meal a day, usually dinner. Breakfast is cereal or toast, lunch soup and/or single sandwich, maybe a yoghurt or fruit. I like to sit and enjoy my food so if I'm in a rush at work or running around after my baby, I just eat enough to satiate my hunger. On the other hand, if I'm on holiday/ nice hotel/ night out/ Michelin star restaurant, I stuff my face!

• I never purposely snack during the day. Don't feel the need to, it's not self-denial. I'll have a biscuit if offered, or a pastry if my husband buys some on his way home but I don't need to eat them so don't routinely buy or seek them out.

• I prioritise the food I most enjoy. So I always have butter because I love the taste but have semi-skimmed milk because it doesn't taste sufficiently different to be 'worth' the extra calories. I don't drink fizzy drinks of any kind because I don't really like them that much and they're just 'empty' calories. But I'll have wine or beer most nights because I love a drink. I'd eat a homemade delicious slab of chocolate cake in a coffee shop but never bother with a Mr Kipling mass-produced one. It's not really conscious but I think I dodge a lot of calories this way.

Also with weight gain, I firmly believe losing a little is much easier than losing a lot! So if I hit a certain weight - about 10.5st in my case, I go on a short sharp diet to get it off, and then go back to normal.

You can still love food and be slim. Just pick your indulgences.

It's habit. DH has just given up eating breakfast and after the first week he hasn't missed it (there's some scientific evidence behind this as an approach but I won't bore you with it here).

You will be hungrier if you eat carb loaded meals. Your body deals with the insulin spike by hoovering up the blood sugar.

I lost about 10 lb earlier in the year by giving up sugar - it really does reset your appetite and I'll be doing it again in Lent this year. I went from a s size 12/14 to a size 10.

I love my food. Slim people haven't been given some pass whereby they don't need to eat.

Everyone in my family is naturally slim except me. Last year we measured calorie intake vs steps as a laugh - all the slim people were eating 2.5k to 3k calories per day and burning between 700 - 1000 calories per say (i.e 20k fast steps per day plus gym workouts). I was the largest and eating 1.5k calories per day and doing 10-15k steps. Since I upped my calorie intake and boosted my activity I’ve lost a stone.

We’re indian and so meals are carb laden. Carbs need water and exercise to make them pass through the system. In fact as the only one who wasn’t vegetarian (or made carb laden Indian food everyday), I ate less carbs than the others (and more veg surprisingly). But it was only upping my calories and upping my activity that made me lose weight.

I wonder how much baseline fidget levels make a difference too. I see the tiny amount some people are claiming to eat on here and think I would actually starve to death on that little! Yesterday I had two large bowls of cornflakes for breakfast, a medium bowl of pasta, salad and a boiled egg for lunch, and for dinner 3 lamb chops with about 8-10 tablespoons of rice and loads of veg, and 4 squares of dark chocolate and some apples through the day. I won't lose weight on that but neither will I gain any. I'm 1m 70 and weigh 62kg.

I always thought I had good metabolism...

That’s quite a common one, I think - the assumption/theory that metabolism varies significantly between people - but when I found I had Hashimoto’s and the doctor warned me about potential weigh gain I looked into it and found no research to back it up.

Most studies have found that BMR for people of the same age and weight varied by no more than 60-100 cals per day from one extreme to the other.

In other words if, of the study samples, the highest BMR person ate 2 boiled eggs with their breakfast and the lowest ate 1, it would completely cancel out any difference in the calories they burned in the day.

And that’s looking at the greatest extremes of the studies - i.e, unlikely that 2 people who know each other would vary by anything like as much.

Those people who have done or are doing the 16:8 diet, how does it help? I don't understand why it would make a difference - surely you're just eating the same number of calories over a shorter time?

I think it's something to do with your body going into a fat burning mode the longer it goes without food.

I only ever have one 'proper' meal a day, usually dinner. Breakfast is cereal or toast, lunch soup and/or single sandwich, maybe a yoghurt or fruit.

