I enjoy life's simple pleasures but I actually dread food shopping. I will put it off until I realize that I have maybe a cottage cheese and egg whites left. Or if I realize I am low on coffee! :D

I don't really buy "shelf" food. Fully stocked would probably take up less than 1 cabinet but my fridge and freezer would be packed.

I try to eat mostly whole, low carb, outer aisle foods because I do feel healthier, but not so sure about the thinner part, lol!

My wife is naturally thin. She is 5' 4" and weighs 103 lbs. She can eat whatever she wants and never gains weight. She is 41 years old and can still fit in the jeans she wore when she was 15. Her exercise program consists of 30 minutes of lap swimming once a week. She is a member of the Extreme Clean Plate Club. She cannot stand to have food left on her plate or even on the dinner table . She actually will force herself to eat the food on the table long after she is full. She rarely eats breakfast but definitely makes up for that later in the day. I post this just for the people who don't think some people are thin no matter what, I can attest they do exist. Oh yea, she is hot and I love her (for her mind).

I would have been naturally thin since '95 if it hadn't a been for all the fast food and drinking I did. It all started in college when one summer I ate at Arby's everyday. ;) But I'm thin again now and that's what matters.

Haha! :D

Road Goat please don't take it personally when I say that people like your wife make me extremely depressed. And jealous.

And Vabeachgirl, I envy your healthy diet. I wish I could just eat around the margins!

But as Popeye says I yam what I yam and what I yam well I like to say is "fluffy."

Me too! Built for comfort, not for speed.

lol

I lol'd because I have a graphic tee with a pic of a sheep that say's "Ewes Not Fat, Ewes Just Fluffy!" :D

I am still working towards losing the rest of my fluff the healthy eating is getting me there. :)

Man I am trying this non dieting and am eating like a pig, feeling sick and gaining weight. I may have to go back to planning and tracking. Vabeach I wish I were like you: liking the good stuff but left to my own devices I have been eating seafood salad (mayonnaise laden) by the pound, jambalaya and barbeque chicken strips. Not health food, believe me. Oh and I had some nuts and salad "to balance it out." Think I gotta go lie down now...yeah that'll burn it off.....

Lol, that is the feeling that keeps me eating healthy!

My body is so used to it that I think my system actually has trouble breaking down large amounts or certain foods now. It just makes me feel sickish and sluggish.

It's kind of funny because I really don't feel like I am missing out at all. I like feeling good and foods that make me feel bad just aren't worth it to me anymore.

I may eat on the healthier side but for some reason, it actually seems harder now, trying to lose these last few pounds.

Can you give me an example of a day in the life of your diet?

I know the last pounds can be so tough. I'm sure you exercise. Heighten the intensity or change it up maybe? I don't know. I'm still struggling.

I am too tired of dieting and want to find away to become "naturally thin" but I think it would never happen :(.
I usually avoid the middle isle, I never have chips, cookies in the house. I usually not eating treat, but if I try a bite, I can't stop. i eat and eat until I'm sick. So I better avoid it altogether. I think i will read the book but for now I have to watch what I eat.
Mai

I know I'm coming late to the party here, but I've just (2 months) started "Naturally Thin," e.g. I stopped worrying about how much I was eating. I've really enjoyed and learned from this thread, and I wanted to share some thoughts, just my own experience and some reading. (By the way, re the process: I gained for several weeks but then I leveled off and now I've started losing.)

Yes, weight loss is calories-out minus calories-in. HOWEVER: studies have shown that calories-out has a HUGE variance from person to person, not just a small variance, as previously thought. Go thank all those enzymes and the completely tangled way they interact: gh, ghrelin, insulin, leptin, seratonin, endorphins, etc etc etc. Let's roughly call this tangle "metabolism".

So how to increase metabolism?

• Eating when hungry increases leptin and decreases ghrelin (that's good!)
• Staying hungry (maintaining high ghrelin/low leptin levels) desensitises the uptake receptors to need more and more ghrelin and leptin. (that's bad ...)
• Stopping when satisfied (not overfull) normalizes insulin levels and a couple others (good)
• Binging, even just a little, reverses the whole trend and fast!
• Eating that "forbidden" food (and eliminating the concept of "forbidden") increases endorphin levels. After a while, this reduces/eliminates the need to binge.
• OK, sugar decreases the metabolism (raises insulin), but surprizingly, not as much as a binge. So metabolism is maximizes when junk input is reduced, but not to the point where the binges come back.
• Exercising when low on carbs/calories provides a temporary increase in gh, but this is accompanied by a reduction in endorphin levels. As opposed to a calorie/energy sated person who experiences an increase in endorphin levels. In other words, overweight people don't want to exercise for a good reason: it makes them feel bad.
• Short amounts of high intensity exercise increase metabolism like mad, but gh production rates fall off sharply after 30-40 min.

I'm sure there are other interactions I haven't read about, or that I have mistated or oversimplified. But for me, the moral of the story is EAT MORE, EXERCISE LESS (ok, but more intense)! As other people have pointed out, it's amazing what you can learn from your kids...

Have a wonderful day!
Matty

Interesting
 

I am naturally thin, been my whole life, I am 5'10 and 120lbs and never been over 125 and believe me I eat LIKE CRAP, even worked at mcdonalds eating everything for almost a year at 16. Also until working out now I never been active EVER and most of my jobs I sit all day. For me I thinks it metabolism. Hard thing about this is im trying to work out im doing insanity which I just started today and im going to need to buff up so I dont fade away to nothing!!