How do naturally skinny people eat

Have you ever wondered why some women gain weight and some never do?! It can be frustrating, constantly dieting and exercising to lose some weight, only to have friends who seem to be naturally skinny! They seem to eat what they want and never put on weight, while you have to watch each calorie you consume.

How do they do it? Adapting these habits into your own life might help you keep off excess weight, while still being able to live a fairly normal life diet-wise. Avoiding sugar, and not enjoying too much sugar in your diet, are two different things.

However, if you lower the amount of sugar in your diet, you will soon be put off sweet foods or having too much sugar in your coffee. Soon the sweet things you once found satisfying will taste too sweet! It is common to see skinny or thinner people eating their food slowly.

For many of us, we cannot wait to dig into a huge helping of food, it can be difficult to resist the urge to eat it quickly and move on to the next thing! However, taking your time to eat your food slowly can actually help you control portion size. By eating quickly, you are not giving your body enough time to register as feeling full. What's their secret? How do they never seem to fluctuate? They've developed these healthy food and fitness behaviors—and you can too.

Yes, science goes back and forth on this one. Some studies say that having smaller meals throughout the day works because it keeps your metabolism steady.

But naturally slim women don't mess with snacking. In fact, that's also how we ate in the United States before the obesity crisis struck in the s.

Realistically speaking, you can't spend every meal sitting down at a table with neatly arranged china plates and beautiful silverware. But a single slower meal a day, eaten at a real table not your desk at work from actual dishes not a takeout container is totally doable. Pick a time that works with your schedule, and stick to it. Call them picky eaters, food snobs, or whatever else, but naturally thin women don't eat everything just because it's there.

I do bikram yoga sometimes. I'm currently a full-time worker and part-time student, and something had to give. It was exercise.

I'd like to do more weights but I don't really have time for the gym. I have a diet coke about once a week. Water, coffee, and beer. Sometimes wine. Herb tea. See above for the soft drinks. I'm an athletic 6' lb guy.

On weekdays: full-fat yogurt and a fibrous cereal. Maybe also a banana and a nubbin of expensive cheese. On weekends: bacon, eggs, toast, cheese, jam, coffee.

On weekdays: either leftovers, a bowl of noodles, a salad or deli sandwich, or nothing. On weekends: nothing. Meats: salmon, white fish, chicken, occasionally steak, pork, lamb, goat, or mussels. Sides: always seasonal and fresh sweet potatoes, winter squash, heirloom tomatoes, salad, cooked greens, fresh green beans, black beans, hummus, soup, corn, cheese, freshly baked bread, pasta, rice, other grains, more cheese. Oh yeah, I shop at a farmer's market on Saturday mornings, and pick up a lot of produce.

I cook and eat the stuff that won't keep right away. I use some of the extra time I have on weekend mornings to splurge and cook some bacon or sausage Whole Foods has some fantastic bacon at their meat counter and eggs, or maybe some French toast, along with freshly ground coffee with chicory. I'll be too full for lunch, but ravenous come dinner which I usually eat around 10, regardless of the day of the week. I see the weekends as an opportunity to try new stuff that takes a long time to shop for and cook.

A little. Mostly just on apples, bananas, and whatever fresh fruit's in season. I eat a two or three apples a day. I usually don't get too hungry for snacks, though, and take a perverse delight in occasionally mastering the craving for a piece of cake that accompanies the random afternoon office party. Oh yeah, I gorge on as much as I possibly can, since the food's usually high quality and very tasty, I'm not cooking everything, and since I believe in moderation in all things, including moderation, it's nice to enjoy some few-times-a-year gluttony.

Yeah, usually I only eat when I'm hungry, so I may end up skipping breakfast and lunch if I, say, had a bowl of ice cream the night before. Other times, I'll find myself just as hungry as usual. I run more and pay more attention to what I'm eating. A lot. I run 20 to 50 miles a week, depending on how much I like the weather and if my legs are injured. I also walk fast a great deal. Definitely not. If I have a coke, though, it'll be diet, just because I don't eat corn syrup unless I need it for baking and there's just so much sugar in regular soft drinks.

I weaned myself off of sugar in coffee by learning to appreciate the mild sugars and mouth-feel that whole milk adds to it. I take my tea unsweetened.