That's 3 meals like most people.

I’m really struggling with what I eat just now, feel like I’m a greedy pig. But reading this I’m seeing I have an addiction to sugar so will seek to reduce that and hope things settle down. I’m having an incredibly stressful time just now so self restraint and willpower are non existent but I’m also bloody miserable and lacking any energy whatsoever which then has w knock on to my mood.

As for the naturally slim, I was as a child, then puberty saw me put on a good amount, then at 19 I lost loads to a 10 and stayed that way until i had children and have yo yo’d betteen 14-16 since maybe even a 12. I have no thyroid so not sure how much that contributes to MY weight issues but am trying not to make excuses for my size/greediness.

My mum is very slim always has been and finds it hard thatvmy sister and I are bigger girls, my sister had cancer of her thyroid 5 years ago so now is on replacement like me, and lost 6 stone after her treatment.

frogsoup you obviously do a massive amount of exercise, though, so not comparable with most people.

If you’re listing what you ate there as being a normal day, it’s around 2,200 calories by my reckoning.

At 62kg your BMR is around 1,300 so that’s 900 cals of exercise/movement per day in order to maintain a steady weight.

That’s equal to 28hrs, or 98 miles, of brisk walking per week.

You must know that’s waaaay more than the vast majority of people manage!

There is no way I do that amount of exercise! I probably walk on average 2 miles a day on the school run and to/from college, and cycle into town and back a few times a week, so maybe 5 miles tops. I've never done any organised exercise, ever. 2200 calories does sound about right though in maintenance intake terms. Since the average woman is said to need 2000 a day and I'm a bit taller. I don't think many women genuinely need as few as 1300 calories maintenance as I regularly read on here. Maybe I fidget a lot. Or maybe, since when I'm round others I don't eat noticeably differently to them, there are a lot of people deluded about the calories they actually take in!!! I know my mum is one of them. She'll say 'oh, I just had two pieces of toast for breakfast' omitting to notice she puts a shedload of butter and several tablespoons of jam on there!

frog yes, the exercise I listed was the total equivalent amount of exercise compared to the calories needed just to keep you alive, if you see what I mean.

Obviously just getting out of bed burns some calories.

I used this to work out what is needed to maintain a steady weight.

www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=35&csex=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=6&cpound=133&cheightmeter=180&ckg=60&cactivity=1.2&printit=0&x=117&y=35

I’m actually pretty much the same height/weight as you (im 5’6” and around 9.5st) and it says I need 1,600 cals for a sedentary lifestyle or 1,800 if exercising 1-3 times/week.

I think the 2,000 we see quoted often as the average woman’s calories needs is high, but I’m no expert!

Well I'm no expert either, but if that thing is saying I need to walk 98 miles a week on that calorie intake, that suggests that it isn't very accurate!

2,000 calories is what a lightly active woman of 5 4 and above can eat if she wants to lose 0.2 -0.5 kilos a week (I know this as my diet is this basically). This means doing 7-10k steps per day before gym. Most healthy women who commute and walk frequently can manage this.

" I had two large bowls of cornflakes for breakfast, a medium bowl of pasta, salad and a boiled egg for lunch, and for dinner 3 lamb chops with about 8-10 tablespoons of rice and loads of veg, and 4 squares of dark chocolate and some apples through the day"

The trouble is, there are a load of words here that are totally subjective. "Large", "medium", "tablespoons". My Mum's idea of a large bowl is about 40 grams, my DH's is more like twice that! The fact that you ate 4 squares of chocolate and stopped suggests to me that maybe you are at the more restrained end of the spectrum.

Weighing food is the only way around this. The physics of weight loss are quite brutal: you need to eat less than you burn, and to lose weight quickly, you need to eat considerably less than you burn. It's pretty difficult to do.

I don't recognise me or any of my slim friends in these descriptions of people who don't enjoy food, would rather have a pill, eat slowly, deprive themselves etc. Sorry.

