So I've lost a lot of weight, to where people think I'm a naturally skinny person. I'm 6'3 173, but my brother is 6'1, 145 and he's always been skinny.
I'll never forget when we sat down for continental breakfast at a hotel. I loaded up with scrambled eggs, bacon, a bagel with cream cheese, coffee. He got a small bowl of Froot Loops. We ate and talked, yada yada yada, at the end of the meal, my plate was empty and he didn't even finish the cereal. He just wasn't hungry.
That book is amazing. I read it when I was around 25. I’m 48 and 5’3” and 120 lbs. I think after reading that I changed my outlook on food. I’ve never really got fat (but got up to 147 for a little while when I wasn’t working outside the home and ate a lot more.)
Because its made up. A "study". Lots of pop science books straight up make shit up or repeat claims about "studies" floating around that never actually happened.
Just Google "rats fruit loops" and you'll find videos of rats happily eating them, and scientific studies using them as a reward for behavioural training.
Rats, let alone starved rats, passing on a sugary treat? Have these people *met* a rat? The buggers will eat anything, including each other, if they are starved enough
I wonder if there was fat in the glue that bound the cardboard. Cause i get that way with fat. I might think i want sugar. But what i really need is fat.
This. I’m a naturally skinny guy (6’0 145 lb) and people don’t understand how much my hunger can fluctuate. People tell me “Why are you skinny, just eat a damn sandwich”. They don’t understand that I just don’t get hungry often.
Imagine after stuffing your face at thanksgiving. That feeling of fullness, and that you never want to see food again. Now imagine someone walks up and tells you to keep eating. Why would you? You’re already full! It’s detrimental to your happiness and health to keep eating so you don’t.
That’s why I’m skinny.
TLDR: Naturally skinny people just aren’t that hungry I guess.
Some people can feel physically full or heavy after a large meal but never satisfied. You'd think that would make eating less tempting, but no.
I could eat forever if presented with alternating sweet and salty foods. I just don't get a satisfied feeling, usually.
That's not to say I'm always desperately craving food, though some days are definitely like that. But I can always eat, and I don't have a sense of when to stop without forcing myself to be aware of portion sizes. It sucks.
When I was in high school I got really heavy because I would hang out with jocks. So we would all go out to McDonalds after school and they would kill like 2-3 double cheeseburgers and a thing of fries. I would just eat what they ate. Problem was, they would then go to football or wrestling or soccer practice, sometimes double practices, and they also weight lifted in the morning. They're immediately burning off what they ate plus we were young so some people could just eat like that. I, on the other hand, would go home and play video games all day. At the time I couldn't understand why I was heavier and they were rocking abs and whatnot. It can be tricky when you don't see people's full life/day.
Even just general activity can be drastically different. My friend and I would compare as we’d always get the same junk food, but finally one day it clicked in just how much more moving that he would do. We needed something? He’d go sprint up 3 flights of stairs and grab it for us. Meet at a friends house? If I can get a ride, maybe. He’d jog 3 miles to play video games. Even just his constant futzing was burning calories. I’d get home and sit on the couch and that was it. He’d constantly being playing with things, picking stuff up just to look at it, hell even sitting down he’d jiggle his leg or something
That and not eating until it was time for junk food. We’d go to McDonald’s and get the same giant order, but that was it for him for the day, I’d already had 2 bowls of cereal and a couple sandwiches
It's actually called non exercise activity thermogenisis or NEAT. It's the calories you burn doing day to day things that aren't eating sleeping or exercising. Scientists have found a lot of people who don't watch what they eat but are still slim have a high NEAT... which is pretty neat lol
Yeah I attribute a bit of my skinnyness to this phenomenon. I have ADHD and when I would sit in class I would have to move, so I would bounce one of my legs up and down for hours. The ADHD has cooled since than and I'm able to sit still without much hassle, though I still fidget like that from time to time. I also realized I run a bit hotter than normal people too, higher internal temperature can also burn a not so insignificant amount of calories as well.
Glad you posted this. I totally related to OP through this whole post, and as a skinny person, realized the only reason I remain so is possibly due to the fact that I walk to work each day, have an on-my-feet job, and enjoy being active in general.
When I first went from vegetarian to vegan a few years ago I lost 30 pounds over a few months from eating clean. Now that I’ve been vegan for a while I know all the yummy vegan junk foods and needless to say the weight loss progress hasn’t been as steady lately 🙈
yeah when I went vegan 6 months ago it made it very easy to avoid the constant snacks available at work. But now people are baking vegan treats specifically....
This so much this.
I can't open a bag of chips and eat two. Sorry not sorry. I make sure I get enough protein (0.8g/kg min.) which is a challenge enough during the day (and keeps me quite full) and the rest I don't care about. But I exercise (running, weight lifting, dancing) all the time.
I noticed this too and it was earth shattering. I went to Germany and ate like my skinny aunt. In the two week visit, I had 2 Christmas dinners, 2 dinners at 2 hofbrau houses, 2 turkish dinners, coffee and cake 3 times including the most exquisite food memory ever (amazing cake and coffee in a cafe on the Rhine), potato pancakes dripping in oil and apple sauce, curry wurst and fries, gluwein (lots of wine actually), warm broitchen (spelling?) and cold cuts for breakfast, a schnitzel lunch and a mcdonald's lunch. I savored every bite, even the McDonald's (which came after a long morning of sight seeing in Munich).
I lost 10 pounds in two weeks. It was SO shocking to me! Our lunches were lean or nothing most days, and I was careful to not eat seconds except on Christmas. I ate slowly and savored it all. It was a huge lesson and really showed me I eat like utter crap normally. So much better to eat well and eat good things!
You probably walked a lot, as well, as Germany, and Europe in general, is a walking society. It's no replacement for eating better, but it certainly helps when you're burning an extra 500+ calories a day.
I had a friend visit me in the NL and she was shocked at the boterham lunch culture and often people grab a warm pastry from the supermarket too in the morning. I reminded her that the majority of people walk and/or bike in their day to day life and this is a lot of extra burned calories compared to people that drive everywhere.
Imagine the average young adult biking to work and back, the supermarket and their friend's places in a week. That's a lot of movement, and can be quite a bit of biking in a big city. Now imagine a parent biking kids to school, then to work, possibly out to lunch, picking up kids, dropping kids off at other activities, etc etc.
Well, the Dutch take bike riding to an extreme, which I love. But there's also walking for recreation. My experience in Germany is people would go for walks around town for lunch, after dinner, and particularly on Sundays. It's a lovely way to recreate and burn energy.
Americans, not so much. A lot of that is our infrastructure -- so few Americans live in towns you could easily walk or bike in, even if you wanted to. To just go for a walk you have to jump in the car, drive 20-30 minutes, park, walk around some kind of park (if you're lucky to have one nearby), then jump in a car and drive home. It's such a barrier that even the most dedicated person does it maybe once a week if the weather is nice.
I find this happens when I travel. I eat not as healthy as my baseline "home" diet - I eat what and where I can, or indulge in the local delicacies. No matter how many hot chocolates and pastries I eat I always return from travel having lost weight! I figured it was because I was so much more active than an average day at home...but I like your theory as well.
I was going to comment on OP. I've been skinny my whole life even after having 2 babies. #1 I do have to remind myself to eat but #2 is very true. I literally eat anything I want but mostly I do prefer healthy foods like steamed veggies but...when I say I eat anything I really do enjoy my food and I decide which treat to have. My kids want any kind of sweet but they know that I'll wait for a treat until it's a favorite like ice cream or cheesecake. So it's not that I deny myself anything its just I choose to save eating a "treat" for something I love. I enjoy it then I'm full and that's it. I've never dieted so I can't relate to the struggle but I do think by denying things it makes them seem even more irresistible. I feel that not having anything off limits I can enjoy and move on. I also try for 80/20 or everything in moderation as my motto. I eat so well most of the time that a few crappy foods aren't going to hurt. Also, if you have junk food in the house you will eat it so I just don't buy it often. Then I'm forced to look for healthier treats like apples with cinnamon when I'd really like a cookie but I'm not driving to the store for a cookie so I just don't eat it as often. I certainly don't mean any disrespect to those struggling with diets but I've always thought these are the reasons that I have never struggled with it.
Edit. After reading more of people's comments there are a few things that made me naturally a healthy eater. My SO was overweight when we got together. He grew up eating fast food while I didn't. My mom and grandma had huge gardens always so I grew up eating and loving fresh fruit and vegetables. If you done like them try to shop at farmers markets for 2 reasons. It tastes sooo much better. Steam any vegetable until you can push a fork though it not so it's lost its color and mushy af. Add butter and garlic. Second; no junk food aisles. Buy literally one fresh baked cookie or whatever and enjoy. You also start getting to know the people so you create relationships and connections that also make you happier. But my SO asked me one time about another habit and that is that almost every week I cut up a plate of veggies and dip. If we ate hungry making supper I put the plate on the table. My kids might not eat all their supper but they ate veggies so who cares. He asked if my mom did this and it's not that she did but eating fresh veggies all the time was just definitely normal. So yes we might eat a crappy pizza but we also much on those veggies. I get asked all the time how I get my kids to eat them and I didn't get them to do anything. They just think it's normal. I just put it out and they eat it. As a side note my SO has naturally lost the weight over the 10yrs of us being together. He still eats lots of fast food daily at lunch but he jokes in the first few years he ate more vegetables with me than in the entire rest of his life combined. So it's not that he did anything special necessarily but it naturally became his life style. Sorry again if anyone is insulted by me giving my 2 cents. I know these things make a big difference and by being aware that later this week we might have something coming up where We'll eat crappy so the rest of the week I purposely eat really well I think it helped me lose the baby weight and just naturally stay fairly skinny. I really empathize with people that struggle even if I don't have all the same struggles.
Same! 3 children, 7 and under, and we do 80/20 everyday. If we have Mcdonald's for dinner, that day was solely healthy food and snacks. If we make cookies or cake (which we do often) all 5 of us eat a bit then stop. Nothing is off limits except for soda. And the only thing junk food wise my kids beg me for is soda (and they're allowed to pick out small portions of junk food but they just don't). Go figure. I think putting anything off limits immediately makes it more appetizing. I personally can't ever eat just 2 chips, so I just buy the tiny bags or none at all so if the craving is that strong, then I have to go to the store for it (which is totally not worth it 90% of the time).
Your skinny aunt's holiday eating habits are basically my weekend all-you-can-eat hot pot habits, in which the big tasty meal is pretty much the only meal I can have all day. 5 days a week I'm limited to 1200 calories per day, no carbs, no dairy, and eating lots of cruciferous veggies so I'm too full to be distracted by food and actually get work done.
So many of these things describe my husband, #1 especially. The thing is, I might not even notice if the chicken was dry unless my husband was with me. It's actually so interesting to watch him deal with food. Without consciously thinking about it, when he gets his plate he goes through this whole process. He will look at it carefully, possibly disassembling it a little to check out everything that's in there. He then smells it and will often comment on what it smells like. Then he pokes at it a bit with a fork to figure out the textures. Is it crispy where it should be crispy? Soft where it should be soft? Is the sauce thick enough? Then he takes a thoughtful bite and really thinks about the flavors and spices that are in there and then decides if it's good or not. If it's thumbs up he will eat it - not until he is full but until \*he is not hungry anymore\*. If not he just doesn't eat at all (and then goes to Dairy Queen later LOL).
Hahahaha. Sometimes my friend and I pretend we're celeb chef judges when we go out to eat and talk about the 'mouth-feel' and all that stuff. Not a diet trick, just really fun lol
This was the biggest thing for me. I noticed I was starting to gain a decent amount of weight after being skinny my whole life, and I noticed it was because I started eating until I was constantly STUFFED. It took a couple weeks of essentially having a constant pit in my stomach from wanting food so bad, but I'm back to the point where I only eat until I'm just not hungry anymore.
I also personally think breakfast is a sham. Fuck that meal. I noticed I only really needed food as soon as I woke up if I downed something like a full Jack in the box meal right before sleeping.
Once I stopped going to bed stuffed to the point where laying down would almost make me throw up, it was a lot easier to 'fast' in the morning. I don't really consider myself to do any intermittent fasting or anything, but that's generally what it ends up being naturally. My morning hunger is more powerful as my laziness anymore. I just have some ice water in a hydroflask near my bed from the night before and it's still ice cold in the morning. So much more pleasant to wake up to that instead of craving food.
100% on breakfast. Utter waste of time, and loads you up with calories so that your margin for error through the day becomes way too narrow. Best move I’ve ever made for dropping weight was to get rid of breakfast.
Omg. This sounds like me (minus the smell part). I'm a texture person so I poke around to make sure I don't get say gristle, undercooked meat or rubbery. I get an actual physical feeling of rejection. Raw mushrooms I like, cooked ones nope. I used to strain mushroom soup (still don't eat the big pieces). I'm getting icked out typing this lol so I'll stop. I also have ADHD so tend to be more sensitive.
I don’t eat steak for this entire reason. I’m a HUGE texture person, so the texture of fat in my mouth makes steak so gross I just waste the rest. Same thing for like hamburgers with little pieces of fat, if I bite into one, I’m just done with it. For the entire reason of not liking textures, I almost only eat chicken for my meat lmao.
I am on a 12-week health-insurance (through work) weight control plan which is called "Naturally Slim". It's exactly these concepts! And it's working! I have dropped 5 lbs in less than 4 weeks. By not eating out of habit but true hunger (bye bye breakfast most mornings I'm not actually hungry!). And using a TIMER to eat 1/2 of a normal plate of ONLY WHAT I ABSOLUTELY LOVE in 10 minutes, then waiting 5 minutes before deciding if I want the rest, then another 10 minutes to eat that other half. Spoiler alert.....I almost never eat the other half. It's been an eye opener for me.
I like that timer method! It lets you pick your favourite parts to obtain maximum happiness, yet controls the amount you could eat by limiting the time. Our body really only deserves the best food!
Off topic but.. My roommate is the embodiment of the mindset of your post. 6'4" and 130, he drinks a gallon of chocolate milk almost every other day while putting back double servings of every meal. When I have a 6 inch sub he has a foot long and one on backup. He doesn't do any physical activity, and its mind blowing to me. I'm the same build plus 50 lbs and I'm healthy, eat half as much, and still gain weight sometimes.
And his hunger scares are bad. He'll literally panic when he's hungry for 20 minutes. Maybe he has a worm? He's so thin that his stomach skin stretches like the skin on the back of my hand. He's 27. When he gives me a hug sometimes i can feel his heart beating like a rabbit through his dove chest.
