How do you stay so thin?
This is one of those questions where I used to politely say very little, and the asker could go on as though there was nothing they could do about their own dissatisfaction.
Lately, though, I give a real answer. Currently, I say through serious dieting and exercising my willpower. I’m quick to dispel any ideas that I am “naturally skinny” so that can’t become an excuse for the difference between my body and theirs. Yes, I may have a genetic predisposition for a certain type of metabolism to certain foods, to certain fat deposition patterns (where it goes when I put on weight), but “I can be chubby in a minute,” I point out.
When I’m being asked between sips of soda, I might mention it got easier for me once I stopped drinking calories in sugary drinks. Quitting soda, sugary juices, alcohol, and energy drinks is an easy single thing to focus on. Once I switched to drinking more water, I never had to worry about metabolizing all those extra sugars, and the cascade of changes it was triggering in my body–from my hormones all the way down to an inflammation response–that would in the grand scheme make it harder for me to shape my body, let alone my mind.
I may be asked at a restaurant table, as I’m still working on my food while the asker has finished, I may mention I started to take smaller bites off my plate. I stopped forking another bite into my mouth before I had sufficiently chewed what was already in my mouth to a pulp and swallowed every bit of it. Every last bite. Every last crumb of every last bite. I mean, I’ve sat there quietly running my tongue over my teeth to check for food caught between my teeth and sucked it out while trying to make obnoxious teeth-sucking noises like my grandpa.
And guess what? I lost weight that way, just from doing that one thing. That was before my diet. I counted no calories, burned no extra calories working out, and did that while eating pizza.
The point I’m trying to make here, is that it’s been piecemeal. I didn’t grow up with a plethora of healthy habits. I also didn’t overturn my whole lifestyle in one day. I’ve gotten one idea in my brain, and remembered to focus on that one thing every day until it became a habit.
For more on my partially unfounded theories on why each one of these works, stay tuned.
wellness 