I’ll give you a hint:
They don’t count calories or take vitamins.
No pills and no personal trainers.
Naturally thin people inherently understand how to keep their bodies healthy without too much work.
That’s why it’s so easy for them. And why it’s so infuriating to everyone else.
They ignore the noise about weight loss and carry on quietly with what actually works.
In short, naturally skinny people are better at leveraging the things that keep us lean, with the least amount of effort.
Did you know that there’s no such thing as a naturally skinny person?
That’s because everyone is naturally skinny, not just the person who sits next to you on the bus, but all of us.
To become overweight, we have to engage in many unnatural behaviors.
These include consuming processed/fake food, eating overly generous portions that would never be available in nature, and staring motionless at a screen for most of the day.
When is the last time you watched a Nat Geo and saw an overweight gazelle desperately trying to outrun a lion as its belly flab bounced and jiggled with every stride?
You have never seen this because obesity doesn’t occur in nature.
It occurs outside of nature, in our homes, in our offices, and in front of our many screens.
But back to naturally skinny.
If you lived close to anything resembling a natural state, you’d be skinny too.
Our most natural state is skinny and healthy.
That’s the premise of what skinny people understand better than anyone else does.
Their secrets aren’t terribly obscure.
Secret #1: Diets Make You Fat; Lifestyle Makes You Thin
Skinny people don’t diet.
At least not those who are permanently thin.
These folks are often described as naturally skinny because they are.
They gravitate to a more natural way of eating that does not include dieting.
When naturally thin people reach a point where they find themselves getting fat, they don’t reach for the latest diet.
They understand that a change in lifestyle is necessary and they usually start the adjustment right away.
If you’re like most people, you’ve experienced the rebound weight gain after losing it all on a diet.
In fact, you likely weigh more now than you did before you started that diet.
It didn’t work.
Let me guess:
It made you fatter.
It’s not your fault and you’re far from alone in this.
The success rate of the average diet is 5%.
Can you think of anything else in the world you would continue trying year after year if you knew the failure rate was 95%?
Why then, would you try yet another diet?
Secret #2 Fake Food Makes You Hungry; Real Food Fills You Up
Skinny people know they can’t be naturally thin while eating unnatural food.
Our cells crave real food and when we don’t provide it, our bodies remain hungry—hoping we will eventually deliver some real nourishment.
For overweight people, this pattern creates a downward spiral of hunger that never ends.
Packaged food (including pasta) doesn’t make you full enough to prevent overeating or from feeling hungry in an hour.
Your body is still asking for the nutrients.
For example, fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, which satisfy your nutritional needs. As such, they make you feel full.
Did you know:
It’s almost impossible to overeat vegetables.
How often do you sit in front of the TV gorging on cauliflower?
Green Smoothies Make it Easy
Did you know that a lot of skinny people don’t really like vegetables?
Instead of eating their daily servings of vegetables, they drink an easy green smoothie—or two.
It’s done.
It’s easy.
And it tastes pretty good.
How do these people have time to make smoothies every day?
They don’t.
They make a big batch on the weekend and freeze individual portions for use all week long.
The natural way is easy if you let it be.
A proven method that uses the right proportions of fruits, vegetables, and protein in a smoothie gives your body the nourishment it needs to feel satisfied.
Secret #3 Skinny People Think Differently
You’re not wrong if you suspect skinny people have a different mindset when it comes to staying thin.
They face temptation just like everyone else, but it’s easier for them to say no.
They can actually look at a plate of cookies, feel the pull, and then turn toward a healthier choice—which is sometimes a choice to remain hungry.
You’ve got to be wondering:
How do they do it?
They use a very specific method of thinking that allows the brain to change temptation into a small disturbance that they can ride right through—like a bit of turbulence on an airplane.
It’s a little shaky for a few minutes and then it’s over.
Anyone can learn to do this, it just takes some practice.
Secret #4 Too Much Exercise Works Against You
The human body is wired for movement.
Regular, steady, low-impact movement.
Not lengthy, full-out, gut-wrenching, painful workouts.
It’s not natural.
Animals don’t do it and humans don’t do it—not even in the oldest of olden days.
If you were chased by a lion, you would certainly go all out in your frantic quest to get away.
However, this energy expenditure would last no more than a few minutes, regardless of the outcome.
In nature, animals (and earlier humans) spend time walking a lot, jogging occasionally, and running for only brief stints.
Running for an hour every day isn’t normal in the natural world.
It’s stressful on the body and hard on the joints, not to mention, it leaves you ravenously hungry.
Even running isn’t as healthy as once thought and overdoing it is a huge mistake.
A study of 52,000 people found that the health benefits of running disappeared if the person ran more than 6 times a week.
Did You Know?
Exercising too much or too intensely is just as bad for you as not exercising at all.
A separate study found that running too fast was just as bad as running too often. In this case, people who ran at a fast pace more than four hours a week had about the same risk of dying as those who didn’t exercise at all.
You need to move your body, but not nearly as much as you’ve been led to believe.
No pain no gain is a load of crap.
How did we come to understand that healthy exercise means brutalizing your body to the point of pain and exhaustion?
The simple answer is that it’s good for business.
Would anyone tune into The Biggest Loser if they were exercising moderately?
Creating a fitness craze without fanaticism and massive enthusiasm is impossible.
Brick-and-mortar gyms, CrossFit being one of the latest, learned to thrive on the hyperbolic approach to fitness.
They focus on the extremes, much the way outlandish news headlines tempt you to click.
In short, it works—for them.
The problem is that it doesn’t work for us.
Secret #5: Naturally Skinny People Find the Easy Way
Naturally skinny people find ways to make health easy.
They know that being thin for life is a lifestyle, not a brief excursion.
To maintain lifelong health, they have figured out how to make all these habits easy enough that they can stick to them.
Keep reading on the next page to understand how making simple changes can transform your health and lead you to a slimmer, happier, and longer life.