"Naturally Thin"

Do you think people can be naturally thin or not?

I think they can be naturally thin and here's why. When I was in college I lived with a girl who was 5'11" and 120 pounds. At that time, I joined Weight Watchers. She told me to just eat what she ate and I'd be skinny. So I asked her to log everything she ate. This was a typical day:

B: PopTarts (2) or Oatmeal2Go Square or 4 Grands! biscuits with jelly

L: Ramen Noodles or 4 Grands! biscuits with jelly, peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread, or Taco Bell -- 3-4 tacos and rice, or McDonalds -- the 2 cheeseburger meal with fries.

D: 2-4 Home made tacos (shells, ground beef with seasoning packet, cheese, sour cream, salsa), 2-4 pigs in a blanket (hotdogs in criossants), or Taco Bell or McDonalds or Arby's (the fried chicken monstrosity sandwiches with curly fries) or dinner out at Outback or Pizza.

Snacks: Sour Patch Kids, Doritos, Cheetos.

Other: She drank Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and it was always always mixed drinks with regular soda or mixers, or beer.

I'll never forget when she went to the doctor and said they told her to gain weight. They did a nutritional analysis. When they got to fruits/vegetables, they asked how many serving she ate a week, and she asked if her jelly counted as a fruit and if fries/chips counted as a vegetable.

After adding up her Points! values, she was averaging around 35-40 points/day. At that time, I was allotted 22 points a day and after an initial 35 pound weight loss, was unable to lose any more. She wasn't working out -- we both walked to and from campus, where we took classes and worked in offices. I explained it to her like this:

She was a hummingbird, she flew around all day eating nothing but sugar, and stayed tiny. I am a whale. I swim around eating microscopic krill and I'm still the largest animal on the planet.

Oh definitely I think people can be naturally thin. A perfect example is someone I used to work with at a restaurant. She would have the same thing for lunch every day. Tortellini alfredo and a coke. She did this the entire time I worked there for 8 years! You could order anything off the menu for lunch but she ate this every day without fail. She was very very thin but I'm sure not very healthy. My father is also naturally thin. The man has had a 28 inch waist forever! When he got up to 30 inches we told him jokingly he needed to go on a diet. He ate donughts and Hostess pies every morning for breakfast, ham sandwiches with mayo on white bread for lunch and whatever my mom cooked for dinner...always having seconds. I guess that is why he had 2 heart attacks in his 50s and is on high blood pressure medication. Its too bad that some people who are naturally thin continue to eat junk "because they can". There can be serious health consequences down the road.

I'm a naturally thin guy and from what I've learned, "thin" people's body just have different ways of processing food that's eaten. You'll notice alot of naturally skinny people have pretty bad nutrition as you've noticed with your friend, and also includes me, lol! The second they change their diet to nutritious foods (lean meats, veggies, fruits, ect) they gain weight, which is happening to me right now. So yes, there are some "naturally thin" people, heck I've been one my whole life... but since I've recently decided to track my food consumptions and finding it to be very bad , I feel the term "nutrition deprived" is more of an accurate label :)

i know 2 men and 1 woman who are, but all have some health issues (poor guys), so i do not envy them

I definitely think people can be naturally thin, but that still doesn't mean that they are automatically healthy.  If you only eat junk food, then you are not healthy, no matter how many pounds you are. 

 

I have 2 extremely skinny friends who eat whatever they want - nearly always fried - plus desserts and alcohol, and they never gain an ounce.  The stuff they shove in their mouth makes my hair stand on end.  I'm over here nibbling on carrot sticks, yet I'm the fat one. 

I like the hummingbird vs. whale thing... that's about right!

I'm in college right now and have a friend like that. The amount of food (and all junk!!) she can fit into her tiny frame is kind of amazing. But like everyone else is saying, it can't be good for you. This girl, for instance, gets canker sores a lot from eating so many sodas/sweets and nothing nutritious. I'll stick with the healthy stuff!

My best friend is like this. I have known her for 20 years. She is 5'4 and about 98 pounds. She does not eat very healthy and does not exercise. Keep in mind, she is very thin, but has no muscle!! SHe has more cellulite than me and I am twice her size!!

here is something the original poster can recognize in all this. There are some big obvious variables that can be in play, aside from the fringe ones like obscure digestive or metabolic abnormalities. There is no magic involved here, and every positive has a negative. Try to see the big picture if you are unhappy with the little picture :)

Example: People with "faster metabolisms", for whatever reasons, need more energy to do what appears to be the same things as those with "slower metabolisms". For instance, maybe this thin girl had muscles that used more energy than yours do to do the same things. 10,000 years ago she might starve to death, while you would be thin. But hey, does it really matter either way?

Either we are smart and find a way around our attributes that we believe are shortcomings, or we don't. Either we try to be healthy or we don't.  We still die either way, but we CAN choose how we live.

In her case, our bodies change as we age, and our metabolisms slow markedly around 30 years of age. So her fast metabolism is giving her a pass on getting fat and unhealthy now, but later on she might change from thin and unhealthy to fat and unhealthy. So again, really the only question you have to ask yourself is: do you want to be healthy or not. How much do you want it. And what will you do to get it.

My ex's sister would eat only poptarts, fruitloops, chips, and candy, fruitopia, that kind of stuff.  That was when she was about 15-17, she was skinny.  She turned 18 recently, and eating that junk is catching up with her.  She's not fat by any means, but is no longer skinny.  I think that eventually eating junk food, and a lot of food will catch up with you, making you gain weight, or making you unhealthy, giving you all sorts of problems.