We are all quite active I suppose, we met through sports and activities at Uni.

But we dont eat snacks like crisps, chocolate and biscuits, or drink much alcohol (which also usually contains a lot of sugar). IME they all tend to be quite addictive, not just the drink, and they make me feel sluggish and not want to be active.

1500 per day is about right for me.

I'm female, 35 and work in a centrally heated office.

If I ate 2000 cals per day I'd gain weight. And I'm not tiny - I'm a size ten.

Most people simply don't need that much food.

For those who wonder .... 5;2 and 26:8 are variants of intermittent fasting
and there is loads of scientific evidence about how long gaps between meal reset the digestion to work more efficiently
and a long gap between meals allows the stomach to shrink

both DH and I can do 23 hours on just water and tea and then have a small supper and then nothing till lunch the next day - no problem
have been doing it for over 5 years

we stick with fasting as it reduces our risk of diabetes type three (otherwise known as alzheimers)

This is such a fascinating thread.

I've recently lost over three stone, taking me from a size 16/18 to a 10/12 (depending on shop / clothing style).

I am GOBSMACKED at how 'little' I have to eat in order to maintain my new weight. I guess this is 'little' in comparison to the disgusting amounts I was shovelling into my gob previously, but it still feels like very minimal calories.

I have had to learn how to eat like a slim person. I'm not afraid to say that, for me, it's been life changing. My old habits (curries, bottles and bottles of wine, gin, processed snacks) horrify me. But unless I keep a firm grip on my mindset and eating, I could so easily slip back to the 14 stone me.

16:8 works for me because you really either have to miss breakfast or tea if you work
So if I have breakfast at 6, I stop eating at 2. Or you could have tea at 7pm but you wouldn't be able to eat until 11am that day so skipping breakfast . It also stops that looking in the fridge at night because the kitchen is closed
So it's just a calorie deficit like any other diet

The term "naturally slim" really winds me up! I try so hard to stay relatively slim but don't make a big deal of it, therefore I hear it all the time from people, oh you're lucky that you're naturally slim, no I'm not!!!!! I just have willpower and self restraint!

That's not my experience

You might have to work hard at being slim
I have to work hard at putting on weight

My natural tendency is to have a small appetite, and if left to my own devices I'd often forget to eat

I had to make a really really concerted effort, tracking everything I ate using MFP, to put on weight.

Unless I'm really trying hard to make sure I get enough calories to put on / maintain weight, I'll stay skinny

My being underweight is the opposite of working hard to be slim

It's about not working hard enough to be a healthy weight

My willpower is to have the willpower to try and make myself eat 3 good sized meals a day when my natural inclination is to eat when I'm hungry. And that is often not very much as my appetite is naturally very small. And unless I make myself work at putting on weight to challenge my appetite, it'll stay that way

1400 is all I need as I'm only 5' so not officially adult height. Sedentary life style, returning to work in an office after 6 years at home was a killer on my waistline.

I'm also a petite build and was 6st 3 in my twenties when I accidentally got pregnant!!

Ta1kinPeace - I'm the same as you. I generally do 18:6, but over the weekends I do 20:4 so basically only eating one meal at 5-6pm.

I started ADF years ago as a way to manage my asthma, now I just do daily fasting and eat no sugar/processed foods/carbs (except starchy carbs).

Yesterday I had a bulletproof coffee in the morning, water during the day and dinner was 4oz steak, a load of roasted cauliflower and half an avocado. Total calorie intake is approximately 800 at the lower end of the scale but I aim to break 1000 calories most days.

I don't do it for the weight loss but the health benefits are immense. My BP is 90/60, my resting heart rate is 54bpm, my cholesterol level is brilliant. My metabolic age is about 20 years old.

I'm terrified of getting cancer really, so figure I will keep it at bay as long as possible and many studies support fasting with tumor eradication.