Yes I do. It's not magic, it's just chemistry. People who's weight does not change ARE matching their energy intake to their energy output. It simply does not make sense physiologically that someone who consumes more than their body requires does not gain weight. I am an anti-dieter but even I can understand this concept.
Not that it is directly relevant to the point at issue, but I'm not an "anti dieter" (describing something as a diet or not has always seemed to me just a case of symantics).
Regarding the "concept" you refer to, you have not identified what that is in your post other than to disagree with me that some people exceed their energy requirements without gaining weight. Are you referring to a CICO (calories in calories out) model or what or some misappropriately refer to as the first law of thermodynamics?
I was a register child care years ago. I noticed that children were allowed to eat when they were hungry usually ate less. I had a little boy I kept whose Mother called me one day (we had became good friends) and asked "Did Joel eat good for you today?" I told her "Yes, he did". We learned that when he didn't eat good (much) at my house, he would eat good for his Mother and vice versa. I noticed this when I married DH and I watched his children. When they were hungry they would eat. One granddaughter may only eat one meal a day. The other DGD would eat a little bit of food leave it and go back later and eat more or just put it in the fridge.
Their Mother eats not breakfast unless she is traveling or eating out. She told me that she eats only if she is hungry. She said that a lot of times she just forgets to eat. I ate like her when I was young. I always say I learned to eat 3 meals and snacks everyday when someone convinced me that
"you have to eat at least 3 meals a day to be healthy". I've had this battle with food ever since. Now I'm working to learn how to get back to eating the way I did when I was younger before the diet cycle.
I'm not against diets because I have read of people who have lost weight and kept it off. About 1/2 of them use a diet. They diet may be a diet like WW or a diet they have made up of their own. The other 1/2 on average throw out all the diet rules saying "break the rules" and just eat when they are hungry and eat what the want but less. I have a book on these success stories and they all have kept their weight off successfully as many years as 25 yrs. It doesn't seem to matter whether they used a diet or not. They did what worked for them. One thing they do say is that whatever you do has to become a lifestyle and they said do not set ridiculous weight goals. They seem to think that you do better if you just weigh what your body is comfortable with not what some diet says you should weigh. Before I read the success stories, I wanted to weigh at least 125 lbs again. No more. I hope to just be able to get down to 150 to 160 lbs and I will be happy. Not the ideal size for my 5'2" body, but I felt good when I weighed that and my DH says I look good there.
I find it more helpful to deal with my hunger and food intake based on my experience with my own body than trying to find a thin person to emulate. Reduced carb helps me conquer my hunger so that I can eat less without being
That is the wisest weight loss statement I've read in a long time. Obviously, I totally agree with it. For instance, I find that I get full faster and stay full longer if I have some combination of protein, fat, AND carbs (e.g., a turkey & cheese sandwich w/ mayo). If I try to eat low carb, 9 times out of 10, I feel dissatisfied and give into eating another meal because of that. I am more satisfied with a turkey & cheese sandwich for dinner than I would be if I ate a low-carb meal of more calories.
Honestly, I don't think you can really judge by one outing with a certain group of women. Keep in mind that restaurants usually serve pretty big portions and heavy food even when you're trying to order something healthier. So that might be one reason why your friends ate so little. I almost never finish a meal at a restaurant, even if it's a so-called regular portion because the food is so heavy, even when I order something relatively healthy. And you can't know what they ate before they went out or what they ate afterwards. Lots of people are like this - they fell self-conscious about eating in front of other people so they will not eat a lot but will eat earlier or later. And that applies to both thin and overweight people.
Plus, there are many overweight people who don't eat all that much. My aunt, for example, is overweight and she only picks at her food. It's more a problem of her eating the wrong foods (lots of fried foods, lots of sweets) and not exercising. I'm the same way. Portion control has never been an issue for me. It's the choice of food that I have made in the past that has been a problem, since I love sweets.
My husband is very lean without really trying, and there are several ways that he eats differently than I do:
- He usually only eats when he's hungry
- If he's not hungry, he doesn't snack
- Most of the time, he only eats until he's comfortable
- He actively dislikes eating past the point of comfortable satiation (whereas I like the feeling of being full)
- Although he eats treats, he doesn't eat a lot of them because he knows they don't make him feel good later. I often eat more treats, then my body doesn't feel good later.
- He will easily pass up food if it's not something he really likes
Here's what I think are some "secrets"
- I eat when I am hungry. I don't eat three large meals per day, but I eat every few hours, about 80-200 calories at a time. I don't like eating a lot of food at once yet I'm never hungry because I don't let myself get hungry
- No bread, rice, potatoes, or other starches. These are once in a while foods, just like cake and ice cream are once in a while foods. I can eat a 500 calorie bagel and be just as hungry and will eat more since the simple carbs do nothing for hunger. It's much easier to eat 500 calories of bread or fries than it is to eat five apples
- Higher protein, vegetables, some fruit, drink water
-10,000 to 20,000 steps per day
- Build and maintain muscle
- When eating out, I'll eat 200 calories of it and stop and know I will eat again later anyway, so I don't eat 1200 calorie restaurant meals
Lol, I never weighted more than 122 pounds and I always ate more than all my friends. Like if we went to chinese place and 4 of us took 2 meals for 2, they didn't even finish it and I always finished what's left and that's how it worked always.
I do know that my metabolism is very fast but it's also because I really love vegetables, plus, i love meat (meat is protein). Also I do not like pasta, white bread - I eat them very rarely. And I eat in the morning, I can skip dinner if it's too late or I am too lazy to make it, but my main day meals has to be breakfast and lunch.