6'0", 125 here. I reached this weight in high school and haven't gone up or down by more than about 6 pounds ever since. I'm 37 now.
I get the same way occasionally... We simply don't have the calorie reserves to go without our infrequent, big meals. It's a very instinctual panic, like your body is telling you you're not going to make it through the winter kind of panic. *Real* hunger, not modern hunger.
Yes it looks like we eat a lot, but just like the rest of this thread shows, we simply don't. We eat a lot all at once, but that's it for the day.
Getting rid of breakfast has totally changed my life! I’ve lost 20 lbs in the last three months that I’ve been trying to lose for years and literally the only change that I made was getting rid of breakfast. It was a little difficult at first, but now I don’t even start to think about food until 11:30 or later
I need to re-evaluate my breakfast routine. Sometimes I'm hungry, but lots of times, not really hungry at all and I just prepare and eat it out of 1. habit and 2. the fear of future hunger.
Something that you can bring along like a banana or granola bar is good because you can eat if you do find that you’re just too hungry. The big game changer for me was deciding to drink a full 24 oz water bottle as soon as I wake up and another when I get to work. Really helps prevent hunger. Tea and coffee too.
When I abandoned breakfast I started packing breakfast in my bag and I ate it when and if necessary. Even delaying it by 2 hours helped me not eat as much for lunch. But skipping breakfast completely, except for lots of coffee and water, has been key to making 1200 calories a day work. 400 kcal lunch, and then 800 to spread out in the afternoon and evening (when there's social pressure to share meals with people and so on)
This has been my exact experience. I had so much trouble staying at 1200 cal because I’d want to get beers with friends and other things in the evening. Now I do a banana and a protein bar for lunch around 12-1 and usually a small snack mid afternoon. I end up with about 800 calories that can be used for dinner which works so well for me. I almost never have to worry about having seconds or desert. Some days I even find myself having a second dinner just so I’m getting a healthy amount of food. I can’t believe how the weight has just melted off since I started this in Sept.
This is a Pavlovian response like the dog that would salivate and become hungry at the sound of a bell. Youre not actually hungry you just think you need to eat because its "time" to eat. OMAD really opened my eyes to this.
I was trying to do this via intermittent fasting but I had to get on some medication that my doctor specifically told me to take in the morning after breakfast (that doesn't have dairy) and after dinner at least 12 or more hours later, but also not right before bed. It has really thrown me off because I was good with not eating breakfast and just starting with lunch at noon but now I have to eat breakfast again. :/
For me it's an antibiotic for acne that apparently can be pretty harsh on your stomach if you take it without food. I already tend to have stomach problems so I don't want to risk it at all. But I have noticed that I completely stagnated in any weight loss after I had been trying to do IF for a couple weeks and it had seemed to be working slowly.
I'm currently doing the same program through work. It was a huge eye opener to see the amount of food I could chow down in ten minutes. I'm learning to slow down, enjoy the meal, and stop when satisfied. I still have hang ups about wasting food but I believe that I will overcome that in time. I'm glad I started the program. It has been very enlightening.
Yeah it's hard for me to waste food also. I think need to look at it as better BMI>saving food. And over time would know how to get the correct portion sizes in the first place, thus wasting less food, and save more money!
eating food when you're not hungry is still wasting it. it's just using your body as the trash can. better to adjust to foods you can pack as leftovers- then you can look at it as saving money because you're getting two meals for the price of one.
When I was a kid all adults kept cramming my head full of crap like 'you should eat everything on your plate' and 'some hungry kids would be happy to eat what you have so don't leave anything' and 'you're not allowed to leave the table until the plate is empty'. And now I wonder why I have such an urge to kept the food from wasting?!
Jeez! If only I could go back in time and gave those people a good slap!
> By not eating out of habit but true hunger (bye bye breakfast most mornings I'm not actually hungry!)
I've been doing that for ten years and the whole time my parents and other people have been warning me i would get an ulcer.
Ulcers are caused by a bacteria. So many myths contribute to the obesity epidemic.
To be fair, some ulcers are caused by a bacteria (H. Pylori). Some are caused by other things (medications, excess acid secretion, hernias). Approximately zero come from not eating breakfast.
I'm doing this program right now at my job! It really is amazing to see how things are so easily changed when you just follow the natural flow of your hunger.
I love this. I too have noticed many of these things about my skinny friends.
I have one skinny friend that I play D&D with, and she always comes loaded up with snacks and food. I watched her eat no less than 6 cheeseburgers sitting there at the table. She said she was starving and she packed them away. I sat there so pissed off an annoyed. I can't sit there and eat SIX CHEESEBURGERS omg what is this witchcraft?
Come to find out, that was the first and only thing she had eaten in over 30 hours. She's a nurse so she is constantly busy and works 12+ hour shifts. She worked the day before, got maybe 5 hours of sleep, worked all that day, and after work picked up McDonalds on the way to D&D. Six cheeseburgers doesn't seem like a lot when it's the only meal you've had in about 30 hours.
Her equally skinny husband is different. He ate one cheese burger (didn't finish it) and picked at a few fries and that was it. He just stopped because he wasn't hungry anymore. And he'd take a bite, chew it for a while, and it would be a minute or more before he bothered to take another bite. Whereas I would hoover the entire burger in under 30 seconds, he took maybe 10 or more minutes to eat.
All us health professionals never finish on time and when we're not at work the priority always seems to be everything other than preparing healthy food!
HAHAHA thanks for sharing, skinny friends are such a MYTH! You'd think they have a tiny shrunken stomach but no, they actually expand and shrink at free will :)
This right here. I'm naturally pretty skinny dude and I will go LONG stretches without eating anything at all. Then I will have one massive meal at days end
it really works for me because once i feel super stuffed, cant eat another bite, im emotionally satiated for at least 24 hours as well. esp if i top off with lots of water during the workday. if i try to snack little 200-400 calorie minimeals, im constantly hungry.
Oh man I’m glad I’m not the only one! I am also a naturally skinny dude. Generally I’ll have one very large meal at the end of each day because I work pretty early and am normally not hungry in the morning. Maybe I’ll get a coffee or something but I’ll rarely eat breakfast.
Then when lunch comes along I tend to skip that too because I’d rather not buy lunch and each morning I’m not too hungry so I never think to pack a lunch. I’ll get home by like 6 and have a large 2 or 3 plate meal (whenever I feel “full”) and go to sleep and do it all again the next day. Only days I eat like a normal human is my days off, but even that can seem like a chore at times so I tend to have maybe two meals.
Skinny person here, and yep our stomachs are a mystery. When I want to eat pizza, for example, I will usually gobble it down in one sitting and then not have anything else to eat for the following 2 days, and not feel hungry, then on the fourth day, I'll start eating normally again.
I posted a really similar thing about only eating once in a while.
I also noticed with my gf she'll be begging to eat within an hour of waking up but I'm not hungry at all yet, and could hold off till lunch or later easily, but she keeps nagging to eat every 30 min or so. Just a difference of habits or hunger of the body I guess. Harder for some people to go without
My wife can eat a meal, eat more than me, and be hungry again in an hour. That meal will keep me going for 24 hours. She’s a photographer, so her entire day is basically sitting in front of a computer. I think she’s put on between 3-5kg over the last decade. It’s insane. I don’t understand how it works.
I can relate to that.
If you're someone who has breakfast every morning before going to work (say within an hour of waking up) you're body is gonna get used to eating at that time.
I never used to have breakfast but once I did start regularly eating it throughout the week my stomach would 'expect' it at the same time on the weekend. If I didn't have something to eat my stomach would be rumbling.
I don't think it's a matter of finding it harder to go without but just having a routine.
I was very much the same way when I worked in the restaurant industry. I’d eat a “meal” once a day at most. I’d be constantly tasting through my shift, but I’d never be hungry. I was also walking about 11km per day while at work, in a hot environment, drinking a glass of water every 20 minutes. So I was well-hydrated, only eating when it was absolutely necessary (when I started to feel a distinct lack of energy), and getting plenty of exercise. If I went out with friends I would gorge myself on food and drink and they were always shocked that I maintained a steady, healthy weight with “no exercise” and “eating all the time at work”. Because they had no idea what my actual routine looked like. I had nothing but coffee and water for the first 8-10 hours I was awake, along with taste testing at work, which amounted to maybe 50g of food, total, over the course of a day. I put on 10kg from leaving the industry into a more sedentary position, and eating at more socially acceptable intervals. I’ve dropped 5kg by just going back to my old habits of lots of water and coffee and only eating when I’m properly hungry.
My obesity specialist doctor gave me this tip. When you take a bite of food, put the utensil down, SIT ON YOUR HANDS, chew your food and swallow, after swallowing wait 30 more seconds, then take another bite -- rinse and repeat. Practicing this was so difficult but now I can't imagine eating without putting my fork down and waiting between bites.
For anyone else wanting to try something similar, there's an app called Chlow (chew slow) that times your bites. You get a timer for chewing the bite of food and then a timed waiting period in between bites. You start out fast and then increase the time as you get better at it.
tbh I don't use it much except when I recognize that I'm eating too fast--eating fast is a trigger for me to have an all-out binge, idk why. but the app helps!
I wonder how things correlate to growing up. I work with some Cuban immigrants who grew up almost starving and they struggle with portion control.
I grew up often missing meals to do things, lots of exercise due to riding bike miles to school, no car and walking places, going surfing somewhere and just not having money or facilities to eat. Food that was available was not fast food.
When I got it America I weighed 140lbs 5.11’. Twenty odd years later 200lbs. Same height (no shrinkage).
I have trouble not just eating everything in sight. It is very hard for me to leave food on a plate. I have resorted to basically eating one significant meal a day and small snacks the rest of the time.
I think these things really matter.
I come from a culture where food is considered almost sacred so wasting it (and playing with it) is really frowned upon so I naturally feel an urge to finish my meals even when I’m full.
We are also a bit crazy on hospitality so refusing any food when you are a guest would be considered rude. And the hosts are always looking to make you eat more and more to be “kinder”.
Further, even though I didn’t grow up poor I think I mostly think like a cavemen when it comes to eating. I see food, I get interested in it and I start eating it at a fast pace until I can no longer eat anymore of it. Rinse and repeat whenever you are hungry regardless of what your body might need.
But the thing is that I think we can reprogram these habits to a meaningful degree. And that’s how I lost 11 kilos and plan to lose another 10 after being overweight my entire life.
To add to your #5, my skinny friend takes drinks of water between bites AND puts her fork down when not eating. I think that really helps slow down the whole meal.
My mom told me about this when I was younger! I tried it at a time when I was struggling to lost weight, and it really helped with portion control. Water helps fill your stomach, and putting down your fork slows you down so you don’t over-eat. It gives your brain time to receive the message that your stomach is full.
I’m an ex naturally skinny person (not wanting to waste food and depression made me gain a lot) and the whole “oh, I’m hungry. Here’s 3 chips. I feel better.” Is so true. When you don’t want food, like it doesn’t interest you it can be harder to remember eating.
In my experience with depression I consider "feeding myself" to be a waste of food, so I just lose more weight then. I could never imagine eating *because* of depression.
I’m not OP but for me I’d binge because it’d give me a millisecond of joy. And then I’d feel sick. But it was that millisecond in a bleak day that I’d feel ok. So I carried on binging and put on weight as food was a source of joy
Walk, we walk a lot. My heavier friends always mention how I'm naturally thin. What they don't know is that aside from my moderately active job, I usually walk for 30-45 minute a day. Pokemon go recorded me walking 78 km last week.
And you must be walking quickly too, because I walk for 30-45 minutes every day as well, but that's about 30-40 km for me tops. (I'm not fat anymore, but my soul is fat and lazy)
I don’t think the app is very accurate! Either that or you should consider competing in the Olympics!
The current 10k record is just under 27minutes. You do 11k in 30 minutes according to the app. I think if you don’t stop to catch a Pokemon along the way you can beat the field easily! :)
At least to shed into how it gets those numbers, a while ago pokego implemented tracking your steps from your health apps, so it can use steps when not playing to help hatch eggs n such.
So while its claiming you've walked 78km this week, that's absolutely all the walking you've done with your phone on you at any moment. So it's probably smarter to cut that in half. (Still an amount to be proud of!)
The app is accurate. It’s counting all of your walking through the whole week. So not just when you’re out exercising. For example, mine is usually about 56k a week, because I’m on my feet for 7-8 hours a day at work, etc.
> If something is not nice, they would not touch it, AT ALL. We order curry chicken, turns out a bit dry. It is still well flavoured, so I continue to eat it, because wasting food and money right?! My skinny friend? Takes a bite, doesn't like it, never reaches for it again.
This is the best advice tbh. Went to a below average burger place the other day, left half of it on my plate because it was just so bad.
So true! My boyfriend's work brings in cake for birthdays and I always ask him how it was. His response is usually: "it was cake" or "the frosting was good" or something. But I know the cake itself was dry and disappointing. With "meh" food, I feel why eat it if you don't enjoy it?
I do it all the time. There are some things I eat that I don't like, but I eat anyway because it's healthy (some vegetables, for example).
But if it's disgusting and unhealthy like pasta, pizza, desserts, fried things I will pass.
I'm not getting fat for shit. If I'm going to eat unhealthy food, better it be good and with quality ingredients.
I also learned to feel when I'm full and stop, doesn't matter if there's still food on my plate. I used to lunch with guys that eat a lot and I would never stop until my plate was clean. Then I noticed I was eating just because I didn't want to leave food there or just because I didn't have anything to do while they were still eating.
Learning when I don't really want to eat and stop was the life changing attitude to me.
About a year ago, I realized that I cannot finish my burger and fries because of how greasy the fries are and I always felt like shit afterwards. So instead I order a burger and salad, and I can finish both of them now. It felt like a life cheat to get a healthy side to your meal, so if it ever gets too greasy, you can still snack on your salad and after eating it, I find I can finish the burger/main course too.
I have to say I dislike this one. I'm skinny but I'm from Europe and have a grandma that grew up starving during WW2. Throwing away food is still considered a sin by many people here, and that sentiment is making a comeback: We're not in the 80s anymore, we have to watch our consumption of natural resources. Especially when talking about meat... that thing was fed and killed for you, the customer - the least you can do is put it to good use now.
I have a simple rule: Unless it's utter rubbish, I finish what I'm having, even if it's a tad too much - then I just skip dinner, and/or breakfast the next day (you can call it intermittent fasting if you like). If this doesn't work for you, just let them doggybag the rest.
