Have you noticed that often it’s the people who pay very little, if any, attention to what they eat or how much they exercise who somehow manage to stay slim — with seemingly little effort at all? You know… that friend that never orders diet coke when all your other friends do… or brings doughnuts for the whole office — and ends up being the one that eats the most, yet never gains an ounce?
Well, you aren’t the only one taking note.
These people have been labeled the “mindlessly slim,” by a group of researchers who have created the Slim by Design Registry to survey adults who have successfully maintained a healthy body weight throughout their lives. Why? Because who isn’t dying to know how they do it?
To get that information New Cornell Food and Brand Lab asked several questions to volunteers who fit their criteria of a healthy weight and divided them into two groups: group one, the mindlessly slim, consisted of 112 adults who reported that they didn’t maintain strict diets; and group two consisted of those who dieted regularly, thought about food frequently and were highly conscious of what they ate.
“We wanted to see what health behaviors differed between those struggling to lose or maintain weight and the mindlessly slim,” explains Brian Wansink, PhD, co-author, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and author of Slim by Design. “We wanted to find the small or simple behaviors that might have a big impact.”
What was the big secret?
You could say the mindlessly slim had a “don’t worry, be happy” attitude. Instead of getting hung up on traditional recommendations for weight loss or weight maintenance, they took a radical approach — they enjoyed food and eating.
This majority group of females, weighing an average of 136 pounds each and standing at about five foot six inches — almost half over the age of 40 — did not feel guilty about over-eating either. They preferred high-quality foods, cooked at home, and listened to their body’s inner cues.
You know what else they didn’t do? Obsessively check the scales. Only 50 percent of the mindlessly slim admitted to weighing themselves weekly. In fact 48 percent of them reported that they didn’t diet, so why bother?
So what DID they do? They ate…
- 61 percent listed chicken as their favorite meat.
- 7 percent professed to be vegetarian.
- 35 percent ate a salad at lunch every day.
- 65 percent ate vegetables at dinner every day.
- Most ate breakfast, with 51 percent enjoying fruits and vegetables and 31 percent choosing eggs.
- They snacked: 44 percent enjoyed fruit and 21 percent preferred nuts.
Some of them even exercised — a little:
- 27 percent of them exercised 3 to 4 days a week.
- 42 percent did it as often as 5 to 7 days a week.
- 42 percent exercised 0 to 2 days per week.
What didn’t they do?
- 37 percent didn’t drink soft drinks — at all.
- 33 percent didn’t drink alcohol.
If you ask me, I’d say the mindlessly slim were part-time health nuts. In a world of extreme fitness, complex diets and dangerous appetite suppressants, it’s refreshing to see that common sense wins out.
If you look at the things above that the mindlessly slim did and didn’t do — there’s nothing complicated about it. Chicken is a protein-packed lean meat. Fruit and vegetables are whole foods that don’t pack on pounds like processed foods. Nuts are great snacks full of healthy fats — and breakfast… well, who doesn’t know it’s the most important meal of the day?
And they didn’t spend every hour of every day exercising. Really—who could?
This routine, if you can describe this unstructured ‘mindless’ lifestyle as one, sounds an awful lot like Dr. Michael Cutlers philosophy, spelled out in The Part-Time Health Nut: Attain your best health ever — without extreme diets, dangerous pills, or brutal workouts. If you’d like to join the ranks of the mindlessly slim, click here to get your copy.
