Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:49 here. Slim, same weight measurements for 30 yrs. Had 2 kids. I eat what kedI want but my diet has always been healthy. No processed factory type food. I make everything myself incl salad dressing, plain yogurt etc. I eat 3 square meals and don't snack unless it is Fri night. I do eat dessert if I'm out at restaurants, which is once a month. I don't drink alcohol or soda or fancy coffee drinks. But I do have cream in coffee etc just no sugar. I avoid white flour unless I'm having pizza once a month. I cook a fair bit. I am pescetarian. I eat seafood once a week and the rest of the week is non fish, vegetarian. I walk 2 miles 5 days a week, briskly. It's 90 percent diet 10 percent exercise. I do have a weakness for chocolate and will enjoy a piece or two a couple times a week. I am not on meds, and go to doctor once a year. He's always surprised at the fact that I don't have hbp etc BC most people our ago do have something.

Have you ever worked?

Anonymous wrote:OP you aren’t going to get 1) honest feedback 2) it is all relative

People that are truly slim naturally and “eat what they want” don’t want to eat the same things and the same amounts that those who struggle with their weight do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of these posts are not “eat what you want” but either not eating or eating a very controlled diet.

No you don’t get it,.. real naturally slim people eat what they want. The huge difference is that they truly don’t want the same thing and they truly don’t have the same hunger cues as you, they know when they ate enough whereas you can eat a bit more thanenough to be satiated, or you can eat for emotional reasons etc..

That’s the only way to end the diet cycle… reframe what you want. Not easy but doable. At 40 I am finally there and I wasn’t there at 20

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run or cycle 4-5 days a week, yoga or light strength training the other days. Typically get 10k+ steps daily. I don’t really take full rest days unless I’m sick or traveling. My body craves motion and I don’t feel good unless I’ve moved a lot.

I eat what I want, but for me that means an extremely light breakfast and lunch then a normal dinner. So until 6pm I’ll eat maybe a piece of fruit or a green smoothie, toast with butter and/or a scrambled egg. I just don’t get hungry or think about food much until dinner time. I eat big meals for dinner and indulge in desserts when I feel like it.

"I just don't get hungry or think about food much until dinner time."

THIS is the difference between someone who can manage their weight naturally and those of us who can't. I wake up hungry. I can eat a large breakfast and be hungry 2 hours later. Not just "my mouth wants food, I love sweets" but my stomach is empty again hungry. Maybe it's not empty, but that's the message my body and brain are sending me. I get cranky and sometimes shaky when I haven't eaten in 5 hours. I can't fathom people who just don't feel like eating breakfast or just eat a yogurt cup and are fine until lunch. Im not obese, but I work hard to stay at a size 8 and it can creep up to 10 if I eat intuitively. But I hate thinking about food as often as I do. Im jealous of those people who just don't get hungry much!

This sounds insane and people don’t believe me, but I have been on both sides of this. I struggled with my weight my childhood, weighed in the 180s throughout college despite focusing intensely on trying to lose weight. I calorie counted and worked out obsessively but couldn’t get my weight down. I thought about food constantly and it was a massive struggle to diet.

Then I got a severe case of mononucleosis the summer after college. I was sick for almost a month and lost some initial weight because my throat was too sore to eat much. I eventually recovered but my appetite just never came back. It’s as if the virus rewired something in my brain, my obsessive thoughts about food just disappeared forever. By the end of that year I had lost over 40lbs without any effort.

That was 15 years ago and I’ve been slim ever since, usually around 125lbs or so. I don’t watch my diet in any way. But I’m like the PP up thread now, I just don’t think about food or get hungry very often. But I have experienced what the other poster describes too, I know what it’s like to think about food constantly and feel like it takes massive effort not to eat. It’s just night and day. It absolutely has to do with brain chemistry or body chemistry or something - I don’t know the scientific explanation - but it’s not an issue of personal will power. Having experienced both extremes of this, I truly think body size is mostly out of anyones control. Of course people can make choices that affect it but I think most people are probably predisposed to be a particular size and aren’t likely to change that.

Anonymous wrote:42, female, 5'5" and about 115 lb (I don't own a scale and never weigh myself but it's always around 115 at the doctor).

