Why are slim people slim?

13

Replies

  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Also, they have few things they really love.. he loves shortbread cookies, she loves cheese. Bit of those and they are satisfied.

    I love all the things.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    robingmurphy wrote: »
    One thing I've come to realize is a difference between me and a naturally slim person (and I think this documentary reinforces this) is that when confronted with the question "Could I or should I eat?" my answer is pretty much always YES! whereas an easily slim person often answers no, and only yes in limited circumstances. For me, I think: Hm, I'm bored ... maybe I should eat! Hm, there's a bit left but I'm not hungry any more, should I finish it - always yes! Hm, should I eat something now just in case I get a little hungry later? yes! Many easily slim people say no in those situations. I have to consciously teach myself to say no unless my body needs more fuel.

    That would be me as well. I need to make a conscious decision not to eat because I can eat pretty much whenever I have the opportunity. Hunger plays only a tiny part in my default eating decisions. There is no real "I don't feel like it" when it comes to food. I mean, I may not feel like eating something, but eat it anyway because it's there. I had to teach myself not to eat by default and to make my eating decisions count.

    Yup, me too. Without tracking and the discipline to meter out the calories so I will have enough left late in the day, I would get right back where I started. I am hopeful that with time it will get more natural. I am done for the day and will have no trouble getting to sleep; I am not truly hungry. but I could go down to the kitchen and polish off a quart of ice cream if I let myself.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,584 Member
    Fuzzipeg wrote: »
    No one has mentioned their digestive biome possibly being more diverse? Not something to be considered on here.

    It's been a while since I watched the video (it came up in another thread a few months back), but I believe there was some discussion of microbiome.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Fuzzipeg wrote: »
    No one has mentioned their digestive biome possibly being more diverse? Not something to be considered on here.

    It's been a while since I watched the video (it came up in another thread a few months back), but I believe there was some discussion of microbiome.

    Yep.
  • WilmaValley
    WilmaValley Posts: 1,092 Member
    Great habits from childhood.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    AudreyJDuke wrote: »
    Great habits from childhood.

    I was skinny until about age 30, except for one period of a few months when I was 25. A lot of people didn't have weight problems until adulthood.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    CarvedTones wrote: »
    AudreyJDuke wrote: »
    Great habits from childhood.

    I was skinny until about age 30, except for one period of a few months when I was 25. A lot of people didn't have weight problems until adulthood.

    Typically that's when your activity goes down though. Your eating habits usually don't change dramatically after 30.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    robingmurphy wrote: »
    One thing I've come to realize is a difference between me and a naturally slim person (and I think this documentary reinforces this) is that when confronted with the question "Could I or should I eat?" my answer is pretty much always YES! whereas an easily slim person often answers no, and only yes in limited circumstances. For me, I think: Hm, I'm bored ... maybe I should eat! Hm, there's a bit left but I'm not hungry any more, should I finish it - always yes! Hm, should I eat something now just in case I get a little hungry later? yes! Many easily slim people say no in those situations. I have to consciously teach myself to say no unless my body needs more fuel.
    I know, why does it have to be so hard? My son is 10 and when it comes to food he could take it or leave it. Sometimes he will choose to skip dinner. Skip dinner! I’m like how the hell can you skip dinner? I’d DIE lol
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 2,084 Member
    Honestly, for me, it was just activity level. I have ALWAYS loved food, all food, and eaten a TON of food. All the things, all the time! Weight was never a big concern, if I was getting up a few extra pounds, just cut back on the fast food.

    When it started to go downhill was the transition to a desk job. My (at that time) 30+ years of eating habits didn't change, but my activity level sure did. A few injuries that broke me of my habits of fidgeting all the time didn't help - the little bit of activity I was getting went away.

    I've been working on relearning to fidget again - comes pretty naturally, but still have to think about sometimes. Nothing to be done about the desk job, but making working out a priority is important. I also consciously try to be sure I'm up and moving from my desk regularly. Still a pretty low overall step count in a day though (3200/day average the past week as an example - NOT including gym time).

    Every person is different, and while some may self regulate food, that was never the case with me. If there was food, I was probably eating it. I just had a lot of activity that off set the appetite.
  • oat_bran
    oat_bran Posts: 370 Member
    edited June 2018
    They both appear to be what is known as intuitive eaters. I live in a country where obesity is quite rare despite hyper-availability and hyper-palatability of food. Many if not most people around me appear to be normal weight intuitive eaters. My roommates and many of my friends are like that. Some of them may eat quite healthily. But others may eat a lot of unhealthy foods, they may eat at irregular times, they may snack, they are not necessarily active. But they autoregulate their intake intuitively. It's actually quite interesting to observe. They just know when to stop eating, even when there's still food on their plates. And If they have a big meal they may not be particularly hungry when the next one comes so they may just skip it or eat less. Or they may feel the need to go for a walk after a big meal. Or they decrease their intake over the next few days. And on days when they just lay in bed all day not doing much they, they also may not feel like eating much. And they do all that unconsciously. They're that in tune with their energy expenditure and intake.

