How do people stay so slim without being on a diet?

[Cwoffeelover1]

How do people maintain a slim weight when not actively dieting does anyone have any tips on how they stay slim? I hate being on strict diet plans because it makes me crave the food more lol

The jacket potato is a great example. I have one at least once a week, sometimes two or three times. It"s not indulgent - it's budget food. However. The size of potatoes sold as "baking" potatoes has increased since I was a child. I weigh them, and I would have 6 to 8 ounces of potato. Some of those big ones are twelve ounces. If you cover a big potato with butter, cheese, and beans, you have two helpings.

Don’t care as I’m two stone down 😁 don’t feel the need to give up my morning fresh Orange juice!

no snacks
no/very little alkohol
weighing regularly so that small trends become visible quickly and can be worked against
exercise daily, until slightly out of breath.
no food after dinner

eat. not a lot. mostly plants.

Genetics, constantly being on the move and not sitting around, only eating when hungry, not using food as reward or coping mechanisms, gym membership..

I looked at the health benefits of intermittent fasting (which are considerable) and decided to do a rough version of it for health reasons rather than losing weight.

The upshot was that I lost weight (after years of yo-yoing) and never gained it back (this is around 5 years now). It seemed to reset my hunger levels and I consciously choose (reasonably healthy food so if it's not there, I don't eat.

I guess what I am saying is that it is a positive mindset: I will eat healthy foods rather than a negative mindset: I will deny myself foods which has made the difference.

Eat just one course (and a big plate if you fancy) - prioritise wholefoods - my Grandad used to say, ‘if you can’t pick it or kill it, don’t eat it’. Make sure meals are heavy on fruit or veg with good quality protein (essential for regulating weight) such as nuts/meat/fish/eggs/cheese/milk/butter and some carbs.

Don’t eat too much white bread or pasta and limit sweet processed carbs like biccies and cakes.

Do not snack - drink tea, water or 100% juice.

Stay away from ‘low fat’ processed, over priced crap - It does your body no favours.

Limit booze, crisps, processed meats - like I said - wholefoods - your body will thrive on natural foods.

Exercise - regularly.

Good luck - I’m 50 and the same size I was pre kids at 25 - I think I have stayed at this size because I do all the above - we eat way too much shite in the UK.

I love food but don't have a big appetite. I would struggle eat 3 courses in a restuarant. If I had a starter I probably wouldn't want a pudding. A massive plateful is off putting - I'd rather have less to start and then seconds. I really don't like overly sweetened stuff or most processed things - most chocolate is revolting, I only like the very dark stuff but one piece would be enough. Shop cakes etc are usually horrible too. I don't restrict my eating in any way, if I lived on my own I'd be quite happy with cereal, salad, fruit, potatoes (esp baked), toast, butter, cheese and crisps. If I am busy I could easily forget to eat lunch.

The only person I know who is “naturally” slim is my younger sister. She has a really healthy relationship with food. She doesn’t snack, but if she wants pudding she has it. She eats till she’s full. Exercise running round after children.

My weight has yo yo since puberty. I have pcos, but I was always hungry. If I didn’t have some sort of carbs at lunch I would have a migraine by 3. Same for intermittent fasting. Went to an endocrinologist who put me on Saxenda. Honestly it has been a game changer. I now don’t think of food and/or am hungry constantly. I don’t get migraines if I miss a meal. I’ve lost 2 stone already.

I don’t know anyone else who is slim without restricting food. I have a group of 3 friends who are all very slim. Going out for dinner with them is competitive non-eating, “oh I had an apple 3 days ago I’m not hungry...what are you having...” other friends don’t have any treats in the house. A lot of friends have “allergies” (not coealic) so don’t eat wheat which helps.

I honestly don't know. I love my food. I've put on a teeny bit of weight this last three months but I've been eating lots of bagels slathered in cream cheese, deserts and chocolate. More than I know I should have but it hasn't done any noticible damage. I've also not done a single bit of exercise in about 9 months. But I do tend to eat what I think I need and dictated by hunger. I eat big lunches and full dinner. Tend to skip breakfast.

Oh, one point is that I don't typically like much cheap processed food.

Eat less, move more. I don’t have crisps, biscuits or cake in the house or I’d scoff the lot.

Naturally slim person here! I only eat when hungry, don't really think about food if I'm not but also don't deny myself anything if I fancy it. Don't really snack apart from in the evenings if I've had dinner early with the kids. I don't weigh myself often, usually only to see how much the baby weighs with me holding him vs me alone. Spend a lot of the day running around after a toddler/clearing up toys/doing the school run. I am dairy and soya free due to Ds's allergies as he is breastfed which I'm sure has had an impact but I was slim prior to him too!