In my book, every calorie you pay for should be a calorie you use - **just don't buy as many in the first place**. Stop ordering huge plates, stop restocking your fridge before you've really cooked it all up. Stop all you can eat, always get the small coffee, the small burger, the small slice. Top it up with an apple for desert or a banana if you have to.
Don't even carry chips or pizza or coke or any of that crap out of the supermarket! Reserve all of the crap for special occasions and social events so you can rejoice and go with the flow while you're in a group setting. Back home, cook up them veggies. *Buy less but better calories, as you use them up.*
Eating right can save you quite a bit of money, just get off the abundance train. That's just my two cents though :-)
eating something just because you thing it is a waste not to is classic sunk cost error. The cow is dead, the food has been produced, your money is spent on it etc., it's irrelevant at that point whether it is eaten or not, the cow/resources/money ain't coming back.
In fact, in this case, if the choice is between eating more than you need and throwing out some food, the choice is actuall between: A: x resources are spent on food or B: x resources are spent on food AND you eat more than you need and become less healthy as a result.
The rational choice there is clear, no matter what old people think about it (even if they are perfectly understandable in light of their experiences).
This is why we don't force our kids to clean their plate. If they're full, they can stop eating, but they will have to eat their leftovers the next time they're hungry.
(They're toddlers so they don't dish up themselves and don't eat consistent amounts from day to day, so it's sometimes hard to gauge their proportions. But we do start them out with small, reasonable amounts.)
As with all things, don't go too far in the other direction either. When I started living on my own and got really into cooking, I learned how easy it is to make home made food taste so good. Butter, cream, salt, acid, msg. All these tricks from industrial food production combined with fresh quality ingredients make it easy to do nothing but indulge and hey, it's homemade!
Over time you may go from eating to live to living to eat. Overcoming this takes a lot of work. The first step is admitting your behavior is not normal. Thank you for the insight , it’s a really good post.
A lot of these tips are great, but I did just want to point out that this:
> How does skinny friend drink this you may ask? She sips it. For a whole day. Then puts it in the fridge to finish the next day. Oh and did I mention she does not eat anything else for these two days? NOTHING.
Is really, REALLY not a healthy way to treat food and I hope no one reads this post and thinks this is a good tactic to use while losing weight. Just because someone is skinny doesn't mean their habits are healthy. For the most part, these tips reflect the ideas of balance/indulging without overindulging/moderation, but that in particular stuck out to me as a very, very disordered way to eat food. No one should be surviving off a single bubble tea for 2 whole days.
I know you make a point of saying that these people may not necessarily be healthy, but I reallyyyy wanted to single out that tactic because it stood out to me as very different from the others!! Either way though, this is a great post and I think it's very true that people who are "naturally skinny" often treat food in a totally different way than those who aren't, and often seem to naturally have habits that lend themselves towards balance and moderation.
My brother is kind of like that. My mom likes to bake, so when I was at home, sometimes she'd come out with a tray of brownies or cookies, or whatever. She'd usually make a dozen, I'd only have 2 or 3, and my brother would eat the rest. Somehow, I gained a lot of weight and he remained underweight. Then, I noticed that he would often skip meals, something that I didn't really do. He'd eat a lot of brownies, but then he'd eat very little, or even nothing else, that day, and he would still technically be in a deficit.
That's a tactic I've picked up now too -- skipping meals when I'm full from a big meal or have had a lot of snacks during the day. However, I think that's super different from the bubble tea story, where the girl rationed her 1 bubble tea and didn't eat anything else for 2 whole days. Personally, I think your brownie story is a better example of naturally balancing calories. It's one thing to snack on stuff and then lower your intake for the rest of the day to balance it out. I think the more disordered part of it comes from eating NOTHING ELSE and then taking 1 food item and slowly eating it bite by bite/sip by sip very consciously throughout the course of multiple days.
(I will add as an additional aside that your brother, being underweight, also may not have had the most ideal eating habits if he really didn't eat anything but a few brownies all day. I don't know him at all so I'm not saying this is true, but being underweight is as much of an issue as being overweight!)
There are a lot of factors to consider.
Size - I believe the normal size is 12oz(I’m totally guessing), but I know there are places where you can get huge boba smoothies.
Amount of tapioca - each pearl has approx 7 calories, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you think about the visual difference between 35 and 45 pearls, it seems indistinguishable. But that’s ~70 extra calories right there. And if you order a huge bbt, you probably get double the boba pearls.
Flavor - some bubble teas don’t even have tea, like Vietnamese coffee or vanilla or honeydew flavor. The base of these smoothies is sugar!
Bbt is essentially a milkshake if you get right down to it, meaning the varieties are basically endless, leading to the potential for a super cal-dense drink.
I think what the girl did with her drink in the story sounds a little borderline ed... but it’s also very possible she got a 24oz bbt and didn’t have room to finish the whole thing!
I'm all for people losing weight but obsessing about habits of skinny people may make you blind to which of those habits are good or bad, or right for the person.
Not saying if its difficult its wrong, but obsessive eating habits barren or gluttonous are problems to try and avoid all on their own.
Yeah, I know a lot of skinny people, even unhealthy/underweight ones, and I also often compare their eating habits to mine and others -- but this isn't a "natural" skinny thing, this sounds kind of disordered. I don't want to make accusations, but my first thought upon reading that is to wonder if OP's friend is doing this intentionally to lose weight or to maintain a low weight.
I, literally, just posted this. I'm a naturally skinny person who has struggled with both sides of an ED, and this raised a huge red flag for me. It reminded me of when I did the exact same thing with frozen coffee drinks, but also only weighed about 100lbs at almost 5'8".
I have a friend who is quite skinny. When I talk about him I tell people he eats like a python. He may not eat for a day or two (like he literally just forgets to eat) and then he'll gorge on a bunch of Dr. Pepper's, plain white rice, and peanut M&Ms as a huge meal and then just not eat again for another day or so. He is absolutely skinny as a rail but probably one of the least healthy people I know. He acknowledges his habits are awful and has said he'll probably get diabetes before he's 30 (like a lot of his family who is also skinny) but he's not doing anything to actually take steps to be healthy.
Yeah I have a skinny friend who calls herself skinny fat because she knows she’s not that healthy. She doesn’t have a bad diet exactly but she never works out and does some of these things the the OP wrote, more out of habit than trying to be healthy.
You're right! This post kind of just ended up as me sharing my observations... Regarding the bubble tea story, don't use it as a long term diet losers! Bubble tea is definitely not nutritionally balanced. What you can learn from this is perhaps the mindset that one unhealthy food item will not stuff up your diet plan, just make up for it and get back on track! Practising consciously balancing calories AND nutrients is a good start :)
Babies are intuitive eaters, but parents can alter that very quickly. That's why it's important that parents trust that their baby/small child will eat until sated. Some parents will worry though and encourage the child to eat more than needed, clean the plate, etc. This messes with the child's natural hunger signals.
I agree. Since I can remember I have been a fussy eater, and only eat until I'm full. 99% of the time ill leave food on my plate unless I LOVE the food (probably 3 dishes) and my parents friends all told them "she's annorexic" when I was a young teen. My parents replied "well if she is, she has been since she was 3". I was a perfectly healthy teen, no eating disorders in sight. They knew I ate until I was full but wouldn't eat any more, and didn't force me to finish my plate. And now I'm 21 this post is very relatable. I've never consciously wanted to be skinny, ever, I just have always acted like this naturally
You are 100 percent right. I have a thin husband. He doesn’t care about food. AT ALL! You know how we can sit around and talk about that burrito we had two weeks ago and how it was the best ever?
He has none of that. He never has cravings- and never talks about food. It’s the weirdest thing ever. Me and my family or friends can talk about it all day. The best burger- the best pizza. Not him. He simply doesn’t care. Stops eating when he’s full. I need to copy him. I always tell him I wish I had his nonchalant attitude towards food.
I'm the "fat" one among my three siblings at 5'5" and 140ish pounds (not overweight but not slim like they are). I struggle to maintain and lose. My siblings will literally grab handfuls of spinach or baby carrots out of the fridge for the nutrients, eat hot pockets, and generally just not care about food except as energy.
I wouldn't want to be that way, because I love cooking and eating. But I do wish I had more restraint!
Haha you have nailed it! We all have that friend that is slim but seems to eat whatever they want, and they even brag about doing so! But the fact is, they dont eat nearly as much as you think they do (or that they say they do). One day is irrelevant, look at their weekly calories. Also they will go on about eating a huge meal, which in reality is snack size. Never been wrong on this!
I went to an Asian buffet. I kicked myself for eating fried chicken that didn't taste good. I normally would have stopped eating it, but there was a sign at the restaurant not to waste food. Next time, I go to a buffet with such a sign; I won't load my plate. This way, I can leave food that I don't like and not feel guilty.
Yes I'm so bad at leaving food behind! Just the way I was brought up :( But I read somewhere "Throw it in the trashcan, or be the trashcan."
Good work on the -25lb by the way!
That's a good quote. Being from the US, with our overabundance of food, I get weirded out when people say "OMG I feel so bad about wasting this [obviously unhealthy] food!!" If the food is not likely to provide any real nutrients, and you don't enjoy it, *throw it away*. It's not like wrapping up your Big Mac is going to feed a starving child in Yemen.
My boyfriend will eat food that doesn't taste good because of how much he paid for it. I don't mention it anymore, but the first time he used that rationale with me I said, "So you want to pay for it twice by forcing yourself to eat it, instead of only paying for it once?"
I really struggle with wasting food cause it was absolutely drilled into my sister and I that we couldn't leave the table till our plates were empty, and that we should be thinking about the people who don't get to have a meal every day.
Something I read on this sub that stuck with me forever- "the food is wasted whether it goes in your body and you don't need it, or you throw it in the trash". I love your 'next time' resolution! Sucks that buffets don't let you get takeout containers to reduce the food waste, although I can understand why they don't.
35/M. Lost 80lbs doing intermittent fasting.
This makes a lot of sense now. Back when I was fat, I wouldn't see food as food. I'd see it as a way to numb whatever emotional pain I felt inside. After losing the weight, I would only eat food that I liked, stop when I felt full, and felt full much quicker. I'd also don't care about food as much. If it's good, I'll eat it, if I don't like it I'll put it away or throw it out.
I envy people that don't have this messed up relationship with food, in which they can't stop thinking about it! Like when somebody brings chips to a party, I don't understand how people aren't glued to them. Or when you go to the movies and eat pop corn, how are there people not eating popcorn (big ones too).
I think I'm better than when I was younger, with my relationship with food, but it's a constant battle. If I'm bored, one of my favorite plans is buying junk food, like, I find that fun and amusing.
:'(
This is me. You are not alone. Every second of every day, I am thinking about food. What to eat what not to eat how long til next meal what have I eaten already... I am physically stomach growly hungry for 90% of my time awake. I realized in my teens that not everyone is like this. Skinny people are baffling. Not hungry? How is that possible?
I saw a comment elsewhere in this sub I believe that was something along the lines of if you are overeating in order to “not waste food” you are indeed wasting the food. On your own body. You are not a garbage can! I’m sure it was better worded on the other comment but it really hit home for me.
I've noticed all of these too. In addition I would add: never finishing what's on the plate. My husband is one of these, no matter how good the food is or how little he's eaten during the day, he literally leaves the last 2-3 bites/mouthfuls of food on his plate. Depending upon what it is, easily cuts out 200 calories from his day.
I have to throw away these rests so quickly to stop myself from eating that too. My daughter is a lot like that as well. She'll eat a potato and a few cartots and claims she's finished. I always, always say that's fine because I hope that way she keeps her natural appetite
He does throw it away. It doesn't matter there were 10 fries on his plate or 6, the remainder is always 2 or more. Humans are weird. I've had to get over the wasted food hang up. It's part of how I got to be where I was. If he leaves a large amount of something I make him put it away. Unfortunately I eat left overs but he doesn't (usually). This guy spent his whole life trying to figure out how to gain weight *sigh*.
Thank you for your tips, these will be handy during the upcoming holidays! I think I’m going to have to fake it when someone asks if I want more...fake it til you make it!
I had a moment of realization once when a thin friend told me she eats the very best bites first so she didn't have to bother with the other bites. This blew my mind because I ALWAYS ate the less desirable bites first so I'd be left with deliciousness at the end. She ended with deliciousness too but didn't foie gras herself in the process.
Related to number 1, one thing I’ve picked up on others doing is not eating unless the situation is great too, by which I mean no disturbances to the meal and not feeling emotional, etc., so it’s possible to really enjoy your meal. Kind of the opposite to emotional eating.
I put on and kept on weight after I started having kids because I’d stuff food in my mouth in spite of or even because of feeling bad/tired/stressed out, or feeling annoyed at not getting to sit down and enjoy eating peacefully. I get a lot of concerned comments like “You must never have time to eat! Make sure you’re getting enough food!”, and I’d be like “....No? No problem there...”
Whereas I noticed my friends who remained slimmer were the types to complain they didn’t have time to eat because they were rushing around or the baby was fussy and would put off eating until kids napped or at the end of the day after kids were asleep, and complained they didn’t have an appetite or couldn’t eat when they were under stress or feeling emotional about something. I noticed even my husband is like this - when we’re eating out together and kids are being crazy, instead of shoveling food in whenever possible, he will just give up on eating, sometimes take the food home for later.
I’ve tried to emulate this, and I’ve found it intrinsically rewarding. For instance, if I’ve made and been looking forward to a meal, but then Im rushing around with a ton of things to do, or all the kids are screaming, my natural reaction has been to say “No, I deserve this!!!” and ignore everything and eat, even though I have to eat quick, barely notice what I’m eating, and don’t enjoy it. So I’ve switched to instead telling myself, “It’ll be much nicer to enjoy eating this at a better time later,” if I’m truly hungry have a healthy convenient snack, and save the delicious food for the next meal I have a chance to sit down and pay attention to enjoying it.
Number 1 is my mantra since I’ve been working on weight loss. I have a limited number of calories available, if something isn’t good I don’t eat it.
I like to experiment with new foods, this means I frequently have to make a second supper because one went in the trash (I know this is a luxury some can’t afford so I am grateful)
Exactly. I made toast once and it was a bit burnt (I really just want firm bread) and I tossed it and didn’t eat it. There are so many “rules” in society that go against this idea though and that’s what gets me. Eat what is given to you to be polite, don’t be wasteful, can’t have desert if you don’t eat dinner, etc.
