Naturally thin people...what do you eat in a day?
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Before I got into lifting weights and tracking my calories to gain weight I used to just "eat what I wanted" without ever going over 100lbs. We all know by now that losing and gaining is about calories in vs calories out. Like others on here have said, those people like me just either weren't eating over their TDEE or they were burning a lot more calories than you think. I happen to not like chocolate or cakes or chips or anything like that. I've always preferred to eat fruit. That was my dessert or snack. But I did eat fast food and go out to eat but if I went to say mcdonalds and ate a burger fries and shake I would literally be full the rest of the day. If I did eat later it would be a small snack like fruit. So I was just not going over on calories. This is why I never gained weight. When I started tracking calories I was eating much more often but better foods and found I was still not gaining. It took me some time to realize what my actual TDEE was in order to gain but it felt like I was eating so much more food. Also people who say they barely eat anything all day are just eating over their calories and not realizing it. I have a coworker who told me he hardly eats all day but he's not losing weight. I asked him what he ate that day and he said a big cup full of tostito chips. I looked at the bag and 6 chips were 150 calories. He couldn't believe it. Then be forgot to include the giant coffee he drank with tons of cream and sugar. He also admitted to eating a ton of Indian food at dinner. So for someone like him he didn't eat much all day but what he did eat was high in empty calories and then his dinner probably just put him over his TDEE.0
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I'm offended by the "there may not be many of you on here" comment that I can't clarify my thoughts enough to say anything more
But they don't exist. Truth is they may appear to eat more than you, they either don't or they are far more active. You can achieve the same, medical conditions aside, if you practice the same habits.
not true. I have a lazy skinny sister who eats all of the time. she eats more calories than me most days and im more active than her and im the one on a weight loss site. her metabolism is crazy high and sorry to say they do exist0 -
People who are naturally thin can eat whatever they want. My roommate has weighed 120 pounds since we graduated high school nearly 11 years ago and eats nothing but junk food. I swear she lives on Totinos Party Pizzas, Oreo cookis, and Mountain Dew and never gains a pound.0
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My father is 'naturally thin'. His ribs have always been visible and as a young man it bothered and he spent years trying to gain weight. And he eats a lot! He snacks and has full meals. And drinks lots of beer. While the food tends to be healthy (read unprocessed) it is often high cal for the main but he also loves veggies and eats a huge amount of salad a day and has both chips with homemade salsa and dark chocolate everyday.
I always thought he was naturally thin and part of my problem was in learning portions from him and my mom but the difference is his activity level. He doesn't sit down. Or stop. Ever. He hikes, climbs, bikes, gardens, plays ping pong, cleans, whatever, he just moves aside from watching the occasional movie or reading for 30 minutes in bed in the evening. He once said to me that he'd noticed that I never move, that when he thinks of me its on the couch as thats where I am when we talk, I read, we watch shows, I eat, ect.
In short he can eat whatever as he moves lots and I need to eat less and move more until I find my balance.0 -
Besides the points made by others explaining why some are "naturally thin," studies have been done that show that yes, on some days, they consume huge amounts of calories. The next few days, however, these "naturally thin" people have been shown to consume less than normal calories and/or move around more, thus negating the day of overeating. One day of surplus followed by days of negative caloric intake to balance everything out. In general, they also fidget more, increasing their NEAT by as much as 400 calories a day.
I used to do metabolic testing in a hospital, and we'd get those people who claimed they ate a ton of food and couldn't lose weight. Did they have super fast metabolisms? Nope. They thought they were eating a lot because they ate until they were full. However, it took very little food to make them feel full. Sometimes it was hard to get these people to be still for the duration of the test because they were such fidgeters.
This! The few naturally thin friends I have seem to get full way faster than I do. I remember seeing one of them look at a Chipotle burrito bowl and being like oh my god this is so much food! Whereas I can stomach a burrito bowl and a whole bag of chips, easy and not be stuffed. I figure after reading all these responses people who are able to maintain a healthy body weight without counting calories, have a better handle or better hormone regulation genetically for the hormones that signal fullness.0 -
I am one of three brothers. The oldest and I were always chubby. The middle brother was always "unnaturally thin" while eating anything and everything. Then in his late 20's he discovered he had graves disease and a host of other problems with his thyroid. Now we know why he could do what he did. After getting his body in check now he is like a normal person.
Don't just assume people who are thin yet eat anything they want are truly healthy inside.0 -
I am one of three brothers. The oldest and I were always chubby. The middle brother was always "unnaturally thin" while eating anything and everything. Then in his late 20's he discovered he had graves disease and a host of other problems with his thyroid. Now we know why he could do what he did. After getting his body in check now he is like a normal person.
Don't just assume people who are thin yet eat anything they want are truly healthy inside.
You wouldn't believe how many times doctors have asked to check my thyroid and they find nothing.