I go through about a half gallon of green or white loose-leaf tea a day. I hardly ever drink soft drinks. I usually have a beer and the better part of a bottle of wine a night, and the occasional Scotch or gin and tonic. Lots of water. On food: Portion control. Don't eat much, and don't eat when you're not hungry. Only eat high-quality food that's as fresh as you can get it.

If you're going to eat energy-dense stuff like cheese, ice cream, or chocolate, only eat the extremely high quality, extremely expensive stuff that way, you'll be eating something truly worthwhile, but won't end up eating that much of it.

Avoid chemicals, additives, sweeteners, fake whatever. Read food sites like Chowhound , newspapers like the Wednesday Dining and Wine insert in the New York Times , and magazines like Cook's Illustrated to get ideas for new, interesting things to cook and eat.

On exercise: Make it a regular habit, and push yourself a lot harder once you're in decent enough shape that you can but don't get shin splints than you think you can as in, train as though you're an athlete, rather than just someone who puts time in at the gym I like to think about what Lance Armstrong did after losing a testicle.

Try to make it fun take up soccer, skiing, hiking, whitewater rafting, whatever. I'm a girl, 5'7', lb. Homemade vegetable soup with cheese and crackers or a salad, depending on the weather. Some sort of vegetable plus some sort of meat. Sometimes pasta if I just came from the gym and I haven't had a snack in the afternoon. I either eat a big snack around 4 pretty much a 4th meal and a small, late dinner, or no snack and a larger dinner.

I might snack occasionally on an apple during the day if I'm really hungry. When we're having special meals Christmas, Thanksgiving, fancy restaurant, etc , I forget all about eating healthy and just enjoy the food. This happens very rarely though.

I'm generally less hungry after a big meal, so I naturally don't eat as much at my next meal. I cut out junk food a while. I shoot for an average of times a week. I take step classes, dance classes, and run. Water, orange juice, herbal tea, the occasional hot chocolate.

No soft drinks, diet or not. I'm a thin person 5'2, approx. I always thought it was because of my genes my mother has had three children, doesn't exercise, eats what she wants and wears a size 6. I'm beginning to realize that my somewhat unusual eating habits have something to do with it as well. I'm lactose intolerant, so I avoid most dairy products, which cuts out a huge amount of fat in my diet.

Also, I've never liked condiments or most salad dressings, so that takes out a lot of calories as well. For years, I was stable at lbs, around age 25 I figured out that I needed to eat more frequently and quickly found myself at and stable.

I have to be careful about my blood sugar hypoglycemic so my eating habits are oriented around that. Sometimes oatmeal with fruit, if I'm craving sweets I add yogurt to the oatmeal instead of butter 2 I work from home, so whatever protein meal is quickest - chickpeas, refried beans, sliced turkey and Triscuits. Lately I have rediscovered the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it's not as satisfying as it was when I was a kid.

By eating the good stuff first, it ensures that I don't end up eating everyone's dessert, because my appetite is satisfied. Adding exercise definitely helps, but I weigh every other day, and my weight increases are almost always tied to a baked-good bender.

I made a simple rule a few years ago that I can eat any sweet thing I want usually cookies as long as I bake it myself - this works really well for me to control cravings and keep me from standing in the candy aisle, scheming , because often I want the cookies, but I don't want the forty minutes in the kitchen and subsequent cleanup.

However, when I DO bake, I tend to eat the whole batch over the course of a day, so I've learned to halve all my recipes. I try to go for walks, lately I've fallen off of that habit. I live in the mountains, though, so my "walks" are often "hikes". When I stopped drinking soda, I dropped the fastest ten pounds of my life. What I learned is that I have a pretty good metabolism, and what fuels it is small, regular meals - so that's how I plan.

Usually with fruit mixed in. And not instant oatmeal, but the Quaker Oats in the big tub. Depends what's going on. I'm more likely to go to a restaurant for dinner on the weekends, but otherwise no. If I get hungry I usually just eat an apple or something.

I usually work through lunch, and have found that if I spread out what's in my lunch over an hour or so I don't get a afternoon crash, and I don't get hungry before dinner. I love holiday food. The holidays are really the only time I eat deserts, or red meat. I don't. It just usually means I'm not as hungry later on. I don't know that I would notice.

I don't have a scale, and don't really ever think about what i weigh. It's more how I feel than anything. If I eat poorly, I usually feel worse.

