I had a friend like this in high school. We both ate tons of food together in vast quantities. I was a bit chubby but she was downright skinny. The difference was that I was actually digesting my food; she, it turned out later, was purging.

This by way of saying that you can't really make assumptions about people's diets based on what you see them do in public.

Interesting... now, when I see thin people eating like pigs, I'll have to wonder what their deal really is.

My girlfriend is wayyyy thin. 5'10" and 120 pounds thin. She says she eats a lot, but I disagree. She's the type of person who eats A LOT at dinner - like, now, I eat around 1/3 of what she eats - she'll eat 3 cups of pasta covered with yummy sauce and huge amounts of cheese, along with a piece or two or three of bread... but she doesn't eat breakfast at all and doesn't eat too much for lunch (I'm thinking 300-600 calories, and she's not a health food junkie like me). She definitely eats little snacks, though, which usually consist of candy, chips, or ice cream. And she likes to eat dessert after dinner. But, all in all, even with all the "crap food" she eats, I doubt she gets more than 1,600 calories in per day, and never more than 2,000 unless we went out to eat. She never exercises, though. Ever. And she doesn't move around much, either.

A lot of thin people I know are funny about food - they think they eat a lot, but they really just eat a lot at once or eat tiny bits throughout the day and are always eating , therefore creating the illusion that they're eating a lot.

I had a roommate in college who was thin, and literally ate more than I have ever seen anyone who wasn't a college football player eat in my life. The first few months, my other two roommates and I thought she was bulimic. There was NO WAY, we thought that anyone could eat that much and not gain weight. For a while, one of us would even sneak up to the bathroom door to see if she was purging (we were sort of planning an intervention).

Turns out she just had a crazy fast metabolism. And she was pretty much a couch potato, I wonder what she would have had to eat to maintain her weight if she'd exercised. Looking back on it, she might have actually been hyperthyroid (she always complained of feeling cold), and her body temperature she said was higher than normal.

I don't think most people have any idea what "average" really is, so they may think they eat healthy and exercise or have a slow metabolism when they don't. You can't make a realistic comparison if you don't know what normal really is.

I'm thinking that even if the majority of people DID have slow metabolisms that kept them from losing as fast as others, they can STILL lose. Just more slowly. So it should never be used as an excuse to slack off. If anything, it should be a bigger motivator to work harder. But like others said, I think it has a lot more to do with what you eat and your activity level. Someone who eats pizza and chips and sits on the couch is likely going to have a slower metabolism than someone who eats tofu and runs every day.

I also have hypothyroidism... For me, it explains about a quarter of my weight gain. The rest of it was all me. :)

My brother-in-law, however, gained 85 lbs in about 6 mos due to Hashimoto's disease (low thyroid). Once he got on thyroid replacement, he dropped half of it without any other changes. The other half is still there, but he doesn't move and makes poor eating choices.

I always thought that my DS and DH had super fast metabolisms. That they could eat larger quantities of food and never gain weight. Me and DD were not as lucky. Then I noticed some slight differences. The men don't eat sweets. They don't use butter. They eat less bread. They don't snack all the time. They only eat when they are hungry even if it's their very favorite food being offered.

OTOH, me and DD love bread, butter, sweets, late-evening snacking and wouldn't turn down our favorite food even if we were already stuffed.

I did find that with healthy eating and exercise that both me and DD could lose weight. I learned that my metabolism wasn't completely shot like I thought it was. I learned that even though I've taken steroids everyday of my life for over 4 yrs. now, that I can still lose weight. It was a real eye opener for me as I thought I was doomed to be obese.

lilybelle, I've always wondered why men seem to eat all the time and not gain weight, whereas women struggle so much with it. For me, it takes SO MUCH willpower to resist something delicious if it's put in my face, even if I'm full, but I've managed. Now, if offered something I love (and I'm full or I've met my caloric requirements for a day), I ask for some and save it for the next day. I just tell myself that if I'm full and then I eat more, I'm going to feel like complete crap. I hate that overstuffed feeling (and I got that feeling A LOT at my HW) and don't miss it one single bit. :D

I DO still wonder why men naturally seem to lose weight faster, though. Perhaps it's just that they don't store fat in as many places as we do (think about it, they don't have boobs, we have bigger butts even if we're thin, and we need some fat around our hips area to stay healthy and still get a period. They don't get periods. :lol:).

I don't know how true it is, but I've read that men have more lean muscle tissue than women of the same height/activity level, and lean muscle burns more calories. Besides that a woman generally compares her weight loss to her husband's or to another male friend or relative (who is often taller and heavier than she is), not a man who is her height and weight. Mostly, I think it's just an apples and oranges thing.

My husband weighs about 40 lbs more than I do (though that wasn't always true). Comparing our weight losses has only caused trouble. If he loses more, I sometimes feel a little jealous, but if I lose more or we lose the same -he is crushed because he is "supposed" to be losing more than me.

I have a friend who is about 250..All I ever see her eat is grilled chicken salad..but she also drinks regular coke 24/7. I honestly don't know if just the coke could make her that large. I know I eat..well used to eat about twice as much as her.

I do see alot of people drinking TONS of regular soda, and wonder why some of them aren't bigger than they are. I mean one of those "Big Gulp" size sodas have almost 500 calories in them.

My SD drinks 2 of those 2 liter bottles of Dr. Pepper a day. I really have to hold my tongue because she gripes about her wt. all the time. I used to drink 6 of those 20oz. bottles of Mt. Dew a day. Just cutting all the extra calories from that alone probably helped tremendously with my wt. loss.

Awwwwwwwww, I remember the Big Gulp.

Ohhh, I remember the Big Gulp, too... but there are no 7-11's down here. I'm originally from the DC area, which is actually in the Guiness book of world records for having the most 7-11's in a 25 mile radius. I miss 7-11!

Regular soda... when I was in middle school (and very round), I drank huge amounts of that stuff, but now, I couldn't chug that by the gallon even if I wanted to, since I've been type 1 diabetic since I was 16. It's loaded with heinous amounts of calories, anyway, and no amount of it ever truly quenches your thirst.

My girlfriend, who has always been thin, started drinking around 6 cans of regular Coke a day, and then she gained around 8 pounds. She lost the weight once she stopped drinking so much Coke... it came off quickly, too... that LUCKY :censored:

I think there are alot of times when a heavy person does eat less (volume wise) than a thin counterpart, but has no idea that they're choosing incredibly calorically dense foods. They blame it on metabolism, not realizing that a few seemingly small choices have made all of the difference. A regular soda or sweetened tea instead of diet soda, unsweetened tea or water. A creamy full fat salad dressing instead of a vinaigrette or fat free dressing. Fried chicken or fish, instead of broiled.... Topping vegetables with butter or other rich sauces instead of eating them nekkid or lightly seasoned. There are a thousand ways you can eat the same volume of food as another person and get in twice as many calories or more.

I banned soda in our house. It's a waste of money and calories. If my son wants large quantities of a sweet beverage, he can make a pitcher of Kool-Aid.

Not to argue, at least not for the sake of just arguing, but while drink mixes like Kool-Aid packets (if they're made with your own sugar) are a lot cheaper than soda, they have about the same number of empty calories per serving. If you compare the Walmart sugar free drink mixes (in tubs like Crystal Light for about half the price) to Walmart's Sam brand soda in 2 liter bottles, the cost per serving is nearly identical. The 2 liter Sams soda is 54 cents per 2 liter bottle, and the drink mix is 1.89 to make 8 quarts (not quite 8 liters).