My children are all thin. Same thing. (ETA, yesterday they spent the afternoon sucking down whipped cream from a can. I bought it for a party. Little spazzes.)
Becky0 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAQr77QMJiw
There is one freak of nature in this documentary who ate and ate and ate and didn't get fat. There is one woman who simply could not eat the required amounts of food no matter how hard she tried. That is two of ten who didn't get fat in a month of deliberate gorging.
I would like an answer on this. Am currently watching "why are thin people not fat" on youtube. Very interesting stuff and seems to partly go against what people are saying. This one asian dude ate a ridiculous amount of food and gained muscle instead of fat. This other person ate twice the calories they should've and didn't gain any weight. I know people like to come on strong with their usual copy and pasted "well hur hur, unless they can defy laws of thermodynamics, they aren't eating as much as they think they are!" but i predict most on here aren't scientists that study this issue extensively. Just people that count calorie with an app on their phone and pretend they know everything. I think largely the "a calorie is a calorie" is sound logic for 99% of people out there, but that there are freaks of nature who have bodies that do something else.0 -
Depends on your definition of thin. I have never in my life been overweight. My highest weight I hit, at 5'10, was 150, and that was due to undiagnosed hypothyroidism. I was always quite active as a child, doing dance, drama, rollerskating and going on walks. I do not recall restricting myself at all until I was 14 and went on a stupid diet that triggered an eating disorder (I was 140 at the time and 5'10). I guess I just naturally kept to what my body burnt off, without realising it. I still do not gain above a certain amount, though in all fairness, I have not had children which might be part of that. Even when fairly inactive, I was able to eat 2000 + a day and not go above a certain weight. I ate what I wanted, but I certainly did not eat excessively daily, as my stomach would not allow me to go past a certain point.0
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Every time someone appeals to somatotypes and bone structure, a thin person gets fat.
FYI: the terms ectomorph, endomorph, and mesomorph are crazy BS made up by a 1940s psychologist who spent all his time looking at pictures of naked people. They don't actually correspond to anything in reality. Endomorphs magically become ectomorphs when they get their diet and exercise in check.0 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAQr77QMJiw
There is one freak of nature in this documentary who ate and ate and ate and didn't get fat. There is one woman who simply could not eat the required amounts of food no matter how hard she tried. That is two of ten who didn't get fat in a month of deliberate gorging.
I would like an answer on this. Am currently watching "why are thin people not fat" on youtube. Very interesting stuff and seems to partly go against what people are saying. This one asian dude ate a ridiculous amount of food and gained muscle instead of fat. This other person ate twice the calories they should've and didn't gain any weight. I know people like to come on strong with their usual copy and pasted "well hur hur, unless they can defy laws of thermodynamics, they aren't eating as much as they think they are!" but i predict most on here aren't scientists that study this issue extensively. Just people that count calorie with an app on their phone and pretend they know everything. I think largely the "a calorie is a calorie" is sound logic for 99% of people out there, but that there are freaks of nature who have bodies that do something else.
I saw that also. It was interesting. But, some people did not follow the food guidelines. And I suspect the man that gained muscle was doing exercise at home. Maybe not, but it is my suspicion. It just seemed like people were not really following the guidelines and it wasn't a strictly observed scientific study. Also younger people gain muscle more easily than older people.
Also, a lot of people are saying their tdee decreased around their late 20's or early thirties. I think some change is normal with age, plus people stop growing (some people grow into their mid twenties), and other factors such as activity level can change without really noticing it.0 -
A woman I've known for decades (at one time a co-worker) has always been tall and very thin. When I was spending time around her I could observe what she ate and it was very little. For example when going out to an Italian restaurant we had the pizza or whatever and she had the soup.0
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I'm not naturally thin but the people I know who are thin can either eat as much as they want or they are thin because they don't eat much. They like food but don't LOVE food so they're never tempted to overeat. They eat some food until they don't feel hungry and then that's it. They also don't really like sweets.0
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Ok. I was one of those scrawny chicks right up until my late 30's. It seemed to my friends that I could eat anything and not gain weight. They would whinge and moan on about it. I would agree that I could eat anything BUT...
...from the age of 18 I moved out of home, I went to uni full time, I worked 2 jobs and had a very active social life. I managed to average around 5 hours sleep a night if that. I don't think I saw television for 6 years. I lived in a 3 level apartment and my room was on the third level so unless I was asleep, stairs were my life. My car was really unreliable (thank goodness we lived on a hill!) so I walked into the city (20 mins) or combo of walk and bus for work and home again. When we went out I danced and danced for hours and hours. I loved healthy foods and junk foods the same. No difference.
Yes I was always ravenous but I never ever stopped moving. I barely slept. My mind boggles when I look back.
I stayed thin thru having 3 children and it has only been since my late thirties (about 4 years after my last child was born) that I slowly started gaining some weight. The reason was pure and simple. I was still eating the same amount of food I have always eaten - because that's what I have always eaten - and still moving but I definitely wasn't as frantic paced as I was when I was younger.