I love my gym because it is really low key, and regular excercise makes me feel better overall. My routine is usually: Mon - nothing Tues - basketball to warm-up, chest, shoulders, triceps, 20m cardio Wed - basketball to warm-up, legs, abs, 20m cardio Thurs - nothing Fri - basketball to warm up, back, arms Sat - 30m cardio Sun - Full body strength training 1 hr 10 artificial sweeteners?

I avoid high fructose and aspartame like the plague 11 Water and green tea. Mostly water. And the tea is brewed tea, most bottled tea is pure sugar. I haven't had a soda in years. General advice: No junk food No sodas No artificial sweeteners Avoid pre-packaged stuff as much as possible Buy ingredients, not snacks, and make your own meals Find a kind of excercise you enjoy and do it regularly because it is fun posted by doppleradar at AM on October 10, I'm just not hungry till noon.

Sushi, or steamed lobster with miso butter. The key for me is that I just don't take in any avoidable sugar; I avoid starch that my body will turn into sugar. I also munch on sugary candy like nerds or wintergreen lifesavers perhaps to make up for the sugarless coffee.

Meals more often than daylong snacking. However, I never gorge on anything -- one or two is enough. I used to visit the gym about four times a week, but it's been months now. Now I'm back to normal. Otherwise, I stay away. I'm also a sucker for margaritas. Sometimes I have pancakes. Sometimes I will throw in some upper body training. A couple 5km runs and one longer run on the weekend. I also bike to work and walk alot. I avoid diet drinks if at all possible. My ex is naturally the shape of a very thin twig.

He regularly eats: 1 Nothing, or possibly a pastery. But only if someone else cooks it. Small amounts of water, juice, milk. Small amounts of mixed drinks and hard alcohol. I don't recommend actually following this plan, since I eat a fraction of all that and weigh about 30 pounds more same height. You should just stick with the brains.

Generally I skip eating, because I am not yet hungry, but sometimes I eat a homemade egg mcmuffin. I pig out, then resume normal eating habits once it's over.

I can never eat that much at one time. I probably eat upwards of 8 to 9 times a day. I exercise every day, I have to. If I don't, I go crazy. I tend to be somewhat hyperactive and an insomniac, and if I don't exercise strenuously every day, I can't sleep. The rest of the time, it's not an issue, because I don't much care for sweets.

Occasionally I like a glass of wine or two. Rarely if ever do I drink soda. I have always been skinny and eaten this way, in large part because eating healthy feels good. Whenever I eat crap food, I feel like crap, and I have less energy to get through all the stuff I have to do in a day. As I have grown older, when comparing myself to other people, I have found that I tend to eat much less at one sitting than most, but I am more likely to go back and snack later.

I'm 5'4 and weigh I have never weighed more aside from my pregnancies. My mother's family has serious weight problems, but I take after my dad's side where everyone is naturally fairly slim and muscular. I generally eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm not hungry anymore, that's probably the closest thing to wisdom that I could impart to you.

I cook from scratch: lots of olive oil, lots of whole grains, almost all my vegetables are fresh and in season. Lots of fresh herbs, which I grow. I've cut down on portion size of meat and poultry for our family and increased servings of vegetables to make up the bulk. Coffee with lots of half and half. I have "second breakfast" later in the morning, usually a bowl of granola, maybe an egg salad sandwich on flaxseed bread. A giant salad, consisting of mixed greens, tomatoes, red onion, sunflower seeds, a handful of grated cheese, sometimes a hardboiled egg, and a dollop of Annie's Goddess dressing.

I have made a commitment to prepare fish at least once a week, and vegetarian dinners at least twice a week. Sometimes bacon ends up being a vegetable though.

I tend to have "brunch" on weekends instead of my "second breakfast" and lunch. If I'm on my period, I might get a hankering for chocolate or salt and I'll indulge that without a second thought. I probably eat larger meals and more sweets, but I'm also much busier so it seems to balance out. I don't gain weight during the holidays. Not on purpose, but naturally, yes. If I have "Sunday Dinner" at noon, I'll go for a lighter supper meal in the evening.

I take a pregnancy test. I do a minutes of yoga a few times a week and I ride my bike a lot, but neither of these are activities that I have pursued on a regular basis throughout my adult life. I've been a sporadic exerciser, but am trying to make it more of a routine thing since I'm not going to get any younger.

Absolutely not. I can't bear the taste of them. I mostly drink water and wine. I do have a deep affection for cola drinks, but never diet. I try to keep it in check nowadays, because I don't want my kids to see me drinking that crap. My husband is 6' and around , and does have more of a tendency to put on pounds. He does yoga every morning and eats whatever I put in front of him, and is having very little problem maintaining weight.