I walk pretty much everywhere and live in a 3rd floor walk up. I also do yoga, pilates, or barre 3 days a week. And then two runs a week (one shortish run during the week, just a couple miles, and a longer 4-5 mile run on the weekend). And if I don't get enough strength training in barre class, I will supplement with short bodyweight workouts at home -- squats, pushups, ab workout, pull-ups.

I'd weight about the same if I did nothing, based on prior experience, but I feel better when I exercise. It took me a long time to get into a good workout habit in part because I didn't ever need to workout to lose weight. So it wasn't until my late 30s that I figured out that exercise is great for mood, sleep habits, and overall health. I know, obvious. But in my 20s all my girlfriends just did enormous amounts of cardio for the express purpose of losing weight, and I found it boring and figured I wasn't trying to lose weight, so I didn't bother.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run or cycle 4-5 days a week, yoga or light strength training the other days. Typically get 10k+ steps daily. I don’t really take full rest days unless I’m sick or traveling. My body craves motion and I don’t feel good unless I’ve moved a lot.

I eat what I want, but for me that means an extremely light breakfast and lunch then a normal dinner. So until 6pm I’ll eat maybe a piece of fruit or a green smoothie, toast with butter and/or a scrambled egg. I just don’t get hungry or think about food much until dinner time. I eat big meals for dinner and indulge in desserts when I feel like it.

"I just don't get hungry or think about food much until dinner time."

THIS is the difference between someone who can manage their weight naturally and those of us who can't. I wake up hungry. I can eat a large breakfast and be hungry 2 hours later. Not just "my mouth wants food, I love sweets" but my stomach is empty again hungry. Maybe it's not empty, but that's the message my body and brain are sending me. I get cranky and sometimes shaky when I haven't eaten in 5 hours. I can't fathom people who just don't feel like eating breakfast or just eat a yogurt cup and are fine until lunch. Im not obese, but I work hard to stay at a size 8 and it can creep up to 10 if I eat intuitively. But I hate thinking about food as often as I do. Im jealous of those people who just don't get hungry much!

This sounds insane and people don’t believe me, but I have been on both sides of this. I struggled with my weight my childhood, weighed in the 180s throughout college despite focusing intensely on trying to lose weight. I calorie counted and worked out obsessively but couldn’t get my weight down. I thought about food constantly and it was a massive struggle to diet.

Then I got a severe case of mononucleosis the summer after college. I was sick for almost a month and lost some initial weight because my throat was too sore to eat much. I eventually recovered but my appetite just never came back. It’s as if the virus rewired something in my brain, my obsessive thoughts about food just disappeared forever. By the end of that year I had lost over 40lbs without any effort.

That was 15 years ago and I’ve been slim ever since, usually around 125lbs or so. I don’t watch my diet in any way. But I’m like the PP up thread now, I just don’t think about food or get hungry very often. But I have experienced what the other poster describes too, I know what it’s like to think about food constantly and feel like it takes massive effort not to eat. It’s just night and day. It absolutely has to do with brain chemistry or body chemistry or something - I don’t know the scientific explanation - but it’s not an issue of personal will power. Having experienced both extremes of this, I truly think body size is mostly out of anyones control. Of course people can make choices that affect it but I think most people are probably predisposed to be a particular size and aren’t likely to change that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run or cycle 4-5 days a week, yoga or light strength training the other days. Typically get 10k+ steps daily. I don’t really take full rest days unless I’m sick or traveling. My body craves motion and I don’t feel good unless I’ve moved a lot.

I eat what I want, but for me that means an extremely light breakfast and lunch then a normal dinner. So until 6pm I’ll eat maybe a piece of fruit or a green smoothie, toast with butter and/or a scrambled egg. I just don’t get hungry or think about food much until dinner time. I eat big meals for dinner and indulge in desserts when I feel like it.

"I just don't get hungry or think about food much until dinner time."

THIS is the difference between someone who can manage their weight naturally and those of us who can't. I wake up hungry. I can eat a large breakfast and be hungry 2 hours later. Not just "my mouth wants food, I love sweets" but my stomach is empty again hungry. Maybe it's not empty, but that's the message my body and brain are sending me. I get cranky and sometimes shaky when I haven't eaten in 5 hours. I can't fathom people who just don't feel like eating breakfast or just eat a yogurt cup and are fine until lunch. Im not obese, but I work hard to stay at a size 8 and it can creep up to 10 if I eat intuitively. But I hate thinking about food as often as I do. Im jealous of those people who just don't get hungry much!