    I always thought that this is how we are supposed to eat and auto-regulate our intake when food is not scarce and we are raised to listen to our hunger cues. But as someone who has struggled with eating disorders for most of my conscious life, I find the whole concept of intuitive eating quite fascinating. Like that guy in the video said, it's enough to overeat by only 100 calories a day to gain a pound in a month. So it's really fascinating that many people can maintain the same weight for years. I dream that one day I'll be able to do that, too, because the thought of having to count calories my whole life is daunting. Though from the accounts of many people here who have been maintaining for years, some people may never learn to eat intuitively and not gain weight.

    I think that auto-regulation is the main reason why they two people in the video are able to stay slim. The habits they have probably do play a role, but I won't be surprised that if they were to start eating more junk foods, take out, snack more or decrease their activity level, they'd still be able to intuitively regulate their intake to maintain an energy homeostasis.
  • comptonelizabeth
    comptonelizabeth Posts: 1,701 Member
    I've always been thin and in fact cake to mfp to gain weight. I also have a chronic condition which limits what I can eat but I developed that around the age of 45 (am now 62)and was thin before that. I have now put on weight with the help of mfp which has given me a lot of insight into why I've never been able to gain.
    I don't eat when I'm not hungry. I will leave food on my plate - I stop eating when I feel full. If I've eaten a lot on one day I tend to eat less the following day. And, I am never still! Gaining weight has been hard because I've had to change some of those habits - eg carry on eating even when I feel full. And I'm not a grazer - I see friends tucking into big bags of crisps after eating a full meal and I might have a couple, if they're available, but I don't crave it and tend not to have stuff like that in the house.
    Like another poster above, I have people tell me I'm lucky to be able to eat what I like but the truth is I just don't feel the need to eat unless I'm actually hungry.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    nettiklive wrote: »
    lporter229 wrote: »
    Yeah, I agree that it's not just about food either. I don't think that inactive people truly realize how active some people are. Conversely, I don't think that active people realize how sedentary some people can be. And I am not talking about "exercise" activities like running, biking, lifting etc. I am talking about moving in general. Some people just move a lot more than others and it matters a lot.

    This is something I really have trouble wrapping my mind around. Because if you look at the estimated calorie burns from actual exercise, it's really not that much - 100-400 or so calories per session depending on activity for a small person like myself - and that's with cardio, sweating and panting your butt off and hating life, lol. The whole concept of you can't outrun a bad diet because it takes something like half an hour of running to burn off a banana (making this up but you know these types of estimates). So in light of that, it's really hard for me to understand how some extra walking, tapping your foot and twiddling your thumbs can really add up to all that much to make a difference. I always thought that this cliche advice like take the stairs and park further out was completely useless, maybe targeted at morbidly obese people as a start to get them to move at all, but not to keep someone stick thin with no effort...

    It just adds up... fast. 300 extra calories from 1 hour of exercise a day and that's one less pound you'll gain in 11 days... Really though, naturally slim people don't usually have a big appetite in the first place.

    My friend might eat a batch of cookies in 3 days but he often forgets to eat lunch, stays busy, and he gets his 10k steps a day. Another old friend made much smaller portions for lunch than I did etc... it's just cico.
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,794 Member
    I was very sickly & hardly ate till I was 10, after that I had a huge appetite, my friend's parents counted how many chicken legs I ate, it was 12, we immigrated here from Europe, so everything we ate was made from scratch, pasta to head cheese. My parents made home made sausage every year in October, all kinds. My mom would start cooking in the morning. I have 3 older brothers & they all ate very well, one of them was a wight lifter.One of my favorite foods was boiled slab bacon with garlic & paprika on top & goose grease on french bread. We ate a lot of veggies too, but most of them were cooked in with the meat. I was very thin until I got pregnant for the first time when I was 22. I gained 75 lbs & also something happened to my vision, I needed glasses for distance. I never lost all of the weight. I gained around 60 with the other 3 & never lost it all. I was very active growing up. One of my brothers had a boat & Id go water skiing often. I rode my bike a lot & just generally played outside a lot. 2 of my sons gained weight in the begining of high school, one of them lost weight, 120lbs & never gained it back. Our oldest son was always very thin & still is. My dtr is "normal" weight but does gain during pregnancy & has to really work on losing it. My mom was very thing till she moved to America then slowly she weighed about 200. I lost 50 lbs with mfp, that's my story
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,794 Member
    I've been tracking my steps for about 2 months now & When I walk my dogs in the mornings, I keep walking in place when they stop & burn on average 350 + cal from just that so yes every movement counts
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,584 Member
    cdjs77 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    lporter229 wrote: »
    Yeah, I agree that it's not just about food either. I don't think that inactive people truly realize how active some people are. Conversely, I don't think that active people realize how sedentary some people can be. And I am not talking about "exercise" activities like running, biking, lifting etc. I am talking about moving in general. Some people just move a lot more than others and it matters a lot.