I came on here to re-educate myself on what my portion sizes should be for a woman (yes I can eat as much or more than my husband, always have.) For this reason, when I see people using the fake cardboard noodles/pasta with 3% nothing and 1% taste so they can eat MORE of it I think that they just haven't gotten the point. It isn't necessarily finding the diet miracle foods that are so low in calories that you can eat half a table of them. You haven't learnt anything about portion control. So when you go to a restaurant and eat a similiar amount of the really good noodles/pasta, people cry and rage on about having a binge and falling off the wagon etc etc. They haven't learnt how much food they should be eating because they are trying to find ways to cheat and still stuff in as much food as they can.
So, after my epic war and peace post, thin people enjoy their food, but to them, it's just fuel. Eat as much as you need not as much as you want.0 -
This is a good question. Kind of along the same lines of 'why do some fat people stay healthy and not develop diabetes, heart disease, etc'- the 'healthy obese phenotype.' The answer is multifactorial and, like a lot of things in science, one in which we don't have all the answers to. Most likely, many naturally thin people have hormonal differences (leptin, ghrelin, etc.) and/or faster metabolisms. My boyfriend is naturally thin (although it's catching up with him now that he's in his 30s). He eats crappy foods, but he doesn't eat breakfast and sometimes doesn't eat lunch (because he's not hungry). He usually has a big dinner and snacks throughout the night. So his body is kind of geared more towards doing a fast everyday (which evidence is indicating may be the way to go instead of small meals throughout the day). But it really depends on what works best for the individual.
I don't consider myself a naturally thin person (maybe thin-average). I'm around 5'4" and in high school I weighed around 125 lbs. Now, I'm almost 30 and I weigh 107 lbs (I've actually gained 7 lbs. over the past year). My weight loss is medication induced (I think it's a combo of increased metabolism/suppressed appetite). Although, since I started hardcore weightlifting, my appetite is very rarely suppressed anymore. Now, I'm usually ravenous and have no trouble eating 1950-2100 calories a day.0 -
Well my husband is naturally thin
When I married with him I gained a lot of weight due to the fact he never stops eating and he eats a lot, his metabolism is insane I gained 80 lbs and he maintained his weight. So now I am want to lose a lot of weight and it takes a lot of self control to cook for him and not eat what he does (pasta, chips, burgers and all the snacks plus all the soda drinks) all my weakness are there in my fridge0 -
I used to wonder the same thing about my boyfriend's aunt until I went on holiday with her. She is very slim and I wondered why she never gained weight. I had only been used to seeing her at dinner time and never really spent a full day with her. It worked out she did not eat one thing and only dinner and even dinner was a smaller portion. So she did not really eat and she definitely did not snack, she might have 1 slice of toast for breakfast. Her 11 year old son is now the same and suffers with an eating disorder (scared of food and eating - make himself sick, hide food) and I wonder if there is a link there. Anyway, that was just her. But I realise now she just didn't eat, but that may also be why her skin looks all faded and is covered in spots with dry horrible hair and she just looks rough.0
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i eat whatever i want within 1500 calories (i want to lose 3 pounds). I will switch to 2000 when i hit my goal. I can maintain at 2000
I never watch my protein intake and i have ice cream or chocolate bars every day. It doesn't matter WHAT you eat, it's how much of it you're eating.0 -
Well my husband is naturally thin
When I married with him I gained a lot of weight due to the fact he never stops eating and he eats a lot, his metabolism is insane I gained 80 lbs and he maintained his weight. So now I am want to lose a lot of weight and it takes a lot of self control to cook for him and not eat what he does (pasta, chips, burgers and all the snacks plus all the soda drinks) all my weakness are there in my fridge
Oh the metabolism card.
If his metabolism was insane then the days where he doesnt eat that much, then he would lose weight and lose weight and lose weight and then end up fading away.
More likely, his metabolism isnt insane and you are probably exaggerating.0 -
Another side of being active. It's not just that I have a higher neat (and burn calories that way), but also that I am busy and don't view food as a form of recreation.
I have never been overweight. I've always been at the lowest end of the bmi (18 to 19). During my first pregnancy I gained in actual body weight around 15 pounds and for my second maybe 10 pounds at most. I was always nutrition oriented. I didn't think about calories. Just nutrition, portion control, and sweets only occasionally (also I drank no alcohol for a decade). I don't think there is one factor that leads to slimness. There are a lot of factors. And just being ok with a lifestyle that promotes fitness. Now I count calories and also eat differently. So, there is more than one way. It's just about how you choose to do it, and always keeping it as a priority. I have never gone on a low calorie diet (except once when i was 16 with disasterous consequences and that was why I learned to never diet again or think about calories until i joined mfp in my mid thirties). I have also never been an over eater.0
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