It never ceases to amaze me how different metabolisms can be. My best friend (who I occasionally stay with) has no muscle mass (literally, almost none) and eats sporadically, mostly at night. Her typical day looks like this:

Breakfast: large hot chocolate and chocolate chip muffin (about 700 cal)

Lunch: Sandwich with cheese and mayo, coffee with cream and sugar (700 cal)

Snacks: cookies, hot chocolate, muffins (at least 500 cals)

Dinner: occasionally some veggies and meat, but usually pizza or bagels with cream cheese (yes, more than one). (500-1000 cals)

Snacks: chips, chocolate, etc. (200-500 cals)

The lower end of what she eats is 2500 cals per day, the higher end is well over 3000. She is 120 lbs and exercises rarely. I swear, it  is not fair - if I ate like her, I'd be at least 150 lbs, and if she ate like me, she would waste away. grr

This is why calorie calculators are usually inaccurate.

my friend is soo skinny that she has to buy special order pants and she tries to gain weight, her mom even got these special milkshake things to help her gain weight but it doesn't work. she eats junk food all the time too. not fair lol

Heh, first hand experience here. I was naturally skinny until I was 15... I remember I had a boyfriend who was the same, and we'd eat a (yeah, "a" as in one large between the two of us) pizza one day, paella the next, then TONS of suchi and doughtnuts for dessert another day. Then I hit 16, grew a chest and hips on my once stick-figure, panicked, researched, realised I was eating horribly, tried to get healthy, went OC, and finally developed anorexia, among other scewed-up-head-things.

*Sings* What goes around, comes around again! I'm good now though. It's like spoiling a kid, I guess. It bites you back.

My husband is naturally thin, he's 54, eats WHATEVER/WHENEVER he wants and never gains an ounce.  Can still wear the same gym shorts he wore when he was a junior in high school (1971).  It's disgusting.  His jeans look like something a Cabbage Patch doll would wear!  He has low blood pressure but high cholesterol (ha!).  But he's one of these people that think skinny is healthy so I've quit trying to get him to at least healthier.  If he wants to live on chips & beer because he can then go for it.  We'll see who lives longer! 

As a 'naturally skinny' person, or at least other people seem to think I'm 'skinny' all the time, I can testify that it does catch up w/you. Either your metabolism does finally start to slow down as you get older, and it's a lot harder to loose/maintain weight cause you have to completely change your mentality toward food (even as someone who has eaten relatively healthy all my life (I was raised on and love fruits, veggies, and whole grains) I have this problem, I've never had to restrict myself before, it's a whole new thought to me, sure I ate lots of fruits and veggies, but half a lg pizza, or 2 plates full of food for supper, or basically enough calories for most grown men and then some is what I've been used to), or it catches up w/you health-wise..high cholesterol..etc.

edit: I also wanted to point out that height can be very deceptive, I'm 5' 11 and mostly legs so pple think I'm really tiny but are usually shocked when they find out how much I weigh, which though a healthy weight still was at the high end of the scale for my height and I was really out of shape(working on that now :)

i was never THAT skinny naturally, but before i began restricting i was 128 at 5'9 1/2 and ate absolutely whatever i wanted. like, six pieces of pizza plus breadsticks and sauce, huge amounts of tortilla chips, always two pieces of pie when we had it, etc. it's in my genes though. everyone on my dad's side is tall and skinny.

My boyfriend is 6'5 and 172 pounds.  It's not really a good thing.  He really wants to gain weight, but he can't.  His sister suffered from and eating disorder, so his family is constantly thinking that he suffers from one too.  He can eat a whole pizza to himself and lose a pound.  He eats fairly healthy, but he can down five brownies and not see any weight gain.  Some day, his metabolism will slow the heck down.  Until then, I will just have to watch him shove his face with tons of food I can't.  How unfair.

I am 5' 9" and up until 2 yrs ago I have always been under weight. I was 4lbs when I was born....needless to say it stuck for most of my adult life!!! It was very hard for me to gain weight. Now I am overweight or was before starting CC!!!

I used to be naturally thin before I had a child. I never appreciated I could down a whole large pizza and a 2 liter of pepsi and not gain a pound. Now if I even look at apiece of  pizza I gain a pound...granted I am still 'thin' but now have to work at it and count my calories daily to maintain. Man I miss those days....

My sister is naturally very thin! I'm kind of jealous she got those genes and I didn't, but she's had to "deal with it" in her own ways throughout her whole life. A few times, old ladies, strangers, would try to buy her food/give her food!!! She can eat a mountain of food day after day and gain nothing except some extra trips to the bathroom.

Only 2 times she's successfully gained weight. One was strangely, when she spent a semester abroad in Namibia, Africa. She thinks it was because they add a lot of lard to this porridge stuff they eat over there. Also, she was eating a lot of sand. The other time was when she was pregnant. She LOVED finally having some booty, but 2 months after the delivery, there was NOTHING she could do to keep the weight on, no matter how much she ate.

My aunt's the same way. Unfortunately, I have to watch each bite, or I could easily end up a fatty fatty fat fat.

Edit: My aunt is about 50 years old now, with 2 teenage kids. Still tiny. It never caught up to her!

In years of about 10-13 I seem to remember (and the years before that) I just ATE. Lol. I think I was on a major growth spurt though. Hmm...I don't really remember eating meals as much as I do now, but I sure ate the stuff like macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly on toast, McD's milkshakes, white chocolate...

When I was 14 i was like 125lbs. So that's when I became anorexic...my sisters were slimmer than me and three years older, and probably taller.

Now I just eat healthy. I'd like to say I'm one of those girls who can just 'eat what she likes' but I can't. I'm definately no victoria beckham, y'know, diet, diet, diet and stay suppper skinny, i eat cookies, pasta, doughnuts and hell, cheat days! But it's sad too, that you reach an age where you look back and feel really mad that you just can't eat all that anymore...idk...:-(