    This is something I really have trouble wrapping my mind around. Because if you look at the estimated calorie burns from actual exercise, it's really not that much - 100-400 or so calories per session depending on activity for a small person like myself - and that's with cardio, sweating and panting your butt off and hating life, lol. The whole concept of you can't outrun a bad diet because it takes something like half an hour of running to burn off a banana (making this up but you know these types of estimates). So in light of that, it's really hard for me to understand how some extra walking, tapping your foot and twiddling your thumbs can really add up to all that much to make a difference. I always thought that this cliche advice like take the stairs and park further out was completely useless, maybe targeted at morbidly obese people as a start to get them to move at all, but not to keep someone stick thin with no effort...

    It does add up. Every little thing adds up. The difference between running and just moving without even thinking about it is that you're not even thinking about it. I've always hated the "X minutes burns Y food" thing. It isn't a single food that puts someone over, it's the total of them.

    The difference between normal and obese BMI for a short 5' woman is just under 150 calories, so per that example, the difference between a normal weight and an obese woman is a couple of fruits. What if the normal weight one just burns one calorie more a minute for 3 hours out of the day without even noticing by tapping, walking, taking the stairs and whatnot?

    We think there is a huge difference in eating between people who are overweight and those who aren't, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes the things that make a difference are so small it isn't even funny. I've gone from about 1500-1800 steps a day to about 7000 steps without exercise just by moving a little bit more here and there. It doesn't feel too different from the way I was, but I'm effectively walking nearly an entire hour more without even thinking about it. An hour of walking feels like effort, an hour of walking that just happens intermittently over a day without thinking doesn't even register for me as out of the norm, but the calories burned are effectively the same. Add some deliberate exercise sessions, and I'm pretty sure I would maintain a lower weight on the same food intake (which in my case would still be a high weight because I was super morbidly obese - yes, that's a real term).

    I think this is very important. I think people really overestimate the difference in consumption between heavy and light people and underestimate the role of little bits of activity adding up.

    I have never been overweight, so I can't speak to that, but for most of my life I was very thin. When I moved overseas I gained a decent amount of weight in a short amount of time and felt like I had to work really hard to get back to my old weight, running at least an hour a day, when I never ran before. It wasn't until I got a fitbit and went home for Christmas that I realized the reason. The house I grew up in was a big one-story house with a long hallway, which, when I was a kid, and now when I visit, I (unknowingly) pace up and down. I was easily getting more than 10,000 steps a day when I was visiting my parents, whereas, in my tiny city apartment, there isn't a lot of room for pacing so I was mostly sedentary, struggling to get 3,000 or more steps in a day. Hence why I needed to start running to keep the weight off, I was merely making up for those missing steps, which usually made a difference of about 300 or so calories in a day.

    I also just checked out of curiosity the TDEE for a sedentary person my weight and height (175cm or 5'9" and 57 kg or about 125 lbs) versus the TDEE for someone my weight and height who is overweight (I used 80 kg or about 176 lbs). The difference was 276 kcal, that's less than what I burned meandering around my parents house. So it's pretty easy to see how little activities can add up. It also goes to show how it can seem like one can eat almost as much as their skinny counterpart and still be overweight. 276 kcal isn't much, it's about as much as a plain bagel, or a glass of whole milk. It's probably often a small enough difference that it's unnoticeable. No one would think that extra glass of whole milk a day would be the difference between being overweight and on the verge of underweight, but over time, it is.

    :flowerforyou: , because clicking a like/insightful/hug tag was not enough.

