"Naturally slim" people - curious!

I was like that and it turns out it was actually a disorder - I didn't produce any cortisol. My BMI was 14 when they caught the insufficiency (adrenal) and now that I'm on steroids I ballooned up (well, my BMI now is 23 something I guess), thus I'm here. I've danced my whole life too and such, (the disorder is life long and gets worse with age) but turns out I was also hypothyroid and other things I had no idea about - but afaik there's no such thing as being extremely underweight and "naturally" so. You can be underweight naturally, no problems, but not freakishly like I was - I wasn't able to put a pound on or naturally hold normal blood pressure or blood sugar. Scary stuff.

For the 99% of people out there, it really is as simple as what you put in vs. what you put out, energy expenditure, etc.

The thing is, what one person "should" eat is individual. If a person is eating at what they think is maintenance but are losing weight, they are eating at a deficit. Calculators online are just estimators and you have to play with your numbers to get the right number.

It really is that simple. If your calories consumed exceed your calories burned, then you gain weight. There are factors that affect your nutrient breakdown, metabolism, etc., but when it comes down to it metabolism is not to blame, as larger people have faster metabolisms than slimmer ones. For whatever reason, slimmer people are just more in tune with their hunger/don't eat emotionally/learned proper portion control/etc.

Quite frankly, i don't understand why everybody thinks that those whom are slim are naturally such since it's dependent upon our calories in versus our calories out (obviously excluding the exceptions made with illnesses).

I have friends who are "naturally thin". It might seem like they are eating a lot if you just have one meal with them, but often they make up for it at other meals by eating less. They might eat a 1200 calorie burger for lunch, but had almost nothing for breakfast, skipped the fries, drank water instead of soda, had salad for dinner. Some of them eat lots of fruits and vegetables with a bit of lean meat, which tends to be more filling and fewer calories.

My brother eats horribly. I would love for him to be someone's guinea pig and measure his calories in as opposed to his calories out. He is 6'4. I suppose his height makes up for all that extra calories in???

Is there anyone on these forums who is "naturally" slim - meaning no matter how much or what you eat, you struggle to gain weight?

I've always been slim (yes, I still wanted to lose a few pounds so I joined here, but I've never been overweight.) Growing up I assumed it was all the usual myths like 'luck' or 'genetics', but in truth, I have always been more active than average (even if I never pounded a treadmill or ran up a soccer field) which likely kept me below a certain level no matter how much I overate.

The other factor was that even if I 'overate', it was honestly never really as bad as some other people can do. For example, I buy a box of four cakes. I eat two of them. That's quite greedy, I suppose. But I never ate four. Or bought three boxes and ate 12. And then got a takeaway. And 8 beers. I would pretty much only do one 'bad habit' thing maybe twice a week or so - gosh, three chocolate biscuits, or perhaps an extra serving of pasta.

I was brought up in an obese family, and some of their dinner routines still shock me. My father eats his huge mountain of fried dinner with half a loaf of cheap white bread - he spoons the dinner onto the slices, folds, eats it as a sandwich, then again til half the loaf is gone. That seems like extreme behaviour to me - to him it's normal, to others it might be normal. I've known women who ate takeaways every single night - one had a new kitchen installed without a sink because she claimed not to need one, she never had washing up to do! - and like I say, is that extreme? Normal? I don't know. But basically I've never done stuff like that. It's alien to me.

So, short answer: I move a fair bit, and I simply never adopted really, really bad eating habits and then doing them lots of times each day. I also stopped drinking years ago, so even though I had no idea about calorie amounts and stuff, at least I wasn't necking 1000 of them a night in wine. Oh, I cook from scratch too. That's just a reaction to when I left home and found I didn't want to eat 5-for-£4 microwave meals anymore I never intended to cook 'healthy' - I can do cheese/pasta dishes that would calorifically knock your socks off - but it's hard to serve up 1200 cals of a homecooked meal, but surprisingly simple to go out and buy a boxed one with that amount in (I put a pizza back on the shelf yesterday that claimed to be 825 calories per HALF pizza! 1650 cals in a pizza!!)

In that respect, I suppose that's 'lucky'.