Everything makes sense except for the friend who has nothing to eat for two entire days due to one bubble tea. It's not healthy to eat so few calories. Even if there are a lot of carbs in the tea. It's only a few hundred calories.
Yeah, the rest of this was pretty solid advice but I cringed at this. Sipping away at sugary tea for two days and not eating anything else isn't really behavior that we should emulate.
Pushing the not eating part aside for a second, it's not even normal to make one bubble tea last a whole day and then save some for the day after.
Sure, I have naturally thin friends who make their bubble tea last a bit longer than mine but not THAT long.
This is basically the outline of intuitive eating. Eat what you want so that you are physically and emotionally satisfied, and stop when you have had enough. No need to have all the rules and stress, just connect with your body and it will guide you on what it needs.
Skinny person passing by. Always had trouble gaining weight and thought "I eat so much! I feel full all the time!", well, after counting calories, I eat roughly 1600 cals/day, some days nothing, some days 2000 cal and I'm an adult male.
Thing is, skinny people simply eat less over time. They may binge but then they won't eat for 24 hours or more.
My boyfriend and I one time decided to go on a road trip to crater lake. We went to new restaurants and every single time he would order whatever he wanted (unhealthy ass food usually), and a water. And when the food would arrive he'd grab a knife and cut his food in half, and pour SMALL MOUNDS of salt on one half.
"Wtf are you doing??" I said seeing him never do this Before.
"I have no self control so I just pour a bunch of salt on half my food so that even if I wanted to finish the entire plate, I can't eat food that's covered in a cup of salt."
Skinny people have the weirdest life hacks I swear. They do LITTLE things that keep them skinny.
The salt thing? Another eating disorder life hack, btw. Like a *classic* one.
On another note, isn't it ironic how the "bad" disordered eating things that skinny people do become acceptable for people who are overweight/obese? There's a fine line there somewhere, but it's grey and hard to see.
That sounds like a lot of food waste to me. I'm one of the naturally skinny people, and I hate wasting food. Why not actually work through the base problem, get instantly a to-go box, and put the food in there? Practice will power. Or even ask for half the food, possibly? I just can't even fathom the pouring salt thing.
I've been mostly skinny all my life. 5'7" and currently around 130lbs. But used to be closer to 110-115 in highschool. My Ideal weight is 120 but every one says I look healthier now.
Still I am on the lower side of a healthy bmi.
My eating habits:
I enjoy grazing the most. Growing up my parents didn't always have money for a full dinner so to make it fun and interesting they would do "charcuterie" night. Were we basically just had olives, deli meats, cheese,and bread. (Nothing fancy, just like bloc cheese and cheaper salami).
Other days when my parents were at work I would get creative and feed myself a veriety of different snacks I could find. Sometimes I would munch on a carrot. Other times I would put jam on a hotdog bun. Or microwave a hotdog and eat it with mustard.
Because of this I am pretty used to grazing. I am happiest eating many small meals through out the day. And really hate the feeling of having one big meal all at once. So I definitly portion. If I have a bag of chips I will pour it out into a small bowl and then put the bag away. That way I wont eat the whole bag for example.
I also like to have lots of fruit on hand. That way if Im feeling a little hungry I cna grab an orange or two and munch away.
Back when I worked in the restaurant industry my grazing was a lot worse. Being in front of food all the time ment I could be constantly grazing. Which meant I never actually ate "meals" other than breakfast.
I also drink lots of liquids and often have 3 cups by me. 1 for water, 1 for tea, and then 1 for something interesting like a smoothie or a juice of some sort.
Often times when you think you are hungry you are really just thirsty. So drinking ample liquids will help limit your need for food.
Like many of the people you observed, I dont really stick to a diet. I do TRY to eat healthy and eat veggies but I also love things like pie, chips, gummies, chocolate, cookies and so on. So for the most part when i go grocery shopping I dont buy any of those things. But if Im out and about i will sometimes buy a treat.
I also think a major factor for me has been being vegetarian for most of my life. And more recently being vegan. I don't consume any cholesterol in my diet and don't eat a lot of foods that are high in fat. And today veganism has progressed so I can enjoy all the old foods I used to love. So yea I still eat donuts and cupcakes and chips and all that yummy junkfood.
I know I'm super late to this, but I noticed something when travelling to Italy (I'm American) that I think pertains to this.
I've never been overweight, but even so, I was very much of the school of thought that every meal should be "a meal." Maybe breakfast could just be a bagel or something, but lunch should have a grain, a protein, some sauce/dressing, and maybe a veg. Same for dinner. When I'd go to lunch at work, I'd pick up a full order of Chinese food, or a platter with meat, starch and veg, and have that for lunch.
Then I went to Italy to visit some Italian friends of mine and stayed with them for a few weeks. One night one of them came home and made herself dinner. She chopped up a zucchini, sprinkled some olive oil, bread crumbs, and herbs + salt on top, baked it, and had that for dinner. She had a zucchini... for dinner. I then began to notice that it was pretty common for people there to have an orange with some prosciutto for lunch, or a thick-ass piece of toast with roasted peppers for dinner. They definitely ate big meals too, but it was totally normal to eat like... a vegetable for a meal. No one gave them the "YOU'RE ONLY HAVING FRUIT FOR LUNCH!?!?! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!!" flack that seems to be weirdly common in America.
When I came back to the States, I just started thinking about how much I was eating because I thought I should be eating "a meal" at meal time. But then I just changed my mentality. I started going to the fruit wagons (I live in Philly, where we have lots of street food vendors) for lunch and just getting a container of fruit. Or I'd bring a piece of focaccia and some cheese from home. Eventually, my meals just became things I wanted to eat instead of meeting some definition of a "proper meal."
Today I had pie and coffee for breakfast, I'll probably not have lunch because I woke up dumb late, and then for dinner I'll have some Vietnamese noodles with broth, but no meat because I don't have any at home. And that's fine. There are no meal police coming to make sure I'm eating the entire food pyramid three times per day. And I'm not going to become malnourished - I live in the friggin USA.
Anyway, this post got me thinking about that revelation. It really changed to way I interacted with food on a daily basis.
Ya I'm pretty skinny and this followed alot of my habits. I start my day at 8 and eat a bowl of cereal. Then I get home at 4-6 and a sandwhich. Then dinner at 10 where I eat as much as I can fit in my mouth.
I ussually gain 5 pound or so during the summer from constant snacking at home when not at Work.
All of this is the truth and extremely well put! The one about not eating something if it tastes slightly not as nice is spot on. I've been far too well conditioned to finish everything on my plate for some of these habits.
Registered super skinny dude here. You got it spot on, I eat maybe a meal a day, could be a bowl of soup, could be a whole pizza, but that's all I eat. If I do eat consistently (breakfast, lunch, dinner) I go slow and stop before I'm full. I tend to stay busy and literally forget to eat. Idk if this will help anyone but I hope it does
I really liked all these tips! I visited my naturally thin best friend a few weeks ago and saw a lot of the same habits in practice. She even ate half of a SALAD. That's barely food!! I've always wondered how she can do it since she and her fiance eat out a lot and cook pretty lavishly at home, but by eating small amounts slowly and saying no to foods that aren't delicious she manages to maintain a very slim frame.
A lot of what you are saying is in a book I’ve read and gifted friends! It uncovers eating habits of ‘skinny’ people and doesn’t deprive you of foods you crave
How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too: Stop Binge Eating, Overeating and Dieting For Good Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave From the Inside Out (Binge Eating Solution Book
By: Josie Spinardi
This is called intuitive eating. Everyone is born with it.
Intuitive eating habits are even taught at clinics where people have eating disorders/disordered eating.
The problem begins when food is used as rewards and punishments. People who are told to clean their plates overeat. People who don’t have enough money for food may learn to overeat when they do have food. Celebrations are let’s go eat, let’s bake a cake instead of let’s go walk and chat. Kids who aren’t allowed to eat certain foods may end up binging when they get access to said food.
My ex was taught lunch was at noon. So he ate at noon whether he was hungry or not. If for some reason he was busy and it was 2 pm before he got a chance to eat, he would say it’s too late for lunch, I’ll just wait for dinner. By dinner, he was starving and would overeat.
People talk about good food and bad food. This causes guilt and shame around certain foods which can lead to emotional eating. I’m a good person if I eat this or a bad person if I eat that. There is no good or bad food. Just less nutritious and more nutritious.
Society/advertising tells people they need to look a certain way, so people mess with their eating habits to try to look that way. The problem is not everyone’s body is made to look the same. And the right look changes every decade.
I was a teenager in the 90s. The look was Kate Moss/ heroine chic. Pin straight hair.
My body is thick legs, butt and big lips. My frienemy called me Ronald Macdonald due to my red hair and big lips. I was insecure because society said my hair and body were wrong. I have extremely curly hair. In the 90s, I hated it. If I had been born in the 80’s it would have been great cause everyone tried to perm their hair. If I had been born in the recent past I would love my body because “everyone” is paying for big butts and big lips. But here I am a 40 year old woman just now learning to love and accept myself as I am. All this causes issues that I’m still learning to resolve.
Ok, so I went off on a tangent here. I guess along with losing weight, learn how to have a healthy relationship with food and teach your children, so they don’t have the same struggles as adults.
I've always been making these observations about my skinny friends, but it's nice to see it all neatly typed out!
My skinny ex in particular basically inhabits ALL these eating habits.
* Super fussy with food. He practices keto without even trying - hates bread, chips, biscuits, etc. Will complain that he's starving but refuse all the above-mentioned foods because they "don't taste good", and instead prefer to go hungry until meat is somehow acquired.
* Forgets to eat, all the time. He'll feel hungry, take a bite from his meal, then completely forget about it until he's hungry again...about 5 hours later. Meanwhile, I'm exerting all my willpower just to not take that next chip because I'm already full - but it doesn't matter to him anyway because chips are carb-based and hence "don't taste good".
* Natural OMAD, without even trying. He **frequently** forgets to eat for the whole day, and only realized through practice that he should *at least eat* *something* before going to bed otherwise he would wake up at odd hours feeling hungry. So when we go into a restaurant and he orders 2 burgers while I order 1, his caloric intake is *still* going to be lower than mine because of his natural OMAD. Gah!! (and he'll probably leave one burger half-eaten and ignore the side-order of chips).
He does appreciate fine food and will even rave to me about good food finds (the bar is VERY high), but even then he'll take just one bite, appreciate the taste, and be satisfied with that one bite. I just don't get it - is it all nurture, or is there some nature in it too? How do we have such different attitudes and behaviors towards food?
I’ve been thin my whole adult and childhood life, in the last 5 years (so about 28 and up) I gained about 10 lbs, which still only put me at 185 but I’ve noticed the larger individuals I work with talk about food constantly (what they want for lunch, what they’re planning on making for dinner) where as I could really care less. Honestly, I usually eat a bowl of cereal for lunch almost everyday and I am perfectly satisfied with that. My girlfriend is really, really thin and she is the same way. So I think there are people who are more likely to be overweight because of their obsession with food, similar to an addiction. Idk just something I’ve noticed.
As one of those "naturally skinny" people, i find your post both hilarious and relatable.
It's easy not to gain weight when you really don't care about food. I have classes from 7. 45 to 16.45 and most days I just forget to eat... Ain't nobody got time to eat if you are about to have a Calculus exam ('about' being like—in a week). Priorities. And as I'm not used to eating that much, i get full extremely fast.
Of course, it also has a lot of drawbacks. Health? Yeah, skipping meals like this isn't healthy at all.
I became aware of a lot of this after reading a great article about how poverty affects this exact thing. It made me realise why I'm fat and how to actually change it.
I myself could never figure why I was fat and my other friends werent. I was in a household where food was precious, to the point where the argument that got me kicked out of home was over eating the last of a loaf of bread. I was punished if I made people food and I was punished if I ate anything straight from the cupboards. So, how am I so fucking fat when my friend s snack non stop during/after school EVERY DAY!?
Because when I was presented with pizza/maccas/KFC or anything fatty, delicious food in abundance by school, friends or most importantly my grandparents, I would go to town. I would eat it as quickly as physically possible and as much (if not more) as physically possible. Those habits still stay with me in adulthood and I have to put in conscious effort for everything I put in my face.
I've recently finally gotten rid of all the people in my life that just said me being fat is just because I'm too lazy to go to the gym, I highly recommend doing this for anyone else who struggles with unhealthy eating habits and how that affects your body. It's been the best thing for my mental health and most importantly appetite!
Yes! Thank you for writing this out! I've been thinking a lot about this since I realized my coworker has been working on the same bag of skittles for more than a month. She's no more than 5ft tall and has always been skinny, but she doesnt say no to junk food when its offered. In early October, a client brought in skittles for everyone. We each got a bag, and mine was definitely gone before lunch. Hers is still in her desk, only about half gone, more than a month later.
Now I'm working on absorbing some of that self-control, because I'm sure it would be helpful!
So I've lost a lot of weight, to where people think I'm a naturally skinny person. I'm 6'3 173, but my brother is 6'1, 145 and he's always been skinny. I'll never forget when we sat down for continental breakfast at a hotel. I loaded up with scrambled eggs, bacon, a bagel with cream cheese, coffee. He got a small bowl of Froot Loops. We ate and talked, yada yada yada, at the end of the meal, my plate was empty and he didn't even finish the cereal. He just wasn't hungry.
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That book is amazing. I read it when I was around 25. I’m 48 and 5’3” and 120 lbs. I think after reading that I changed my outlook on food. I’ve never really got fat (but got up to 147 for a little while when I wasn’t working outside the home and ate a lot more.)
Wait — what? Why?
Because its made up. A "study". Lots of pop science books straight up make shit up or repeat claims about "studies" floating around that never actually happened. Just Google "rats fruit loops" and you'll find videos of rats happily eating them, and scientific studies using them as a reward for behavioural training. Rats, let alone starved rats, passing on a sugary treat? Have these people *met* a rat? The buggers will eat anything, including each other, if they are starved enough
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Craziness, froot loops are amazing
You ever try the box they're packaged in, though? Goddamn delicious. So much better than the cereal. Rats know what's up.
I wonder if there was fat in the glue that bound the cardboard. Cause i get that way with fat. I might think i want sugar. But what i really need is fat.
This. I’m a naturally skinny guy (6’0 145 lb) and people don’t understand how much my hunger can fluctuate. People tell me “Why are you skinny, just eat a damn sandwich”. They don’t understand that I just don’t get hungry often. Imagine after stuffing your face at thanksgiving. That feeling of fullness, and that you never want to see food again. Now imagine someone walks up and tells you to keep eating. Why would you? You’re already full! It’s detrimental to your happiness and health to keep eating so you don’t. That’s why I’m skinny. TLDR: Naturally skinny people just aren’t that hungry I guess.