But if there are cookies or salty things, he will devour them if he can find them. My children eat several snacks, and smaller meal portions. I keep healthy snacks like fruits, whole grain crackers and baked goods, skim-milk cheeses and yogurt, cut vegetables, etc.

They drink whole milk and water almost exclusively, and juice a few times a week. Male, 20 going on 21, 5' 10", fluctuate wildly between lbs 1 None, unless I wake up very early, in which case I may eat a granola bar. Grilled chicken sandwich? Big combo plate of Chinese food? Currently, they're not. So I don't snack. When the mood strikes.

I've had stretches where I haven't don't exercise for weeks or months. Other stretches where I exercise several times a week. I'm at college, so walking to classes, work, and my fraternity house at least a half mile one-way to each keeps me moving throughout the day. Sometimes orange juice. Partial to Diet Coke, but concerned about its effects on my teeth. I generally prefer diet versions of sodas solely for taste reasons; I hate sugary high fructose corn syrup drinks.

Oops, forgot to answer one. Not unless I'm still full from that meal. Sometimes I'll go out with colleagues and order a meal 3 Vegetarian, so stir-fry, curry, corncakes and veges, whatever I feel like cooking. And we usually have desserts, sometimes very elaborate ones involving lots of ice cream, whipped cream and grated chocolate, sometimes just fruit 4 I usually have a cooked breakfast eggs and toast with tomato, avocado, onion, spinach and dill; sometimes pancakes with fruit in the early afternoon and then dinner 5 Occasionally - nuts, muesli bars, chocolate, cake if I've been baking 6 I eat phenomenal amounts on the holidays, and usually drink to match 7 If I've gone out with colleagues for a meal at lunch I'll usually have toast or popcorn or fruit or something for dinner 8 Buy tampons?

It usually means I'm about to get my period 9 I walk a lot to get places, and I love to dance, and bushwalk and swim and stuff too but I don't 'exercise', per se 10 Hell, no 11 Coffee, water, juice, beer, Coke or Ribena sometimes. Sometimes I'll mix cordial or juice with soda water. At times I have been known to drink a lot of alcohol also but my drinks are usually vodka or cointreau and soda with fresh lime, Coke makes me bloated after a few I cook and bake a lot, and don't hesitate to use sugar, butter, cream or oil in my cooking, but I've been vegetarian since childhood so I have really low cholesterol and have removed one of the major sources of fat from my diet.

What does your mum look like? Don't forget the role played by genetics. I'm 5'8" and lbs. Female, if it matters. Sometimes I add two Morningstar Farms meatless sausages to the omlet. I tend to skip the fries and get a salad. Usually a cookie and some peppermint tea for dessert. I spend most of the weekend with my boyfriend, who loves to cook, is a vegetarian and thus eats very differntly than I do.

I often feel like I need to detox after a weekend. I'm better suited to grazing and, depending on the level of activity I plan in a day, I'll eat an extra cookie or a Clifbar. There's a lot of candy at work and I tend to graze on a few pieces of that a day, too.

Eating large meals tends to upset my stomach and makes me feel loagy. I don't tend to gain more than three or four pounds, but I might eat more deliberately for a couple of days and increase my water intake, which usually takes care of it.

I'm active enough that I don't need to add more exercise. Yes: I'm a distance runner in addition to being a recreational and full-time commuting cyclist. I run four days a week, 30 - 40 miles per week. I ride every day, from 6 to 15 miles a day. I can't stand them. They make me feel sick.

I've always been thin, but about five years ago weighed , smoked and was in terrible shape. I started going to a gym, running, stopped smoking and learned to eat in a way that suits my body. The weight came off and thousands of miles running later has never come back. Female, 5'4" and fluctuate between My BMI is smack in the middle of normal.

I've never thought of myself as fat, have never dieted except to drop some babyweight , have no eating disorder and consciously "exercise" only if things are really getting out of control or if I need to feel physical. Winter: steel cut oatmeal with maple syrup or agave syrup and flax. Small cup of orange juice, basically enough to take my vitamins with, then water. Sometimes I have sugar free almond butter and sugar free jelly. I add flax seed to all those sandwiches, too.

Grilled meat with a simple marinade, at least two different colors of vegetables. Infrequently a starch like rice, pilaf, couscous or bread. I don't actively avoid starches, but I'm a lazy cook and they take too long. I allow myself one day a week usually Saturday for sugary stuff if I want it and if my weight's in line.