As we've 'matured' and following the initial 'banana bread baking' syndrome of lockdown we were 3 stone overweight between the two of us.
We've stopped eating during the morning, figuring one meal a day less has to cut calories. I've since read this is 'intermittent fasting' - but it works.

We eat a healthy breakfast yoghurt, nut, berries, almond milk and shredded wheat at lunchtime, or porridge, banana and nuts. Tea was salad, fish, chicken to get the weight off, but now to maintain we eat most foods at tea time. For us, after long working days, the fact that we can add a small snack ( nuts, olives) in the evening ( and a glass of wine on a Friday) works for us.
We've lost and maintained 3 stone since March, the initial weight loss being by September.
This has become a lifestyle. Bonus is my nails have never been as strong or long - no more acrylics for me!

Your last sentence OP is why I dont 'diet'. I always end up eating more. And my relatives/friends who are always 'on a diet' are the ones who are overweight or yoyo up and down.
Ive never been anywhere close to overweight and I've maintained my weight for about 10 years, maybe more, at a BMI of 21. Both my parents are obese, but my eating habits rather than what I eat are different to them.
Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, even if there are only 2 mouthfuls left on the plate.
Eat everything sat at the table, it's more mindful, no mindless sofa eating. Automatically I want to snack on the sofa at my parents house, its totally habit and nothing to do with hunger.
Eat snacks and deprive yourself of nothing BUT sensibly eg 2 chocolate digestives not 6.
Serve sensible portions not Bruce Bogtrotter sized mountains.
It's a lot to do with habits imo.

@ByersRd - what do you think is the cause of strong nails? I have rubbish nails and would love to improve them.

I'm a size 8-10, have never been on a diet, rarely exercise and work in a sedentary job. I do worry that one day I'll start putting on weight but I'm mid-thirties now and still going strong.

I eat three proper meals a day: porridge for breakfast with fruit, soup and bread (or leftovers) for lunch and then whatever I want in the evenings. I don't avoid carbs or anything like that, I love a good plate of pasta.

My three bits of advice would be:

1. Manage your portion sizes - I get full pretty quickly as I'm not used to eating massive plates of food. It's alright to eat a massive pizza or Xmas dinner as a one off but not as a normal thing. I also wouldn't eat dessert unless it was a special occasion

1. Don't snack. I can't remember the last time I drank a fizzy drink or ate a biscuit/chocolate bar. If I'm hungry between meals I'll eat a banana or drink some mint tea or eat a square of dark chocolate. If I had loads of snacky foods in the house I would be tempted to eat them so I just don't buy them.

1. If you can - cook everything from scratch. Processed foods are full of sugar, fat, salt and all kinds of crap that leave you craving more.

@MsTSwift i have a peloton and don’t use it as much as I should - do you tend to cycle at a fixed pace or do you do eg a hills setting?

I have no thyroid and really struggle with my weight more so since meeting boyfriend and then lockdown I’ve piled it on.

However I was very slim as teen till first son, lost loads just on its own no diet and was slimmer after second son than before I had him - busier perhaps as also a nurse so on feet. Piled it on again with 2 more babies then lost when I split up from their dad. And stayed fairly slim but ate what I wanted. Bloods check 6monthly for thyroid few adjustments. So I’ve never really dieted. So I’m spoilt.

Now feel like a right lump and it’s getting me down. My mum is naturally very slim but she doesn’t eat much 90% of the time and small portions etc active also. My sister is also large, however had her thyroid removed and has pcos. I’ve had a heck of a health scare recently and work is difficult because I’m large and slow and uniform is tight and miserable (everything I eat gives me pain and diahorrea just now anyway) so am going to really try hard to stop eating processed stuff, sugary things, diet juices - stick to water and cut my portion sizes down.

Aim is to be healthier and have more energy and be here for my kids instead of existing which I feel I’m doing now. I think worrying about what thin people eat or don’t eat isn’t good. Getting to the cause of why you, me, my sister eats and gains is what helps so you can reverse those and become healthier and lose weight with a positive mindset and goals of things you want to do. That’s my opinion anyway. It’s not going to be easy but my family is my goal being here for them and healthy enough to enjoy them and things we want to do!. I’m hoping my sister will join me as we both need to get healthy and change our lifestyles so a little bit of support for us both might do us the world of good.

It is not hard. If you are overweight, you are eating too much. Eat less. Calories only enter your body if you consume them, it isn't magic. Not everyone's body deals with food the same way. It doesn't matter how much you eat in comparison to another person, if you are overweight you are consuming too much (it might also be imbibed) for YOU. Reduce calories consumed and you will lose weight. Increase exercise also and you will lose weight faster. If you are struggling keep a diary for a month of every single thing that passes your lips. Many people are delusional about what they eat/drink and 'forget' snacks here and there. Finally, look at the size of the meals you are eating. The vast majority of people eat meals as if they have a hugely demanding physical job, not sitting in front of a computer.