Last edited by NutritionistLady; 12-26-2015 at 11:51 AM.
Today I struggle with my weight and body image everyday. Every time I ate I was always self-conscious. But I wasn't always like this. I was very skinny when I was younger. I don't remember how much I weighed, because I never weighed myself. I remember eating icecream and chips and popcorn, but never gaining a pound from it. Then I realized that back then, I HATED eating. For some reason, food seemed like a waste of time for me back then because all I wanted to do was play. I would eat two bites of my food and be done with it.
Things have definitely changed since I was 10-14 years old. I started having more free time. My friends wouldn't come over to my house as often, so I was running around and playing as much. As a result, I started snacking. I snacked everyday and I didn't realize how many pounds I was gaining from it. It's a pretty tragic thing, but now I wish I could go back to the mentality of food I had back then.
My cousin is skinny as a stick and always has been. She once told me that she has to special order her clothes or get them taken in because they don't make clothes smaller than a size 0. Being so skinny has also caused a lot of health problems for her. One big problem is she can't have a baby. Her and her husband tried for years before they ended up adopting. I am always amazed at what she eats. She is a pig when it comes to food. We went out to a Chinese restaurant once and she ordered two entrees for herself, a side of spring rolls and an extra side of rice. Not only did she ate everything she ordered but she finished off her mom's leftovers and asked if she could keep our grandma's leftovers for a snack later that night. When I lived with her for 3 months in college, she would go out to eat constantly. She would have donuts for breakfast, cheeseburgers for lunch and pizza for supper (usually half a pizza just for herself). She's gotten a lot healthier with what she eats since she got married but she still eats a lot. She told me that she tries to eat as much as possible because she wants to gain weight but can't. I think she has an ultra fast metabolism or something. I kind of want the metabolism she has but at the same time, I know it's a real problem for her.
AllyG47 -
I know some people like that. They can eat whatever they like and not workout and they just don't gain weight. There can be numerous reasons for it just like there's an overactive thyroid and underactive thyroid. Once I got around puberty I gained weight. I've always been a thicker woman. I enjoy weight training, walking and I eat well for the most part but I eat too big of portions. It really contributes to the extra pounds.
Eat only when you are hungry?! If I followed that, I would eat constantly. This is what got me into this mess in the first place. I am not sure my body understands hungry/not hungry. I am always hungry, or at least my body/mind THINK I am hungry. I am either on diet (choosing to ignore the hungry messages), or off diet and eating constantly. Maybe naturally thin people understand their hunger signals better? OR, they do not have the same food appreciation?
Harriette -
I think a lot of it depends on what you're eating. If you ate celery and carrots you'd be full a lot quicker than if you had a bag of potato chips. Your brain is a lot better at telling you when to stop with raw things rather than processed.
Last edited by TristalTheNini; 06-07-2017 at 03:33 PM.
Harriette -
I think a lot of it depends on what you're eating. If you ate celery and carrots you'd be full a lot quicker than if you had a bag of potato chips. Your brain is a lot better at telling you when to stop with raw things rather than processed.
Interesting. I should give more raw stuff a try. I do eat Apples sometimes and mandarin oranges but I have not noticed feeling more full after them. I think eating is a habit? I am good right now and on track. For the most part not hungry, it's when I fall off the rails that feeling full vanishes. Giant meal = wait a few minutes and start grazing... I am amazing at losing weight. I am Terrible at maintenance!
Fat guy who's struggled with his wait his ENTIRE life.
There is based on my experience no single reason why skinny people are skinny, more over in my experience it is a combination of reasons that none of which all skinny people share but some all share a few.
My best and oldest friends entire family are all skinny, even the grand kids are all skinny. This I feel is due to the fact their mother is a diabetic and has been since a very young age. This woman mastered healthy but delicious cooking and remained on a strict diet that has kept her diabetic related illness free for over 60 years.
This diet was the same she raised all her children with and it became a life style for them all to this day.
I also have absolutely no doubt what so ever there are certain differences in my genetic make up that predispose me for being fat, that were made much worse by my mothers very unhealthy style of cooking that became my life style. Fried foods, ice cream, cookies, and an endless number of sugar rich foods were my food staples for my life growing up and both my physical and psychological aspects of myself as a human being were programed to reflect a dependency if not out right addiction to sugar and high fruitose corn syrup. Add in a the fact that my entire child hood my parents would fill up my plate and not allow me to leave the table until I ate every last bite set the programming in place to become the chronic over eater that I still often are. I know my father did this because he came from a world were your next meal was anything but certain.
I could go on and on, but I feel I made my point. If you look there are often influances from a persons up bringing along with genetic predispositions along with other causes some like depression that all combine to result in a person battling with wait issues likely all their lives.
Bottom line is skinny people are skinny because for what ever reason they eat less than me a not so skinny person, but slowly the world is beginning to accept being fat is much more complicated than simply eating to much.
In the last 50 years Americans transformed to a predominately sedentary life style that requires very little physical effort to earn our livings and feed ourselves. Add into that the fact that never before in world history are literally 10 of thousands of deadly unhealthy calories are available to us from nearly it seams unlimited fast food restaurants and mini mart gas stations. You literally can not drive the street of any large town anywhere in America and not go past dozens of fast food joints, and to make matters worse endless unhealthy calories are but a phone call away.
Add in that in the vast majority of homes both parents work, so carry out fast food has replaced healthy home cooking to a great extent., which again programs childrens minds and bodies to a unhealthy eating life style.
I could go on and on, but I think I made my point. Being skinny has a lot more to it than is often thought of or acknowledged by those who are lucky enough to be skinny.