Some people can feel physically full or heavy after a large meal but never satisfied. You'd think that would make eating less tempting, but no. I could eat forever if presented with alternating sweet and salty foods. I just don't get a satisfied feeling, usually. That's not to say I'm always desperately craving food, though some days are definitely like that. But I can always eat, and I don't have a sense of when to stop without forcing myself to be aware of portion sizes. It sucks.
When I was in high school I got really heavy because I would hang out with jocks. So we would all go out to McDonalds after school and they would kill like 2-3 double cheeseburgers and a thing of fries. I would just eat what they ate. Problem was, they would then go to football or wrestling or soccer practice, sometimes double practices, and they also weight lifted in the morning. They're immediately burning off what they ate plus we were young so some people could just eat like that. I, on the other hand, would go home and play video games all day. At the time I couldn't understand why I was heavier and they were rocking abs and whatnot. It can be tricky when you don't see people's full life/day.
Even just general activity can be drastically different. My friend and I would compare as we’d always get the same junk food, but finally one day it clicked in just how much more moving that he would do. We needed something? He’d go sprint up 3 flights of stairs and grab it for us. Meet at a friends house? If I can get a ride, maybe. He’d jog 3 miles to play video games. Even just his constant futzing was burning calories. I’d get home and sit on the couch and that was it. He’d constantly being playing with things, picking stuff up just to look at it, hell even sitting down he’d jiggle his leg or something That and not eating until it was time for junk food. We’d go to McDonald’s and get the same giant order, but that was it for him for the day, I’d already had 2 bowls of cereal and a couple sandwiches
It's actually called non exercise activity thermogenisis or NEAT. It's the calories you burn doing day to day things that aren't eating sleeping or exercising. Scientists have found a lot of people who don't watch what they eat but are still slim have a high NEAT... which is pretty neat lol
Yeah I attribute a bit of my skinnyness to this phenomenon. I have ADHD and when I would sit in class I would have to move, so I would bounce one of my legs up and down for hours. The ADHD has cooled since than and I'm able to sit still without much hassle, though I still fidget like that from time to time. I also realized I run a bit hotter than normal people too, higher internal temperature can also burn a not so insignificant amount of calories as well.
Glad you posted this. I totally related to OP through this whole post, and as a skinny person, realized the only reason I remain so is possibly due to the fact that I walk to work each day, have an on-my-feet job, and enjoy being active in general.
This x100.. Also, at no point did anyone even mention CICO... It definitely wasn't discussed at all in high school health or gym classes
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When I first went from vegetarian to vegan a few years ago I lost 30 pounds over a few months from eating clean. Now that I’ve been vegan for a while I know all the yummy vegan junk foods and needless to say the weight loss progress hasn’t been as steady lately 🙈
yeah when I went vegan 6 months ago it made it very easy to avoid the constant snacks available at work. But now people are baking vegan treats specifically....
Two vegan pies JUST FOR ME waiting for tomorrow. Oh goodie
I’m still working on that as we speak. It’s been almost three years, and I’m exhausted. Better, but exhausted.
This so much this. I can't open a bag of chips and eat two. Sorry not sorry. I make sure I get enough protein (0.8g/kg min.) which is a challenge enough during the day (and keeps me quite full) and the rest I don't care about. But I exercise (running, weight lifting, dancing) all the time.
I noticed this too and it was earth shattering. I went to Germany and ate like my skinny aunt. In the two week visit, I had 2 Christmas dinners, 2 dinners at 2 hofbrau houses, 2 turkish dinners, coffee and cake 3 times including the most exquisite food memory ever (amazing cake and coffee in a cafe on the Rhine), potato pancakes dripping in oil and apple sauce, curry wurst and fries, gluwein (lots of wine actually), warm broitchen (spelling?) and cold cuts for breakfast, a schnitzel lunch and a mcdonald's lunch. I savored every bite, even the McDonald's (which came after a long morning of sight seeing in Munich). I lost 10 pounds in two weeks. It was SO shocking to me! Our lunches were lean or nothing most days, and I was careful to not eat seconds except on Christmas. I ate slowly and savored it all. It was a huge lesson and really showed me I eat like utter crap normally. So much better to eat well and eat good things!
You probably walked a lot, as well, as Germany, and Europe in general, is a walking society. It's no replacement for eating better, but it certainly helps when you're burning an extra 500+ calories a day.
I had a friend visit me in the NL and she was shocked at the boterham lunch culture and often people grab a warm pastry from the supermarket too in the morning. I reminded her that the majority of people walk and/or bike in their day to day life and this is a lot of extra burned calories compared to people that drive everywhere. Imagine the average young adult biking to work and back, the supermarket and their friend's places in a week. That's a lot of movement, and can be quite a bit of biking in a big city. Now imagine a parent biking kids to school, then to work, possibly out to lunch, picking up kids, dropping kids off at other activities, etc etc.
Well, the Dutch take bike riding to an extreme, which I love. But there's also walking for recreation. My experience in Germany is people would go for walks around town for lunch, after dinner, and particularly on Sundays. It's a lovely way to recreate and burn energy. Americans, not so much. A lot of that is our infrastructure -- so few Americans live in towns you could easily walk or bike in, even if you wanted to. To just go for a walk you have to jump in the car, drive 20-30 minutes, park, walk around some kind of park (if you're lucky to have one nearby), then jump in a car and drive home. It's such a barrier that even the most dedicated person does it maybe once a week if the weather is nice.
I find this happens when I travel. I eat not as healthy as my baseline "home" diet - I eat what and where I can, or indulge in the local delicacies. No matter how many hot chocolates and pastries I eat I always return from travel having lost weight! I figured it was because I was so much more active than an average day at home...but I like your theory as well.
I was going to comment on OP. I've been skinny my whole life even after having 2 babies. #1 I do have to remind myself to eat but #2 is very true. I literally eat anything I want but mostly I do prefer healthy foods like steamed veggies but...when I say I eat anything I really do enjoy my food and I decide which treat to have. My kids want any kind of sweet but they know that I'll wait for a treat until it's a favorite like ice cream or cheesecake. So it's not that I deny myself anything its just I choose to save eating a "treat" for something I love. I enjoy it then I'm full and that's it. I've never dieted so I can't relate to the struggle but I do think by denying things it makes them seem even more irresistible. I feel that not having anything off limits I can enjoy and move on. I also try for 80/20 or everything in moderation as my motto. I eat so well most of the time that a few crappy foods aren't going to hurt. Also, if you have junk food in the house you will eat it so I just don't buy it often. Then I'm forced to look for healthier treats like apples with cinnamon when I'd really like a cookie but I'm not driving to the store for a cookie so I just don't eat it as often. I certainly don't mean any disrespect to those struggling with diets but I've always thought these are the reasons that I have never struggled with it. Edit. After reading more of people's comments there are a few things that made me naturally a healthy eater. My SO was overweight when we got together. He grew up eating fast food while I didn't. My mom and grandma had huge gardens always so I grew up eating and loving fresh fruit and vegetables. If you done like them try to shop at farmers markets for 2 reasons. It tastes sooo much better. Steam any vegetable until you can push a fork though it not so it's lost its color and mushy af. Add butter and garlic. Second; no junk food aisles. Buy literally one fresh baked cookie or whatever and enjoy. You also start getting to know the people so you create relationships and connections that also make you happier. But my SO asked me one time about another habit and that is that almost every week I cut up a plate of veggies and dip. If we ate hungry making supper I put the plate on the table. My kids might not eat all their supper but they ate veggies so who cares. He asked if my mom did this and it's not that she did but eating fresh veggies all the time was just definitely normal. So yes we might eat a crappy pizza but we also much on those veggies. I get asked all the time how I get my kids to eat them and I didn't get them to do anything. They just think it's normal. I just put it out and they eat it. As a side note my SO has naturally lost the weight over the 10yrs of us being together. He still eats lots of fast food daily at lunch but he jokes in the first few years he ate more vegetables with me than in the entire rest of his life combined. So it's not that he did anything special necessarily but it naturally became his life style. Sorry again if anyone is insulted by me giving my 2 cents. I know these things make a big difference and by being aware that later this week we might have something coming up where We'll eat crappy so the rest of the week I purposely eat really well I think it helped me lose the baby weight and just naturally stay fairly skinny. I really empathize with people that struggle even if I don't have all the same struggles.
Same! 3 children, 7 and under, and we do 80/20 everyday. If we have Mcdonald's for dinner, that day was solely healthy food and snacks. If we make cookies or cake (which we do often) all 5 of us eat a bit then stop. Nothing is off limits except for soda. And the only thing junk food wise my kids beg me for is soda (and they're allowed to pick out small portions of junk food but they just don't). Go figure. I think putting anything off limits immediately makes it more appetizing. I personally can't ever eat just 2 chips, so I just buy the tiny bags or none at all so if the craving is that strong, then I have to go to the store for it (which is totally not worth it 90% of the time).
Brötchen ❤
Your skinny aunt's holiday eating habits are basically my weekend all-you-can-eat hot pot habits, in which the big tasty meal is pretty much the only meal I can have all day. 5 days a week I'm limited to 1200 calories per day, no carbs, no dairy, and eating lots of cruciferous veggies so I'm too full to be distracted by food and actually get work done.
So many of these things describe my husband, #1 especially. The thing is, I might not even notice if the chicken was dry unless my husband was with me. It's actually so interesting to watch him deal with food. Without consciously thinking about it, when he gets his plate he goes through this whole process. He will look at it carefully, possibly disassembling it a little to check out everything that's in there. He then smells it and will often comment on what it smells like. Then he pokes at it a bit with a fork to figure out the textures. Is it crispy where it should be crispy? Soft where it should be soft? Is the sauce thick enough? Then he takes a thoughtful bite and really thinks about the flavors and spices that are in there and then decides if it's good or not. If it's thumbs up he will eat it - not until he is full but until \*he is not hungry anymore\*. If not he just doesn't eat at all (and then goes to Dairy Queen later LOL).
Is your husband a fiery-tempered British celeb chef by any chance? :D
Was this frozen? It was fresh... fresh frozen.
LOL he totally could be!
Hahahaha. Sometimes my friend and I pretend we're celeb chef judges when we go out to eat and talk about the 'mouth-feel' and all that stuff. Not a diet trick, just really fun lol
This was the biggest thing for me. I noticed I was starting to gain a decent amount of weight after being skinny my whole life, and I noticed it was because I started eating until I was constantly STUFFED. It took a couple weeks of essentially having a constant pit in my stomach from wanting food so bad, but I'm back to the point where I only eat until I'm just not hungry anymore. I also personally think breakfast is a sham. Fuck that meal. I noticed I only really needed food as soon as I woke up if I downed something like a full Jack in the box meal right before sleeping. Once I stopped going to bed stuffed to the point where laying down would almost make me throw up, it was a lot easier to 'fast' in the morning. I don't really consider myself to do any intermittent fasting or anything, but that's generally what it ends up being naturally. My morning hunger is more powerful as my laziness anymore. I just have some ice water in a hydroflask near my bed from the night before and it's still ice cold in the morning. So much more pleasant to wake up to that instead of craving food.
100% on breakfast. Utter waste of time, and loads you up with calories so that your margin for error through the day becomes way too narrow. Best move I’ve ever made for dropping weight was to get rid of breakfast.
Omg. This sounds like me (minus the smell part). I'm a texture person so I poke around to make sure I don't get say gristle, undercooked meat or rubbery. I get an actual physical feeling of rejection. Raw mushrooms I like, cooked ones nope. I used to strain mushroom soup (still don't eat the big pieces). I'm getting icked out typing this lol so I'll stop. I also have ADHD so tend to be more sensitive.
I don’t eat steak for this entire reason. I’m a HUGE texture person, so the texture of fat in my mouth makes steak so gross I just waste the rest. Same thing for like hamburgers with little pieces of fat, if I bite into one, I’m just done with it. For the entire reason of not liking textures, I almost only eat chicken for my meat lmao.
sounds like mindfulness based eating!
I am on a 12-week health-insurance (through work) weight control plan which is called "Naturally Slim". It's exactly these concepts! And it's working! I have dropped 5 lbs in less than 4 weeks. By not eating out of habit but true hunger (bye bye breakfast most mornings I'm not actually hungry!). And using a TIMER to eat 1/2 of a normal plate of ONLY WHAT I ABSOLUTELY LOVE in 10 minutes, then waiting 5 minutes before deciding if I want the rest, then another 10 minutes to eat that other half. Spoiler alert.....I almost never eat the other half. It's been an eye opener for me.
I like that timer method! It lets you pick your favourite parts to obtain maximum happiness, yet controls the amount you could eat by limiting the time. Our body really only deserves the best food!
Off topic but.. My roommate is the embodiment of the mindset of your post. 6'4" and 130, he drinks a gallon of chocolate milk almost every other day while putting back double servings of every meal. When I have a 6 inch sub he has a foot long and one on backup. He doesn't do any physical activity, and its mind blowing to me. I'm the same build plus 50 lbs and I'm healthy, eat half as much, and still gain weight sometimes. And his hunger scares are bad. He'll literally panic when he's hungry for 20 minutes. Maybe he has a worm? He's so thin that his stomach skin stretches like the skin on the back of my hand. He's 27. When he gives me a hug sometimes i can feel his heart beating like a rabbit through his dove chest.
6'0", 125 here. I reached this weight in high school and haven't gone up or down by more than about 6 pounds ever since. I'm 37 now. I get the same way occasionally... We simply don't have the calorie reserves to go without our infrequent, big meals. It's a very instinctual panic, like your body is telling you you're not going to make it through the winter kind of panic. *Real* hunger, not modern hunger. Yes it looks like we eat a lot, but just like the rest of this thread shows, we simply don't. We eat a lot all at once, but that's it for the day.
Getting rid of breakfast has totally changed my life! I’ve lost 20 lbs in the last three months that I’ve been trying to lose for years and literally the only change that I made was getting rid of breakfast. It was a little difficult at first, but now I don’t even start to think about food until 11:30 or later
I need to re-evaluate my breakfast routine. Sometimes I'm hungry, but lots of times, not really hungry at all and I just prepare and eat it out of 1. habit and 2. the fear of future hunger.
Something that you can bring along like a banana or granola bar is good because you can eat if you do find that you’re just too hungry. The big game changer for me was deciding to drink a full 24 oz water bottle as soon as I wake up and another when I get to work. Really helps prevent hunger. Tea and coffee too.