This can mean banana chocolate chip pancakes with syrup for breakfast and ice cream for dessert after dinner. I snack all the time.

Usually around 10am with yogurt, and again around with vegetables or Pirate Booty. I graze a lot with cukes, carrots and tomatoes or grapes in the summer and dark chocolate chips. For the chocolate, I measure out servings in a separate container and eat from that rather than eating from the bag as I used to!

Yes, I tend to eat a little of almost everything on the table. But I don't load my plate just so I have the pleasure of looking at an image from a Hallmark card for Thanksgiving. In our family you can go all day not eating because someone's making some huge, elaborate meal and then you sit down and all bets are off because you're so hungry. It's harder for me to tell when I'm full. Sometimes, but not always.

I give myself leeway to eat cereal for dinner if I'm not that hungry and I ate a big lunch. This happens more now, as I near 40, so I'm adjusting. At my height a few pounds is noticeable fast to me. Because I can't always get to the gym dependably, my focus is to eat less for a week or two. Not differently, and not less by much, but not just any old amount. In general I don't like a lot of chain restaurants, but if I'm putting on a few pounds I stay away from restaurants where the portions are insultingly huge.

I also walk even more. I walk a lot everyday, regardless of weather, and hustle after a toddler. I have a rowing machine at home and I do some yoga. It's been months since I was in a gym, but when I was going it was x a week, for at least 45min of cardio at a high heart rate I use a heart rate monitor.

Usually rowing, cycling, and run-walking on a treadmill. My Dad says the most effective exercise is getting up from the dinner table when you're full. I think he was paraphrasing Marcus Aurelius, but I can't find that. They taste weird to me. Water, milk and juice in that order, and water leads by a huge percentage. I have soda about four times a year and don't drink diet. I don't drink coffee, caffeinated tea or alcohol ever.

Anything else? When I say sugar-free, I don't mean there are no sugars in the item. I always choose real butter or cream in moderation over an imitation product. A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that dealing with work-, finance-, or relationship-related stress can lead to weight gain. When you stress, your body releases cortisol, a hormone that promotes abdominal fat storage.

If you find yourself overwhelmed in your work or personal life, try incorporating stress-reducing activities into your day. Join a yoga class or go for a jog, and when you start to feel stress coming on, pause and take deep breaths. Most of us are aware that formal exercise is a key component in maintaining a healthy weight, but simple choices like taking the stairs can be just as important if you want to stay trim. One Mayo Clinic study found that if you stand instead of sit for six hours a day, you can burn 5.

Make the most of daily motion by also walking to lunch, parking at the back of the lot, or skipping email in favor of short walks to deliver messages to coworkers.

As a bonus, you'll make your face more recognizable around the office. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that chewing more and eating slowly caused participants to ingest fewer calories.

According to the study's researchers, the increase in chewing simultaneously lowered levels of appetite-stimulating hormones and increased levels of appetite-suppressing hormones. One way to make sure you chew your food thoroughly: Stop to eat. Eating on the go—in your car, for example—can lead you to quickly inhale a ton of calories before your body has time to let you know it's full.

Taking a walk after dinner can help you lose weight, and not just because walking burns calories. Don't have time for a walk, you say? Not a problem. As long as you keep moving after you eat, you will reap similar benefits. Even doing the dishes or completing other household tasks can help. A great way to ensure you make nutritious food choices: Surround yourself with healthy options. Don't use convenience as an excuse for a shameful diet. Keep fresh fruit on your kitchen counter, store healthy snacks like nuts in your desk at work, keep pre-washed, pre-cut vegetables in your fridge—whatever you have to do to make the healthiest choice the easiest choice, do it!

You won't feel deprived or hungry as the pounds are dropping away. A study in the International Journal of Obesity found that laughing for 15 minutes each day can help you burn 10 to 40 calories, depending on your body size and the intensity of your laughter. This adds up to about one to four pounds of fat lost per year. That may not sound like much, but there's also been plenty of research linking happy people to all-around healthier lifestyles, and you, my friend, have an excuse to make that a part of your daily diet routine.

Eating protein increases lean muscle mass, which keeps your metabolism running on high—even when you're resting. Protein also keeps you full, making you less likely to overeat. For maximum health and weight-loss benefits, aim to include protein in all of your meals and snacks. The best options?