I wonder how normal people eat? I have always battled with my weight and don’t remember ever being normal as far as eating comfortably and being a normal weight. If I sustained and maintained a normal weight, it required vigilance and suffering. My mother and father are now both obese, have diabetes 2 and hypertension.
I’m thinking I’m not normal because of the extreme fat genotype of my family, sort of like the Pima Indians. I also have diabetes, HTN and severe metabolic syndrome with high triglycerides, cholesterol, etc. I’m built for famine. It seems if I’m not hungry, I get fat. If there is plenty over time, I get diabetes, etc. Plenty is an unnatural state for me (and most of my family, who are fat and have diabetes). We’d do just great if food was scarce or only available at infrequent intervals.
If I control my food intake, avoiding eating too much (three meals a day is too much), I stay the same. To lose weight or maintain a normal weight, there must be pain involved. I must be hungry and consciously eat less than my body wants. If thin people have done that all the time and all their lives, they must have the self control to be in constant discomfort. Maybe they get used to it?
If I eat enough so I’m not hungry, I gain weight. I just gained around ten pounds recently, over a few weeks because I didn’t control myself. I wasn’t hungry daily. Today I didn’t exercise control. This is what I ate today.
Breakfast, two slices toast with smart butter and peach preserves, tea with Splenda
Lunch, bowl of ramen noodles with an egg and vegetables in it, raw broccoli, green onion, carrot
Snack, I ate a peach in the afternoon
Dinner , less than half a baked chicken breast with egg noodles (maybe half a cup, not many), corn (a cup, I like corn) with smart butter, tossed salad with spray on dressing no calories
I’ll probably have herb tea with Splenda, maybe a glass of wine later. But if I eat late in the evening, I gain huge amounts of weight. I could easily be one of those women who weight 400-500 pounds. I try not to eat after dinner.
Eating like the above everyday–I would definitely gain weight. Too much starch with fat. I haven’t been hungry all day. I might be a little hungry before bed, but that’s usual.
Do thin people eat late? I honestly have no idea. Can they eat before bed and not gain huge amounts of weight? Do people a normal size go hungry all the time? Do they constantly limit their food intake? They also probably also rarely eat anything fattening–such as sweets or fats. I hear there are some people who eat whatever they want and maintain a normal weight. They never go hungry. That is an unbelievable blessing. I can’t imagine. I equate something like that with being born rich.
I don’t really know how normal women my age eat. They must eat less than I do. When I was normal sized, I ate once a day and never any starch. After my gastic bypass, I only ate meal replacement shakes. When I started to eat regular Weight Watcher meals (I joined in an attempt to learn to eat "normally"), I started to gain weight. What I learned is I do eat normally, at least Weight Watchers normal, but that much food makes me fat.
When my mother was young, all she ate and fed me was that nasty white fish sold in frozen rectangles. I don’t see it in the stores any more, thank God. Or baked chicken. She’d serve it with a salad with diet dressing and a green vegetable. She also only fed me once a day and that was all she ate too. That was how she stayed normal when young. She constantly restricted her food intake. When she reached her forties, she lost the battle and got fat.
My father has been fat as long as I remember. Thin men seem to be able to eat a lot and not gain weight, at least my ex did.
I’ve always wondered who eats all those candy bars and nondiet sodas? I’ve been fat all my life (except for very brief periods) and have never ate candy bars, donuts or stuff like that. Maybe kids do?
My daughter is a normal size and she eats more than me. I pray she doesn’t get fat. I worry about how much she eats. I don’t know what’s normal and it seems as if she should be limiting her food. She doesn’t and resents when I mention it. Occasionally she’ll want me to buy her things such as donuts and ice cream. I’m not that crazy about sweets and I have diabetes anyway. She loves pizza and we eat it probably once every other week. Does this mean that eventually she’s doomed to a life of obesity? I’m thinking she has her Dad’s thin genotype. I used to pray for that. Maybe she’s one of those truly blessed people who can eat what they want, never go hungry, but still don’t get fat. I hope so.
Complete Weight Watchers review from a dietitian’s perspective.