    Yes. A small difference on the causation end, a big difference on the results end, because time.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    This is something I really have trouble wrapping my mind around. Because if you look at the estimated calorie burns from actual exercise, it's really not that much - 100-400 or so calories per session depending on activity for a small person like myself - and that's with cardio, sweating and panting your butt off and hating life, lol. The whole concept of you can't outrun a bad diet because it takes something like half an hour of running to burn off a banana (making this up but you know these types of estimates). So in light of that, it's really hard for me to understand how some extra walking, tapping your foot and twiddling your thumbs can really add up to all that much to make a difference. I always thought that this cliche advice like take the stairs and park further out was completely useless, maybe targeted at morbidly obese people as a start to get them to move at all, but not to keep someone stick thin with no effort...[/quote]

    I have always been an "antsy" person. I don't like to sit still. I am a chemist and about half of my time is spent in a lab moving around and the other half is spent behind my desk. On days when I am in my office all day, I am constantly getting up to do things because I can't sit in one place for too long. When I get home from work I cook and clean, take my dog for a walk, and do whatever other things need to be done to avoid sitting around. Be it good or bad, I do not really have the patience to sit and watch TV.
    I have MFP friends with fitbits who are always talking about how they struggle to get 10K steps per day. Until I recently got an activity tracker, I could not have told you how many steps I walked per day, but I figured I was probably getting at least that many. It turns out I average about 20K steps per day (I do run, so I am not discounting the effect that has on my number of steps, but even on rest days I am well over 10K). That is the point I was trying to make though. Some people are just naturally more active and that goes a long way toward why they are staying thin. It does make a difference.[/quote]


    So true. I always fidget. I can't watch tv during the day either without getting up all the time to go to the bathroom, do some chore, let the dog in, get a drink etc. I have a very nice recliner and I avoid it all day until I'm actually ready to set down (I DO sit down and watch tv after the kids are in bed for an hour), or I know I just won't get up from it.

    Yesterday I did maybe 10 minutes on the treadmill, the rest was cleaning, cooking and whatnot, and I got my 10k steps easily too. I do have a 3 story house, with laundry in the basement, and I often have my recipes up on my computer in another room, so need to walk back and forth as I cook (I'm actually too lazy to pull it up on my phone, true story).

    So many people think that hitting the gym for 40 minutes 3x a week is enough, and eat as if they were lightly active, but sit all day the rest of the time and then wonder why they're not losing.

    I know that it does come to food intake in the end, but for me activity is EVERYTHING. If I wasn't active, I'd be obese again, just because I can't sustain my appetite on a sedentary lifestyle (and always ruin my progress when I get sick).


  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited June 2018
    nettiklive wrote: »
    lporter229 wrote: »
    Yeah, I agree that it's not just about food either. I don't think that inactive people truly realize how active some people are. Conversely, I don't think that active people realize how sedentary some people can be. And I am not talking about "exercise" activities like running, biking, lifting etc. I am talking about moving in general. Some people just move a lot more than others and it matters a lot.

    This is something I really have trouble wrapping my mind around. Because if you look at the estimated calorie burns from actual exercise, it's really not that much - 100-400 or so calories per session depending on activity for a small person like myself - and that's with cardio, sweating and panting your butt off and hating life, lol. The whole concept of you can't outrun a bad diet because it takes something like half an hour of running to burn off a banana (making this up but you know these types of estimates). So in light of that, it's really hard for me to understand how some extra walking, tapping your foot and twiddling your thumbs can really add up to all that much to make a difference. I always thought that this cliche advice like take the stairs and park further out was completely useless, maybe targeted at morbidly obese people as a start to get them to move at all, but not to keep someone stick thin with no effort...

    I don't think she's necessarily talking about fidgeting or taking the stairs and whatnot...she seems to be talking about being an active person on the whole.

    If you would have asked me when I was in my 20s if I was active I probably would have said, "I'm a student and study and sit in class a lot, and don't workout...so probably no." Looking back however, I was very active. Yes, I sat around studying and sat in classes...but I also biked or walked most places because I didn't own a car for most of that time and even when I did, it was easier to walk to campus than to find parking.

    Many of my classes were scattered around campus...so lots of walking on campus too. In my free time I liked playing Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee Golf with my friends...we were also avid weekend hikers and took several backpacking trips to the mountains annually.

    For work, I namely waited tables, worked retail, and did landscape construction. I can tell you I burned significantly more calories doing all of those things vs working a desk job as I do now. I moved a hell of a lot more in my day to day life with both work and recreation than I do now. It's the biggest reason I started gaining weight when I was 30...I went from all of that to working behind a desk 50-70 hours per week and traveling for business 25 weeks out of the year.

    Things like taking the stairs and whatnot are easy ways to increase one's NEAT...it adds up, but I don't think those things necessarily equate to being active...rather being more active than just sedentary.

    I think @Iporter229 was talking about people who are actually pretty active in their day to day, not just people taking the stairs or parking a little further away.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    I think having a family slowed me down. Yes, it is active and tiring at ties doing things with the kids but there is a lot more sitting watching and waiting for them. It also made things I do for recreation less frequent. I am not complaining about that tradeoff, just pointing out it is a source of a slow down. There might have been a bump when they were small, but most of the time you are shuttling, watching and waiting.
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