@dadshere that's harsh.
It's hard. And people aren't "delusional", it is easy to forget snacks and treats. The national monitoring programme literally excludes food eaten outside the home, because it is so hard to record every mouthful.
The hardest thing of all is to resist the portions that have become normalised, and the tempting treats that we never saw back in the 1970s.
Good luck to everyone trying to reset their norms. It's really fab being slim and able to run and jump like a teenager.

@dadshere has nailed it.

What national monitoring programme? (just asking!).

ShanKayak- several members of my immediate family have yo-yo'd up and down from morbidly obese to merely overweight, and back again. They are all delusional. We go out shopping and they stop for a coffee but they get a frappe or hot chocolate with a brownie. They come home and grab a chocolate bar from the fridge because they are 'starving'. It really is a matter of will. If someone is comfortable being overweight, it is none of my business, different strokes for different folks. But, I am tired of co-workers tutting when I eat my lunch in front of them because they are 'dieting' and I am making it 'hard' for them, only to see them go and stuff themselves with greggs, and coke.

I’m slim (healthy bmi) and I have never dieted in my life.
Diets always fails because they only change the behaviour of over eating for limited time. The people lose weight, and then end the “diet” go right back to their old over eating and gain the weight back and sometimes a bit extra.

The way to get and stay slim is to change your entire lifestyle and make those changes permanent. If you are overweight, the basic things you need to change are eating and exercise/activity. And these changes, as in eat less/do more have to be permanent.

Furthermore, our metabolism slows down and our exercise/activity ability gets lower as we age so even people who have never dieted have to adjust their lifestyles as they get older. These people self monitor and make the adjustments as they go along. They note if they are feeling a bit pudgy, if their clothes don’t quite fit like they used to, and they realise, oh, I’m now over 40 and I’m not exercising quite as much so best to adjust how much I eat.

And it should always be “how much” and not a complicated exercise in denial and deprivation. You want cake or chocolate, have it. There are no bad foods or foods you cannot eat. You just have to ensure that what you eat is not too much overall.

There were a few threads like this in the summer, one on "habits that naturally slim people have" and one on habits that former fatties have . I came to the following conclusions:

1. genetics plays a massive part in how hungry you are/how easily you can regulate your appetite but so can
2. the social environment we live in, where a cake can be seen both as a "treat" or a "reward" or as a "bad" or "syn" food makes it incredibly difficult to distinguish between emotional eating and eating because you're hungry, so then...
3. some people find it very difficult (because of 1 and 2) to hear their hunger/full signals
4. some people have a sweet tooth which makes them crave carbs (and the more carbs they eat, the more they crave). I think the term is insulin resistance, and it seems that some people are suspectible to it (like me), others (like my DH) are not.

Having said that, the habits that I think you can get into as a former fatty are as follows:

1. IF (16:8 or even 5:2)
2. moving more - not hardcore exercise, but a high daily step count. I think there are various studies to show that "naturally" thin people move more without realising it. Lots of thin people were walking 15000 plus steps a day (or not counting steps, but doing a 3-5 mile walk most days).
3. Portion control - this is the hardest thing, i think, for former fatties to learn. My natural portion size is too high, so I have had to learn what a normal set of calories looks like - weighing food and counting calories has been an essential part of my journey, not to lose weight but to ensure I reset my expectations
4. Not drinking calories or filling up on foods that are designed to make you hungry (i.e. high fat/high sugar/high salt foods). BUT equally, not denying yourself these either. There is a time and place for every food (except celery, which is the work of the devil) but high sugar foods should not be the norm.
5. if you're insulin resistant I think it's necessary to cut out carbs almost entirely, especially if you have a sedentary job. I've stopped eating potatoes, pasta, and rice as side dishes completely. I only eat bread and cereals at the weekend, so the weekday is almost carb free. Half my plate is always vegetables as well (at least three different sorts).

I've been slim all my life, I'm 48 now and a size 10, I think I just have a really healthy relationship with food. I love food and cooking, have an extremely varied diet, love planning menus and cooking for friends, eating out, all of it!

But, I only eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, that's the only secret really, I've got classic 'eyes bigger than belly' syndrome, I only naturally eat fairly small portions, it's not a conscious choice, I just stop eating when I've had enough.

We opened some chocolates last night and I had two which was very enjoyable, I didn't think 'I've got to stop eating chocolate now or I'll get fat', just, 'That was nice. I've had enough now'.

A PP mentioned gut-flora, I do think I've got a nice healthy gut, never have any problems with it, I presume it's because I eat a massively wide range of foods. So that may be a contributory factor.