When people struggle to gain weight, though, I expect it's a mental problem with bulking up. It's hard, after a life of either dieting or being told you should, to deliberately add weight. To watch the scale rise. I accidentally lost weight a year or two back when my activity levels rose and my appetite dropped. Suddenly I was gaunt and going a funny shade of grey, and had to maintain my weight and gain the lost pounds back eating extra bread and cake. That was easy, because I really wanted the scale to rise. But I think unless you really, really want it, it's hard to see it go up.

Oh, and FWIW...

I was one of those 'naturally skinny' people.

Until I wasn't anymore.

My activity level (which I didn't think was very high at all) changed, and guess what? Gained weight.

Same here. I could eat anything and everything I wanted and never gain a pound.... till my knees and hips blew out and I couldn't run anymore. I was TOO SKINNY for a long time. Now I'm here and fighting to lose the gained weight.

I was one of them until I started suing this app.

3700 is what I need to gain 2 pounds monthly.

I always though I what eating "too much" when in reality you think that you're eating a lot when you dont count calories.

Oh, and FWIW...

I was one of those 'naturally skinny' people.

Until I wasn't anymore.

My activity level (which I didn't think was very high at all) changed, and guess what? Gained weight.

Same here. I could eat anything and everything I wanted and never gain a pound.... till my knees and hips blew out and I couldn't run anymore. I was TOO SKINNY for a long time. Now I'm here and fighting to lose the gained weight.

I grew up 'naturally skinny' and I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. I didn't eat until lunch, lunch was small, afternoon snack was mostly protein and I had a big dinner. I was also very active. I joined the military and was hungry 24/7. After starving for 3 months in boot camp I started eating as much as I could every chance I got because I feared being hungry.

Oh, and FWIW...

I was one of those 'naturally skinny' people.

Until I wasn't anymore.

My activity level (which I didn't think was very high at all) changed, and guess what? Gained weight.

I've been overweight my entire life. I think my metabolism is just very slow. The lowest weight I ever saw was 170 when I was a teenager. I was so busy with school and work I never ate. Even then it took a year for me to go down from 200 something to there.

I doubt your metabolism is slow, but if you really think that you should go have your RMR tested.

I have a good friend, same height as me, 6'2". We eat the same things at lunch every day, often together. He's 270, I'm 205 on a good day. Anyone observing us would think I got the "skinny gene" and he got the "fat gene". What they don't see is that he frequently eats between meals, items like cake and cookies that pop up around the office. I skip those. He's always got something in his mouth when sitting at his desk. What they don't see is that I exercise near daily. He doesn't. But there must be some magic to it, because we eat the same things. Whatever. Rub two brain cells together and think about it awhile. He's fat because he sucks down 1500 calories in snacks that I don't, and rarely moves around. He's an awesome guy, and I love him, but he's fat because of what he doesn't do and how he eats, and he's the first to admit it.

I experience similar in college. I was fairly thin already, but I had a super skinny roommate. I lost 15 pounds my freshman year eating just like she did. I didn't attempt to mirror her, but we lived together and had every class together.

There's really no such thing. People who are slim, just don't eat in surplus of their TDEE. That's all.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I doubt your metabolism is slow, but if you really think that you should go have your RMR tested.

How is that tested? Like a fitness tracker?

Do a google search for RMR or metabolic testing centers in your area.

Up until I was 29 this was me.


Lived off a diet of meat pies (Australia), pizza, burgers and around 10 sodas a day and weighed 49kg (108lbs) as a 5"9 male.

was mildly active, then my 30s hit hard.

That said I never ate all of my meals (ate until I was full), went from a job of being on my feet to an office.

The thing is, what one person "should" eat is individual. If a person is eating at what they think is maintenance but are losing weight, they are eating at a deficit. Calculators online are just estimators and you have to play with your numbers to get the right number.

It really is that simple. If your calories consumed exceed your calories burned, then you gain weight. There are factors that affect your nutrient breakdown, metabolism, etc., but when it comes down to it metabolism is not to blame, as larger people have faster metabolisms than slimmer ones. For whatever reason, slimmer people are just more in tune with their hunger/don't eat emotionally/learned proper portion control/etc.

Quite frankly, i don't understand why everybody thinks that those whom are slim are naturally such since it's dependent upon our calories in versus our calories out (obviously excluding the exceptions made with illnesses).

I am assuming you are just elaborating on what I said, correct?