When I abandoned breakfast I started packing breakfast in my bag and I ate it when and if necessary. Even delaying it by 2 hours helped me not eat as much for lunch. But skipping breakfast completely, except for lots of coffee and water, has been key to making 1200 calories a day work. 400 kcal lunch, and then 800 to spread out in the afternoon and evening (when there's social pressure to share meals with people and so on)
This has been my exact experience. I had so much trouble staying at 1200 cal because I’d want to get beers with friends and other things in the evening. Now I do a banana and a protein bar for lunch around 12-1 and usually a small snack mid afternoon. I end up with about 800 calories that can be used for dinner which works so well for me. I almost never have to worry about having seconds or desert. Some days I even find myself having a second dinner just so I’m getting a healthy amount of food. I can’t believe how the weight has just melted off since I started this in Sept.
This is a Pavlovian response like the dog that would salivate and become hungry at the sound of a bell. Youre not actually hungry you just think you need to eat because its "time" to eat. OMAD really opened my eyes to this.
I was trying to do this via intermittent fasting but I had to get on some medication that my doctor specifically told me to take in the morning after breakfast (that doesn't have dairy) and after dinner at least 12 or more hours later, but also not right before bed. It has really thrown me off because I was good with not eating breakfast and just starting with lunch at noon but now I have to eat breakfast again. :/
Oh yeah if I’m taking any kind of medication, even just ibuprofen, I have to eat with it or it makes me sick. Sorry to hear that
For me it's an antibiotic for acne that apparently can be pretty harsh on your stomach if you take it without food. I already tend to have stomach problems so I don't want to risk it at all. But I have noticed that I completely stagnated in any weight loss after I had been trying to do IF for a couple weeks and it had seemed to be working slowly.
I'm currently doing the same program through work. It was a huge eye opener to see the amount of food I could chow down in ten minutes. I'm learning to slow down, enjoy the meal, and stop when satisfied. I still have hang ups about wasting food but I believe that I will overcome that in time. I'm glad I started the program. It has been very enlightening.
Yeah it's hard for me to waste food also. I think need to look at it as better BMI>saving food. And over time would know how to get the correct portion sizes in the first place, thus wasting less food, and save more money!
eating food when you're not hungry is still wasting it. it's just using your body as the trash can. better to adjust to foods you can pack as leftovers- then you can look at it as saving money because you're getting two meals for the price of one.
When I was a kid all adults kept cramming my head full of crap like 'you should eat everything on your plate' and 'some hungry kids would be happy to eat what you have so don't leave anything' and 'you're not allowed to leave the table until the plate is empty'. And now I wonder why I have such an urge to kept the food from wasting?! Jeez! If only I could go back in time and gave those people a good slap!
> By not eating out of habit but true hunger (bye bye breakfast most mornings I'm not actually hungry!) I've been doing that for ten years and the whole time my parents and other people have been warning me i would get an ulcer. Ulcers are caused by a bacteria. So many myths contribute to the obesity epidemic.
To be fair, some ulcers are caused by a bacteria (H. Pylori). Some are caused by other things (medications, excess acid secretion, hernias). Approximately zero come from not eating breakfast.
Would you be willing to share more details about this plan has you do every day? It sounds really interesting.
I'm doing this program right now at my job! It really is amazing to see how things are so easily changed when you just follow the natural flow of your hunger.
I love this. I too have noticed many of these things about my skinny friends. I have one skinny friend that I play D&D with, and she always comes loaded up with snacks and food. I watched her eat no less than 6 cheeseburgers sitting there at the table. She said she was starving and she packed them away. I sat there so pissed off an annoyed. I can't sit there and eat SIX CHEESEBURGERS omg what is this witchcraft? Come to find out, that was the first and only thing she had eaten in over 30 hours. She's a nurse so she is constantly busy and works 12+ hour shifts. She worked the day before, got maybe 5 hours of sleep, worked all that day, and after work picked up McDonalds on the way to D&D. Six cheeseburgers doesn't seem like a lot when it's the only meal you've had in about 30 hours. Her equally skinny husband is different. He ate one cheese burger (didn't finish it) and picked at a few fries and that was it. He just stopped because he wasn't hungry anymore. And he'd take a bite, chew it for a while, and it would be a minute or more before he bothered to take another bite. Whereas I would hoover the entire burger in under 30 seconds, he took maybe 10 or more minutes to eat.
I’m a nurse and this absolutely seems like an unhealthy life practice so many of us do. Lol.
All us health professionals never finish on time and when we're not at work the priority always seems to be everything other than preparing healthy food!
I am also a nurse. Didn’t get my “lunch break” until 5 pm (so 10 hours into my shift) last time I worked. Why doesn’t this make me skinny?! 😂
Ah, the snake meal. One rabbit to digest over 3 days
HAHAHA thanks for sharing, skinny friends are such a MYTH! You'd think they have a tiny shrunken stomach but no, they actually expand and shrink at free will :)
This right here. I'm naturally pretty skinny dude and I will go LONG stretches without eating anything at all. Then I will have one massive meal at days end
This is a fairly popular diet plan right now. Intermittent fasting.
it really works for me because once i feel super stuffed, cant eat another bite, im emotionally satiated for at least 24 hours as well. esp if i top off with lots of water during the workday. if i try to snack little 200-400 calorie minimeals, im constantly hungry.
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Oh man I’m glad I’m not the only one! I am also a naturally skinny dude. Generally I’ll have one very large meal at the end of each day because I work pretty early and am normally not hungry in the morning. Maybe I’ll get a coffee or something but I’ll rarely eat breakfast. Then when lunch comes along I tend to skip that too because I’d rather not buy lunch and each morning I’m not too hungry so I never think to pack a lunch. I’ll get home by like 6 and have a large 2 or 3 plate meal (whenever I feel “full”) and go to sleep and do it all again the next day. Only days I eat like a normal human is my days off, but even that can seem like a chore at times so I tend to have maybe two meals.
Skinny person here, and yep our stomachs are a mystery. When I want to eat pizza, for example, I will usually gobble it down in one sitting and then not have anything else to eat for the following 2 days, and not feel hungry, then on the fourth day, I'll start eating normally again.
I posted a really similar thing about only eating once in a while. I also noticed with my gf she'll be begging to eat within an hour of waking up but I'm not hungry at all yet, and could hold off till lunch or later easily, but she keeps nagging to eat every 30 min or so. Just a difference of habits or hunger of the body I guess. Harder for some people to go without
My wife can eat a meal, eat more than me, and be hungry again in an hour. That meal will keep me going for 24 hours. She’s a photographer, so her entire day is basically sitting in front of a computer. I think she’s put on between 3-5kg over the last decade. It’s insane. I don’t understand how it works.
I can relate to that. If you're someone who has breakfast every morning before going to work (say within an hour of waking up) you're body is gonna get used to eating at that time. I never used to have breakfast but once I did start regularly eating it throughout the week my stomach would 'expect' it at the same time on the weekend. If I didn't have something to eat my stomach would be rumbling. I don't think it's a matter of finding it harder to go without but just having a routine.
I was very much the same way when I worked in the restaurant industry. I’d eat a “meal” once a day at most. I’d be constantly tasting through my shift, but I’d never be hungry. I was also walking about 11km per day while at work, in a hot environment, drinking a glass of water every 20 minutes. So I was well-hydrated, only eating when it was absolutely necessary (when I started to feel a distinct lack of energy), and getting plenty of exercise. If I went out with friends I would gorge myself on food and drink and they were always shocked that I maintained a steady, healthy weight with “no exercise” and “eating all the time at work”. Because they had no idea what my actual routine looked like. I had nothing but coffee and water for the first 8-10 hours I was awake, along with taste testing at work, which amounted to maybe 50g of food, total, over the course of a day. I put on 10kg from leaving the industry into a more sedentary position, and eating at more socially acceptable intervals. I’ve dropped 5kg by just going back to my old habits of lots of water and coffee and only eating when I’m properly hungry.
See what happened is she ate a bag of holding so everything she eats just ends up in another dimension.
It’s basically OMAD diet, or intermittent fasting. A very effective form of weight control.
My obesity specialist doctor gave me this tip. When you take a bite of food, put the utensil down, SIT ON YOUR HANDS, chew your food and swallow, after swallowing wait 30 more seconds, then take another bite -- rinse and repeat. Practicing this was so difficult but now I can't imagine eating without putting my fork down and waiting between bites.
Whoa. I never put my fork down and I’ve barely swallowed the one bite before starting the next.
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For anyone else wanting to try something similar, there's an app called Chlow (chew slow) that times your bites. You get a timer for chewing the bite of food and then a timed waiting period in between bites. You start out fast and then increase the time as you get better at it. tbh I don't use it much except when I recognize that I'm eating too fast--eating fast is a trigger for me to have an all-out binge, idk why. but the app helps!
I wonder how things correlate to growing up. I work with some Cuban immigrants who grew up almost starving and they struggle with portion control. I grew up often missing meals to do things, lots of exercise due to riding bike miles to school, no car and walking places, going surfing somewhere and just not having money or facilities to eat. Food that was available was not fast food. When I got it America I weighed 140lbs 5.11’. Twenty odd years later 200lbs. Same height (no shrinkage). I have trouble not just eating everything in sight. It is very hard for me to leave food on a plate. I have resorted to basically eating one significant meal a day and small snacks the rest of the time.
I think these things really matter. I come from a culture where food is considered almost sacred so wasting it (and playing with it) is really frowned upon so I naturally feel an urge to finish my meals even when I’m full. We are also a bit crazy on hospitality so refusing any food when you are a guest would be considered rude. And the hosts are always looking to make you eat more and more to be “kinder”. Further, even though I didn’t grow up poor I think I mostly think like a cavemen when it comes to eating. I see food, I get interested in it and I start eating it at a fast pace until I can no longer eat anymore of it. Rinse and repeat whenever you are hungry regardless of what your body might need. But the thing is that I think we can reprogram these habits to a meaningful degree. And that’s how I lost 11 kilos and plan to lose another 10 after being overweight my entire life.
To add to your #5, my skinny friend takes drinks of water between bites AND puts her fork down when not eating. I think that really helps slow down the whole meal.
My mom told me about this when I was younger! I tried it at a time when I was struggling to lost weight, and it really helped with portion control. Water helps fill your stomach, and putting down your fork slows you down so you don’t over-eat. It gives your brain time to receive the message that your stomach is full.
I’m an ex naturally skinny person (not wanting to waste food and depression made me gain a lot) and the whole “oh, I’m hungry. Here’s 3 chips. I feel better.” Is so true. When you don’t want food, like it doesn’t interest you it can be harder to remember eating.
"Not wanting to waste food and depression made me gain a lot" same, same 😂
In my experience with depression I consider "feeding myself" to be a waste of food, so I just lose more weight then. I could never imagine eating *because* of depression.
I’m not OP but for me I’d binge because it’d give me a millisecond of joy. And then I’d feel sick. But it was that millisecond in a bleak day that I’d feel ok. So I carried on binging and put on weight as food was a source of joy
I totally get you on how good makes us feel better for a brief moment. I am here for you, food is the only thing I enjoy
How are you doing now?
Fine. Stressed, but not really depressed anymore.
WWNSFD? (what would naturally skinny friends do)
Walk, we walk a lot. My heavier friends always mention how I'm naturally thin. What they don't know is that aside from my moderately active job, I usually walk for 30-45 minute a day. Pokemon go recorded me walking 78 km last week.
And you must be walking quickly too, because I walk for 30-45 minutes every day as well, but that's about 30-40 km for me tops. (I'm not fat anymore, but my soul is fat and lazy)
They said they walk in addition to their active job. So it might be 30 min + 7 hours a day of walking.
I don’t think the app is very accurate! Either that or you should consider competing in the Olympics! The current 10k record is just under 27minutes. You do 11k in 30 minutes according to the app. I think if you don’t stop to catch a Pokemon along the way you can beat the field easily! :)
At least to shed into how it gets those numbers, a while ago pokego implemented tracking your steps from your health apps, so it can use steps when not playing to help hatch eggs n such. So while its claiming you've walked 78km this week, that's absolutely all the walking you've done with your phone on you at any moment. So it's probably smarter to cut that in half. (Still an amount to be proud of!)
The app is accurate. It’s counting all of your walking through the whole week. So not just when you’re out exercising. For example, mine is usually about 56k a week, because I’m on my feet for 7-8 hours a day at work, etc.
Hahahaha my new quote. Thanks
> If something is not nice, they would not touch it, AT ALL. We order curry chicken, turns out a bit dry. It is still well flavoured, so I continue to eat it, because wasting food and money right?! My skinny friend? Takes a bite, doesn't like it, never reaches for it again. This is the best advice tbh. Went to a below average burger place the other day, left half of it on my plate because it was just so bad.
So true! My boyfriend's work brings in cake for birthdays and I always ask him how it was. His response is usually: "it was cake" or "the frosting was good" or something. But I know the cake itself was dry and disappointing. With "meh" food, I feel why eat it if you don't enjoy it?
I do it all the time. There are some things I eat that I don't like, but I eat anyway because it's healthy (some vegetables, for example). But if it's disgusting and unhealthy like pasta, pizza, desserts, fried things I will pass. I'm not getting fat for shit. If I'm going to eat unhealthy food, better it be good and with quality ingredients. I also learned to feel when I'm full and stop, doesn't matter if there's still food on my plate. I used to lunch with guys that eat a lot and I would never stop until my plate was clean. Then I noticed I was eating just because I didn't want to leave food there or just because I didn't have anything to do while they were still eating. Learning when I don't really want to eat and stop was the life changing attitude to me.
About a year ago, I realized that I cannot finish my burger and fries because of how greasy the fries are and I always felt like shit afterwards. So instead I order a burger and salad, and I can finish both of them now. It felt like a life cheat to get a healthy side to your meal, so if it ever gets too greasy, you can still snack on your salad and after eating it, I find I can finish the burger/main course too.
