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

[ChristmasTreeLight]

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?

SIL is very petite and when you see what she eats you know why. Lasagne and jacket potato? No siree Bob. Tiny square of lasagne, that's it. No dessert, ever.

Tony portions and probably 1200 cals per day (most of which are wine but hey)

My mum can go 12 hours in the daytime by eating a large breakfast at 8 then dinner out at 8pm. In fact she will say "ooh I saved myself". I cant do that. I can eat a specific amount at each meal time and no amount of starving myself in the day will ensure i eat more at dinner. If I get that far without passing out. Shes slim. I am not.

It's not necessarily the case that if you don't eat large portions it's because you don't enjoy food. I love my food.

I am naturally slim and I find that if I get into a run of eating lots of biscuits, chocolates etc. (which now I'm in my 50's results in me gaining a few pounds) I want to eat more. If I break the cycle and make a deliberate effort to avoid these foods for a few days then I naturally want less of them - the body's biochemistry at work - and the extra weight drops off again.

I also find that if I eat more healthily then the foods I naturally desire are generally healthier.

I also have a small appetite and can rarely finish a restaurant portion main course. If I am eating out with my DP I don't have a starter though he does and on the rare occasions I can manage a dessert I often regret it, not because of the calories but because I genuinely feel uncomfortable.

In my experience it's carbohydrates, and in particular sugar, that make me want to eat more and more of them.

I've been watching my thin friends recently and realised that most of them are very careful about what they eat. A group of us were walking and someone said to the thinnest woman there something along the lines of she didn't worry as she stayed thin and for a moment she snapped back and said only because she worked at it, then she realised what she said and pulled back. I realise watching a few of them that they nearly all work at it, it doesn't happen by accident at our age for most.

With that and reading threads on here I realised I had a very unhealthy relationship with food, my Mum used to say I could eat a chocolate bar if I ate an apple and portion sizes were huge. Also realised that I've been an adult for nearly 30 years and I had to take responsibility for my eating as none else was going to and finally have my head in a much better place about it all and have lost a fair bit this year, I know the challenge is keeping it off though.

The sort of epiphany type moment is a great motivator for making changes and this is a great time of year to start changing habits rather than say I'll do it next year.

Lasagne and jacket potato? No siree Bob

Who the hell eats lasagne and a jacket potato anyway?

Ive sent you a pm op.

Ahh OP don't be down on yourself. I think it's really brave of you to open up and take this time to to make some changes. Enjoy your bath and take one step at a time, day by day you'll get where you want to be. 2018 is waiting for a healthier you

My friend and I (both overweight) have often noticed and commented about slim people eating less (and not cleaning their plate). I still feel guilty if I do not clean my plate of food! I definatley (sp?) eat too much and actually NoelNiki - I have in the past eaten BOTH lasagne AND a baked potato!

I know exactly where I go wrong. I have already cut down on carbs and am trying to cut my portions down seriously!

OP. Interesting reads are one by Michael Mostly of the blood usage diet and the fasting diet fame.
he says an interesting thing about hunger and what he learnt about it when he was trailing the diets and basically it was that hunger won't get worse and worse over the day- it will peak and dip and you won't fall flat on your face from a sugar low just because you haven't eaten for a few hours.
It doesn't work like that. Most people are scared of being hungry, they think something terrible will happen and that they have to eat immediately, they don't.

I can sometimes be very hungry in the evening and want dinner but after having run kids around to various clubs by the time i am able to eat i can't be bothered, the hunger has gone.
I have wine instead ;)

I've lost weight in the past year by pilates and HIIT, but also training myself to enjoy hunger. I imagine my body eating itself, which makes it tolerable.

I don't eat anything but nuts/seeds until about 1pm. It kind of falls apart later in the evening, but I've still cut my overall calorie consumption by about half.

I've lost 2st 5lbs (ish!) and about 1st 7lbs to go
For me to lose weight I have to accept I'm going to be hungry. But it's not going to kill me and it will pass!
I tend to eat 2 meals a day now, and not snack as am doing 16:8 (eat within 8 hrs, fast for 16) if I don't manage that then I aim for 14:10 as a minimum

Size 14 bottom, 16 top (boobs!) and I think when I'm within my BMI I'm going to be a 12 bottom, 14 top

However, I still feel outraged if someone leaves a tasty morsel on their plate!!

I absolutely love delicious food but not junk food and can't see the attraction to anything factory made. I am size 8-10 and went on holiday with a lovely (overweight) friend and we ate out, tbh I was shocked how much she could eat without feeling ill.

Not only that, but she made an enormous breakfast for us the next day (her holiday apartment) and I just had no appetite after eating so much the night before.

In fact I felt full for the rest of the day and was dreading another big dinner, not because I didn't like the food, but the expectation of eating enormous quantities, when for me, the beauty of food isn't the quantity but the quality.

I would prefer 2 starters to a main any day. Also, because we were having a lot of delicious food I really found it very difficult to be so sedentary all day long and just lie in the sun. I made my excuse to go for a walk later on because I felt I needed the exercise whereas my friend was used to moving alot less.

The levels of inactivity, quantities in excess (food and drink) were eye openers for me and I could easily see how her ''norm'' was very different to mine. We did have a good laugh but it made me realise some people need excesses to be/feel happy, may be as a reward thing? More is better?

I was slim all my life, when I was 30 I was a size 6/8, I ate all the wrong things,I basically lived on jacket potato with half a tonne of cheese and big bags of chocolate buttons and Cadbury's chocolate fingers. I could literally eat anything and not gain a lb. It all changed when I turned 40. I'm almost 48 now and size 14 and definitely perimenopausal. It's not always about how much you eat, it can also be metabolism/age/hormones

Just realised I haven’t eaten since Friday lunch at work. It’s been a busy weekend, I might have some soup but im not hungry. Im a size (no idea somewhere between 8 and 12) I don’t have a clue what I weigh

Michael Pollan is also a great read, he has 'rules' for eating and they are incredibly sensible.

7 Words & 7 Rules for Eating

Pollan says everything he's learned about food and health can be summed up in seven words: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

+Probably the first two words are most important. "Eat food" means to eat real food vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and, yes, fish and meat and to avoid what Pollan calls "edible food-like substances."

Here's how:

Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions honey but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'"
Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

Just realised I haven’t eaten since Friday lunch at work

okayyyy.....

I am a size 8 and eat what i think is tons but i know people who eat loads more than me. Plus i dont sit still i am always pacing or running about which i think helps. The more you eat the more your stomach stretches and ergo makes you hungrier.

Wise words proper

This thread is so interesting and it's bang on about sugar. The more you eat of it the more you want - and other foods too because it just knocks your 'enough button' off, I think.

Today I ate a Nutrigrain bar at about 3pm and had a roast dinner at 6pm. That will be it.

I just went onto my online shop that I ordered yesterday (but can still amend for a week or so) and there are multipacks of WOTSITS on it. For me! I don't even remember searching for them and adding them... SIX packets of six. I've taken them off now because I have zero control with these.

Thank you for the thread.

Seems to be a lot of sweet tooth behind it.

I'm always reading on MN that clearing your plate causes people to be over weight, but I have to disagree. I always clear my plate. I was taught to as a child and I still do it, I hate to see food wasted. Despite this I have never been larger than a 14 in my life (when I quit smoking) and I am usually an 8-10.

I also disagree that slim people don't enjoy food. I love food, and always have pudding in a restaurant, and never share it leave any.

I cannot go long feeling hungry. My blood sugar plummets and I can end up fainting if I don't eat regularly. As I also have a medical condition that causes chronic fatigue, my whole day is planned around food and rest.

It's true that I don't often snack, and if I do its usually on fruit or maybe a sandwich. I don't snack on stuff like biscuits, crisps and chocolate, not because I don't like them, but because I don't find them filling and I also don't find they give the long lasting energy that I need. I would have to eat a huge amount before I stopped feeling hungry, and if I'm going to eat that many calories I would be better off eating a proper meal, even if it meant shifting my normal meal time forwards.

As well as not snacking, I don't drink much alcohol either. When I go for a meal with my friends who struggle with their weight, I drink 1-2 small glasses of wine otherwise I'm pissed, whereas they drink 3-4 large glasses of wine. I think its those little differences that add up, my friend's diets are very similar to mine except for the drink and snacks, and they are more likely to leave food on the plate than I am, in fact they often offer their leftovers to me

Oh and there's certain things I can't have in the house. Ever
Including bread, pringles, stollen, biscuits...
I just don't buy them. If I want bread, I buy a single roll or a single bag of crisps

I'm a slim 8-10 and I love food.
I don't, however, love sugar and eliminating sugar for 90% of the time means I have no cravings and only experience true hunger after about 20 hours of not eating.
So the food I do eat in those 4 hours is food I love, meats, roasted veg, avocados, anything fresh cooked in butter.
If I eat sugar I want it more and can't regulate my intake (which often involves me eating 8 chocolate biscuits in a row, or demolishing 3 slices of cake until I feel ill) so if I do have an event/Party where I know I'll be eating those things, I go straight back to cutting it out again the next day.
By cutting out sugar/processed carbs etc, my appetite has naturally regulated itself and I know that I just don't need that much food.
I used to weigh 185lbs years ago (pot and pizza were my downfall!) and I'm now about 125lbs.
I'm naturally slim because not eating sugar means my body looks how it's supposed to.

I weigh over 7 stone lighter than I did 5 years ago and this would be my new behaviour, also drinking water between meals, if I feel peckish I drink water. This isn't very exciting I know but if that is what it takes to stay 8/10 then water it shall be!