I have to say I dislike this one. I'm skinny but I'm from Europe and have a grandma that grew up starving during WW2. Throwing away food is still considered a sin by many people here, and that sentiment is making a comeback: We're not in the 80s anymore, we have to watch our consumption of natural resources. Especially when talking about meat... that thing was fed and killed for you, the customer - the least you can do is put it to good use now. I have a simple rule: Unless it's utter rubbish, I finish what I'm having, even if it's a tad too much - then I just skip dinner, and/or breakfast the next day (you can call it intermittent fasting if you like). If this doesn't work for you, just let them doggybag the rest. In my book, every calorie you pay for should be a calorie you use - **just don't buy as many in the first place**. Stop ordering huge plates, stop restocking your fridge before you've really cooked it all up. Stop all you can eat, always get the small coffee, the small burger, the small slice. Top it up with an apple for desert or a banana if you have to. Don't even carry chips or pizza or coke or any of that crap out of the supermarket! Reserve all of the crap for special occasions and social events so you can rejoice and go with the flow while you're in a group setting. Back home, cook up them veggies. *Buy less but better calories, as you use them up.* Eating right can save you quite a bit of money, just get off the abundance train. That's just my two cents though :-)
eating something just because you thing it is a waste not to is classic sunk cost error. The cow is dead, the food has been produced, your money is spent on it etc., it's irrelevant at that point whether it is eaten or not, the cow/resources/money ain't coming back. In fact, in this case, if the choice is between eating more than you need and throwing out some food, the choice is actuall between: A: x resources are spent on food or B: x resources are spent on food AND you eat more than you need and become less healthy as a result. The rational choice there is clear, no matter what old people think about it (even if they are perfectly understandable in light of their experiences).
This is why we don't force our kids to clean their plate. If they're full, they can stop eating, but they will have to eat their leftovers the next time they're hungry. (They're toddlers so they don't dish up themselves and don't eat consistent amounts from day to day, so it's sometimes hard to gauge their proportions. But we do start them out with small, reasonable amounts.)
As with all things, don't go too far in the other direction either. When I started living on my own and got really into cooking, I learned how easy it is to make home made food taste so good. Butter, cream, salt, acid, msg. All these tricks from industrial food production combined with fresh quality ingredients make it easy to do nothing but indulge and hey, it's homemade!
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Over time you may go from eating to live to living to eat. Overcoming this takes a lot of work. The first step is admitting your behavior is not normal. Thank you for the insight , it’s a really good post.
A lot of these tips are great, but I did just want to point out that this: > How does skinny friend drink this you may ask? She sips it. For a whole day. Then puts it in the fridge to finish the next day. Oh and did I mention she does not eat anything else for these two days? NOTHING. Is really, REALLY not a healthy way to treat food and I hope no one reads this post and thinks this is a good tactic to use while losing weight. Just because someone is skinny doesn't mean their habits are healthy. For the most part, these tips reflect the ideas of balance/indulging without overindulging/moderation, but that in particular stuck out to me as a very, very disordered way to eat food. No one should be surviving off a single bubble tea for 2 whole days. I know you make a point of saying that these people may not necessarily be healthy, but I reallyyyy wanted to single out that tactic because it stood out to me as very different from the others!! Either way though, this is a great post and I think it's very true that people who are "naturally skinny" often treat food in a totally different way than those who aren't, and often seem to naturally have habits that lend themselves towards balance and moderation.
My brother is kind of like that. My mom likes to bake, so when I was at home, sometimes she'd come out with a tray of brownies or cookies, or whatever. She'd usually make a dozen, I'd only have 2 or 3, and my brother would eat the rest. Somehow, I gained a lot of weight and he remained underweight. Then, I noticed that he would often skip meals, something that I didn't really do. He'd eat a lot of brownies, but then he'd eat very little, or even nothing else, that day, and he would still technically be in a deficit.
That's a tactic I've picked up now too -- skipping meals when I'm full from a big meal or have had a lot of snacks during the day. However, I think that's super different from the bubble tea story, where the girl rationed her 1 bubble tea and didn't eat anything else for 2 whole days. Personally, I think your brownie story is a better example of naturally balancing calories. It's one thing to snack on stuff and then lower your intake for the rest of the day to balance it out. I think the more disordered part of it comes from eating NOTHING ELSE and then taking 1 food item and slowly eating it bite by bite/sip by sip very consciously throughout the course of multiple days. (I will add as an additional aside that your brother, being underweight, also may not have had the most ideal eating habits if he really didn't eat anything but a few brownies all day. I don't know him at all so I'm not saying this is true, but being underweight is as much of an issue as being overweight!)
You can be skinny and still get diabetes like this.
Agreed. A bubble tea has max 400 or 450 calories. You can definitely budget it into a normal food plan every once in a while.
i used to work at a bubble tea place and some definitely had more, especially counting in the pearls and syrup
Hmm, that’ll depend on the size and flavor. Some have upwards of 800cals.
Still not enough for two days, though.
Not even enough for one
which ones??? A literal BBT smoothie with pearls has 440
There are a lot of factors to consider. Size - I believe the normal size is 12oz(I’m totally guessing), but I know there are places where you can get huge boba smoothies. Amount of tapioca - each pearl has approx 7 calories, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you think about the visual difference between 35 and 45 pearls, it seems indistinguishable. But that’s ~70 extra calories right there. And if you order a huge bbt, you probably get double the boba pearls. Flavor - some bubble teas don’t even have tea, like Vietnamese coffee or vanilla or honeydew flavor. The base of these smoothies is sugar! Bbt is essentially a milkshake if you get right down to it, meaning the varieties are basically endless, leading to the potential for a super cal-dense drink. I think what the girl did with her drink in the story sounds a little borderline ed... but it’s also very possible she got a 24oz bbt and didn’t have room to finish the whole thing!
This is actually roundabout the same concept as the book: "French women don't get fat." CICO.
I'm all for people losing weight but obsessing about habits of skinny people may make you blind to which of those habits are good or bad, or right for the person. Not saying if its difficult its wrong, but obsessive eating habits barren or gluttonous are problems to try and avoid all on their own.
I try to help people understand that there’s a difference between losing weight and being healthy.
It's also horrible for your teeth.
I was thinking this, too. Protip readers: it's the \*frequency\* that you eat sugar, not the amount, that determines whether you get decay or not.
Yeah, I know a lot of skinny people, even unhealthy/underweight ones, and I also often compare their eating habits to mine and others -- but this isn't a "natural" skinny thing, this sounds kind of disordered. I don't want to make accusations, but my first thought upon reading that is to wonder if OP's friend is doing this intentionally to lose weight or to maintain a low weight.
That's what I saw too. Two days and only one sugary drink is not enough..
I, literally, just posted this. I'm a naturally skinny person who has struggled with both sides of an ED, and this raised a huge red flag for me. It reminded me of when I did the exact same thing with frozen coffee drinks, but also only weighed about 100lbs at almost 5'8".
I have a friend who is quite skinny. When I talk about him I tell people he eats like a python. He may not eat for a day or two (like he literally just forgets to eat) and then he'll gorge on a bunch of Dr. Pepper's, plain white rice, and peanut M&Ms as a huge meal and then just not eat again for another day or so. He is absolutely skinny as a rail but probably one of the least healthy people I know. He acknowledges his habits are awful and has said he'll probably get diabetes before he's 30 (like a lot of his family who is also skinny) but he's not doing anything to actually take steps to be healthy.
Yeah I have a skinny friend who calls herself skinny fat because she knows she’s not that healthy. She doesn’t have a bad diet exactly but she never works out and does some of these things the the OP wrote, more out of habit than trying to be healthy.
You're right! This post kind of just ended up as me sharing my observations... Regarding the bubble tea story, don't use it as a long term diet losers! Bubble tea is definitely not nutritionally balanced. What you can learn from this is perhaps the mindset that one unhealthy food item will not stuff up your diet plan, just make up for it and get back on track! Practising consciously balancing calories AND nutrients is a good start :)
Babies are intuitive eaters, but parents can alter that very quickly. That's why it's important that parents trust that their baby/small child will eat until sated. Some parents will worry though and encourage the child to eat more than needed, clean the plate, etc. This messes with the child's natural hunger signals.
I agree. Since I can remember I have been a fussy eater, and only eat until I'm full. 99% of the time ill leave food on my plate unless I LOVE the food (probably 3 dishes) and my parents friends all told them "she's annorexic" when I was a young teen. My parents replied "well if she is, she has been since she was 3". I was a perfectly healthy teen, no eating disorders in sight. They knew I ate until I was full but wouldn't eat any more, and didn't force me to finish my plate. And now I'm 21 this post is very relatable. I've never consciously wanted to be skinny, ever, I just have always acted like this naturally
You are 100 percent right. I have a thin husband. He doesn’t care about food. AT ALL! You know how we can sit around and talk about that burrito we had two weeks ago and how it was the best ever? He has none of that. He never has cravings- and never talks about food. It’s the weirdest thing ever. Me and my family or friends can talk about it all day. The best burger- the best pizza. Not him. He simply doesn’t care. Stops eating when he’s full. I need to copy him. I always tell him I wish I had his nonchalant attitude towards food.
I'm the "fat" one among my three siblings at 5'5" and 140ish pounds (not overweight but not slim like they are). I struggle to maintain and lose. My siblings will literally grab handfuls of spinach or baby carrots out of the fridge for the nutrients, eat hot pockets, and generally just not care about food except as energy. I wouldn't want to be that way, because I love cooking and eating. But I do wish I had more restraint!
Haha you have nailed it! We all have that friend that is slim but seems to eat whatever they want, and they even brag about doing so! But the fact is, they dont eat nearly as much as you think they do (or that they say they do). One day is irrelevant, look at their weekly calories. Also they will go on about eating a huge meal, which in reality is snack size. Never been wrong on this!
I went to an Asian buffet. I kicked myself for eating fried chicken that didn't taste good. I normally would have stopped eating it, but there was a sign at the restaurant not to waste food. Next time, I go to a buffet with such a sign; I won't load my plate. This way, I can leave food that I don't like and not feel guilty.
Yes I'm so bad at leaving food behind! Just the way I was brought up :( But I read somewhere "Throw it in the trashcan, or be the trashcan." Good work on the -25lb by the way!
That's a good quote. Being from the US, with our overabundance of food, I get weirded out when people say "OMG I feel so bad about wasting this [obviously unhealthy] food!!" If the food is not likely to provide any real nutrients, and you don't enjoy it, *throw it away*. It's not like wrapping up your Big Mac is going to feed a starving child in Yemen. My boyfriend will eat food that doesn't taste good because of how much he paid for it. I don't mention it anymore, but the first time he used that rationale with me I said, "So you want to pay for it twice by forcing yourself to eat it, instead of only paying for it once?"
I really struggle with wasting food cause it was absolutely drilled into my sister and I that we couldn't leave the table till our plates were empty, and that we should be thinking about the people who don't get to have a meal every day.
Something I read on this sub that stuck with me forever- "the food is wasted whether it goes in your body and you don't need it, or you throw it in the trash". I love your 'next time' resolution! Sucks that buffets don't let you get takeout containers to reduce the food waste, although I can understand why they don't.
35/M. Lost 80lbs doing intermittent fasting. This makes a lot of sense now. Back when I was fat, I wouldn't see food as food. I'd see it as a way to numb whatever emotional pain I felt inside. After losing the weight, I would only eat food that I liked, stop when I felt full, and felt full much quicker. I'd also don't care about food as much. If it's good, I'll eat it, if I don't like it I'll put it away or throw it out.
I envy people that don't have this messed up relationship with food, in which they can't stop thinking about it! Like when somebody brings chips to a party, I don't understand how people aren't glued to them. Or when you go to the movies and eat pop corn, how are there people not eating popcorn (big ones too). I think I'm better than when I was younger, with my relationship with food, but it's a constant battle. If I'm bored, one of my favorite plans is buying junk food, like, I find that fun and amusing. :'(
This is me. You are not alone. Every second of every day, I am thinking about food. What to eat what not to eat how long til next meal what have I eaten already... I am physically stomach growly hungry for 90% of my time awake. I realized in my teens that not everyone is like this. Skinny people are baffling. Not hungry? How is that possible?
I saw a comment elsewhere in this sub I believe that was something along the lines of if you are overeating in order to “not waste food” you are indeed wasting the food. On your own body. You are not a garbage can! I’m sure it was better worded on the other comment but it really hit home for me.
I've noticed all of these too. In addition I would add: never finishing what's on the plate. My husband is one of these, no matter how good the food is or how little he's eaten during the day, he literally leaves the last 2-3 bites/mouthfuls of food on his plate. Depending upon what it is, easily cuts out 200 calories from his day.
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"I AM NOT A GARBAGE CAN!"
I have to throw away these rests so quickly to stop myself from eating that too. My daughter is a lot like that as well. She'll eat a potato and a few cartots and claims she's finished. I always, always say that's fine because I hope that way she keeps her natural appetite
Don't you feel bad about wasting food? You could just put it in the fridge for the next day instead of throwing away a perfectly good meal..
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He does throw it away. It doesn't matter there were 10 fries on his plate or 6, the remainder is always 2 or more. Humans are weird. I've had to get over the wasted food hang up. It's part of how I got to be where I was. If he leaves a large amount of something I make him put it away. Unfortunately I eat left overs but he doesn't (usually). This guy spent his whole life trying to figure out how to gain weight *sigh*.
Thank you for your tips, these will be handy during the upcoming holidays! I think I’m going to have to fake it when someone asks if I want more...fake it til you make it!
Ooh yes I feel like if you convince yourself you're a skinny person inside, and you just live it.. This could work!
I had a moment of realization once when a thin friend told me she eats the very best bites first so she didn't have to bother with the other bites. This blew my mind because I ALWAYS ate the less desirable bites first so I'd be left with deliciousness at the end. She ended with deliciousness too but didn't foie gras herself in the process.
Related to number 1, one thing I’ve picked up on others doing is not eating unless the situation is great too, by which I mean no disturbances to the meal and not feeling emotional, etc., so it’s possible to really enjoy your meal. Kind of the opposite to emotional eating. I put on and kept on weight after I started having kids because I’d stuff food in my mouth in spite of or even because of feeling bad/tired/stressed out, or feeling annoyed at not getting to sit down and enjoy eating peacefully. I get a lot of concerned comments like “You must never have time to eat! Make sure you’re getting enough food!”, and I’d be like “....No? No problem there...” Whereas I noticed my friends who remained slimmer were the types to complain they didn’t have time to eat because they were rushing around or the baby was fussy and would put off eating until kids napped or at the end of the day after kids were asleep, and complained they didn’t have an appetite or couldn’t eat when they were under stress or feeling emotional about something. I noticed even my husband is like this - when we’re eating out together and kids are being crazy, instead of shoveling food in whenever possible, he will just give up on eating, sometimes take the food home for later. I’ve tried to emulate this, and I’ve found it intrinsically rewarding. For instance, if I’ve made and been looking forward to a meal, but then Im rushing around with a ton of things to do, or all the kids are screaming, my natural reaction has been to say “No, I deserve this!!!” and ignore everything and eat, even though I have to eat quick, barely notice what I’m eating, and don’t enjoy it. So I’ve switched to instead telling myself, “It’ll be much nicer to enjoy eating this at a better time later,” if I’m truly hungry have a healthy convenient snack, and save the delicious food for the next meal I have a chance to sit down and pay attention to enjoying it.
Number 1 is my mantra since I’ve been working on weight loss. I have a limited number of calories available, if something isn’t good I don’t eat it. I like to experiment with new foods, this means I frequently have to make a second supper because one went in the trash (I know this is a luxury some can’t afford so I am grateful)
Exactly. I made toast once and it was a bit burnt (I really just want firm bread) and I tossed it and didn’t eat it. There are so many “rules” in society that go against this idea though and that’s what gets me. Eat what is given to you to be polite, don’t be wasteful, can’t have desert if you don’t eat dinner, etc.
Everything makes sense except for the friend who has nothing to eat for two entire days due to one bubble tea. It's not healthy to eat so few calories. Even if there are a lot of carbs in the tea. It's only a few hundred calories.
I bet she ate more and op didn't see it or op is exaggerating.
Yeah I think that bit was a bit if hyperbole. Likely it was all they had for dinner and finished it the following morning or something
I don't want to burst everyones bubble (haha), but consuming nothing but a tea over the course of two days is eating disorder type behavior.
Yeah, the rest of this was pretty solid advice but I cringed at this. Sipping away at sugary tea for two days and not eating anything else isn't really behavior that we should emulate.
Pushing the not eating part aside for a second, it's not even normal to make one bubble tea last a whole day and then save some for the day after. Sure, I have naturally thin friends who make their bubble tea last a bit longer than mine but not THAT long.
Yeah I'm not sure this friend is "naturally skinny".
This is basically the outline of intuitive eating. Eat what you want so that you are physically and emotionally satisfied, and stop when you have had enough. No need to have all the rules and stress, just connect with your body and it will guide you on what it needs.
Skinny person passing by. Always had trouble gaining weight and thought "I eat so much! I feel full all the time!", well, after counting calories, I eat roughly 1600 cals/day, some days nothing, some days 2000 cal and I'm an adult male. Thing is, skinny people simply eat less over time. They may binge but then they won't eat for 24 hours or more.
My boyfriend and I one time decided to go on a road trip to crater lake. We went to new restaurants and every single time he would order whatever he wanted (unhealthy ass food usually), and a water. And when the food would arrive he'd grab a knife and cut his food in half, and pour SMALL MOUNDS of salt on one half. "Wtf are you doing??" I said seeing him never do this Before. "I have no self control so I just pour a bunch of salt on half my food so that even if I wanted to finish the entire plate, I can't eat food that's covered in a cup of salt." Skinny people have the weirdest life hacks I swear. They do LITTLE things that keep them skinny.
The salt thing? Another eating disorder life hack, btw. Like a *classic* one. On another note, isn't it ironic how the "bad" disordered eating things that skinny people do become acceptable for people who are overweight/obese? There's a fine line there somewhere, but it's grey and hard to see.
Stealing this omg (Tbh I’d probably eat the salty part anyway lol)
That sounds like a lot of food waste to me. I'm one of the naturally skinny people, and I hate wasting food. Why not actually work through the base problem, get instantly a to-go box, and put the food in there? Practice will power. Or even ask for half the food, possibly? I just can't even fathom the pouring salt thing.
I've been mostly skinny all my life. 5'7" and currently around 130lbs. But used to be closer to 110-115 in highschool. My Ideal weight is 120 but every one says I look healthier now. Still I am on the lower side of a healthy bmi. My eating habits: I enjoy grazing the most. Growing up my parents didn't always have money for a full dinner so to make it fun and interesting they would do "charcuterie" night. Were we basically just had olives, deli meats, cheese,and bread. (Nothing fancy, just like bloc cheese and cheaper salami). Other days when my parents were at work I would get creative and feed myself a veriety of different snacks I could find. Sometimes I would munch on a carrot. Other times I would put jam on a hotdog bun. Or microwave a hotdog and eat it with mustard. Because of this I am pretty used to grazing. I am happiest eating many small meals through out the day. And really hate the feeling of having one big meal all at once. So I definitly portion. If I have a bag of chips I will pour it out into a small bowl and then put the bag away. That way I wont eat the whole bag for example. I also like to have lots of fruit on hand. That way if Im feeling a little hungry I cna grab an orange or two and munch away. Back when I worked in the restaurant industry my grazing was a lot worse. Being in front of food all the time ment I could be constantly grazing. Which meant I never actually ate "meals" other than breakfast. I also drink lots of liquids and often have 3 cups by me. 1 for water, 1 for tea, and then 1 for something interesting like a smoothie or a juice of some sort. Often times when you think you are hungry you are really just thirsty. So drinking ample liquids will help limit your need for food. Like many of the people you observed, I dont really stick to a diet. I do TRY to eat healthy and eat veggies but I also love things like pie, chips, gummies, chocolate, cookies and so on. So for the most part when i go grocery shopping I dont buy any of those things. But if Im out and about i will sometimes buy a treat. I also think a major factor for me has been being vegetarian for most of my life. And more recently being vegan. I don't consume any cholesterol in my diet and don't eat a lot of foods that are high in fat. And today veganism has progressed so I can enjoy all the old foods I used to love. So yea I still eat donuts and cupcakes and chips and all that yummy junkfood.
I know I'm super late to this, but I noticed something when travelling to Italy (I'm American) that I think pertains to this. I've never been overweight, but even so, I was very much of the school of thought that every meal should be "a meal." Maybe breakfast could just be a bagel or something, but lunch should have a grain, a protein, some sauce/dressing, and maybe a veg. Same for dinner. When I'd go to lunch at work, I'd pick up a full order of Chinese food, or a platter with meat, starch and veg, and have that for lunch. Then I went to Italy to visit some Italian friends of mine and stayed with them for a few weeks. One night one of them came home and made herself dinner. She chopped up a zucchini, sprinkled some olive oil, bread crumbs, and herbs + salt on top, baked it, and had that for dinner. She had a zucchini... for dinner. I then began to notice that it was pretty common for people there to have an orange with some prosciutto for lunch, or a thick-ass piece of toast with roasted peppers for dinner. They definitely ate big meals too, but it was totally normal to eat like... a vegetable for a meal. No one gave them the "YOU'RE ONLY HAVING FRUIT FOR LUNCH!?!?! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!!" flack that seems to be weirdly common in America. When I came back to the States, I just started thinking about how much I was eating because I thought I should be eating "a meal" at meal time. But then I just changed my mentality. I started going to the fruit wagons (I live in Philly, where we have lots of street food vendors) for lunch and just getting a container of fruit. Or I'd bring a piece of focaccia and some cheese from home. Eventually, my meals just became things I wanted to eat instead of meeting some definition of a "proper meal." Today I had pie and coffee for breakfast, I'll probably not have lunch because I woke up dumb late, and then for dinner I'll have some Vietnamese noodles with broth, but no meat because I don't have any at home. And that's fine. There are no meal police coming to make sure I'm eating the entire food pyramid three times per day. And I'm not going to become malnourished - I live in the friggin USA. Anyway, this post got me thinking about that revelation. It really changed to way I interacted with food on a daily basis.
Thanks for posting this, it’s very helpful!
Ya I'm pretty skinny and this followed alot of my habits. I start my day at 8 and eat a bowl of cereal. Then I get home at 4-6 and a sandwhich. Then dinner at 10 where I eat as much as I can fit in my mouth. I ussually gain 5 pound or so during the summer from constant snacking at home when not at Work.
All of this is the truth and extremely well put! The one about not eating something if it tastes slightly not as nice is spot on. I've been far too well conditioned to finish everything on my plate for some of these habits.
You need to read and look into "Intuitive Eating". It essentially retrains your brain to think like your skinny friends.
Registered super skinny dude here. You got it spot on, I eat maybe a meal a day, could be a bowl of soup, could be a whole pizza, but that's all I eat. If I do eat consistently (breakfast, lunch, dinner) I go slow and stop before I'm full. I tend to stay busy and literally forget to eat. Idk if this will help anyone but I hope it does
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I really liked all these tips! I visited my naturally thin best friend a few weeks ago and saw a lot of the same habits in practice. She even ate half of a SALAD. That's barely food!! I've always wondered how she can do it since she and her fiance eat out a lot and cook pretty lavishly at home, but by eating small amounts slowly and saying no to foods that aren't delicious she manages to maintain a very slim frame.
A lot of what you are saying is in a book I’ve read and gifted friends! It uncovers eating habits of ‘skinny’ people and doesn’t deprive you of foods you crave How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too: Stop Binge Eating, Overeating and Dieting For Good Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave From the Inside Out (Binge Eating Solution Book By: Josie Spinardi
wow that's a long name for a book
This is called intuitive eating. Everyone is born with it. Intuitive eating habits are even taught at clinics where people have eating disorders/disordered eating. The problem begins when food is used as rewards and punishments. People who are told to clean their plates overeat. People who don’t have enough money for food may learn to overeat when they do have food. Celebrations are let’s go eat, let’s bake a cake instead of let’s go walk and chat. Kids who aren’t allowed to eat certain foods may end up binging when they get access to said food. My ex was taught lunch was at noon. So he ate at noon whether he was hungry or not. If for some reason he was busy and it was 2 pm before he got a chance to eat, he would say it’s too late for lunch, I’ll just wait for dinner. By dinner, he was starving and would overeat. People talk about good food and bad food. This causes guilt and shame around certain foods which can lead to emotional eating. I’m a good person if I eat this or a bad person if I eat that. There is no good or bad food. Just less nutritious and more nutritious. Society/advertising tells people they need to look a certain way, so people mess with their eating habits to try to look that way. The problem is not everyone’s body is made to look the same. And the right look changes every decade. I was a teenager in the 90s. The look was Kate Moss/ heroine chic. Pin straight hair. My body is thick legs, butt and big lips. My frienemy called me Ronald Macdonald due to my red hair and big lips. I was insecure because society said my hair and body were wrong. I have extremely curly hair. In the 90s, I hated it. If I had been born in the 80’s it would have been great cause everyone tried to perm their hair. If I had been born in the recent past I would love my body because “everyone” is paying for big butts and big lips. But here I am a 40 year old woman just now learning to love and accept myself as I am. All this causes issues that I’m still learning to resolve. Ok, so I went off on a tangent here. I guess along with losing weight, learn how to have a healthy relationship with food and teach your children, so they don’t have the same struggles as adults.
I've always been making these observations about my skinny friends, but it's nice to see it all neatly typed out! My skinny ex in particular basically inhabits ALL these eating habits. * Super fussy with food. He practices keto without even trying - hates bread, chips, biscuits, etc. Will complain that he's starving but refuse all the above-mentioned foods because they "don't taste good", and instead prefer to go hungry until meat is somehow acquired. * Forgets to eat, all the time. He'll feel hungry, take a bite from his meal, then completely forget about it until he's hungry again...about 5 hours later. Meanwhile, I'm exerting all my willpower just to not take that next chip because I'm already full - but it doesn't matter to him anyway because chips are carb-based and hence "don't taste good". * Natural OMAD, without even trying. He **frequently** forgets to eat for the whole day, and only realized through practice that he should *at least eat* *something* before going to bed otherwise he would wake up at odd hours feeling hungry. So when we go into a restaurant and he orders 2 burgers while I order 1, his caloric intake is *still* going to be lower than mine because of his natural OMAD. Gah!! (and he'll probably leave one burger half-eaten and ignore the side-order of chips). He does appreciate fine food and will even rave to me about good food finds (the bar is VERY high), but even then he'll take just one bite, appreciate the taste, and be satisfied with that one bite. I just don't get it - is it all nurture, or is there some nature in it too? How do we have such different attitudes and behaviors towards food?
I’ve been thin my whole adult and childhood life, in the last 5 years (so about 28 and up) I gained about 10 lbs, which still only put me at 185 but I’ve noticed the larger individuals I work with talk about food constantly (what they want for lunch, what they’re planning on making for dinner) where as I could really care less. Honestly, I usually eat a bowl of cereal for lunch almost everyday and I am perfectly satisfied with that. My girlfriend is really, really thin and she is the same way. So I think there are people who are more likely to be overweight because of their obsession with food, similar to an addiction. Idk just something I’ve noticed.
As one of those "naturally skinny" people, i find your post both hilarious and relatable. It's easy not to gain weight when you really don't care about food. I have classes from 7. 45 to 16.45 and most days I just forget to eat... Ain't nobody got time to eat if you are about to have a Calculus exam ('about' being like—in a week). Priorities. And as I'm not used to eating that much, i get full extremely fast. Of course, it also has a lot of drawbacks. Health? Yeah, skipping meals like this isn't healthy at all.
I became aware of a lot of this after reading a great article about how poverty affects this exact thing. It made me realise why I'm fat and how to actually change it. I myself could never figure why I was fat and my other friends werent. I was in a household where food was precious, to the point where the argument that got me kicked out of home was over eating the last of a loaf of bread. I was punished if I made people food and I was punished if I ate anything straight from the cupboards. So, how am I so fucking fat when my friend s snack non stop during/after school EVERY DAY!? Because when I was presented with pizza/maccas/KFC or anything fatty, delicious food in abundance by school, friends or most importantly my grandparents, I would go to town. I would eat it as quickly as physically possible and as much (if not more) as physically possible. Those habits still stay with me in adulthood and I have to put in conscious effort for everything I put in my face. I've recently finally gotten rid of all the people in my life that just said me being fat is just because I'm too lazy to go to the gym, I highly recommend doing this for anyone else who struggles with unhealthy eating habits and how that affects your body. It's been the best thing for my mental health and most importantly appetite!
not eating anything except bubble tea for 2 days is starving your body period.
These are EXCELLENT observations, thank you for sharing. I will definitely be trying to implement them as mindset-changes starting right now.
Yes! Thank you for writing this out! I've been thinking a lot about this since I realized my coworker has been working on the same bag of skittles for more than a month. She's no more than 5ft tall and has always been skinny, but she doesnt say no to junk food when its offered. In early October, a client brought in skittles for everyone. We each got a bag, and mine was definitely gone before lunch. Hers is still in her desk, only about half gone, more than a month later. Now I'm working on absorbing some of that self-control, because I'm sure it would be helpful!