I've maintained on a similar diet. But I could never lose eating that way!

Indeed, that's exactly what is happening all around me.

There's also been a sad trend of slim people in my age bracket who eat Food Pyramid and exercise and drop dead of heart attacks. It's terribly sad.

So thin is not the whole story.

I'm just into my '50's now too. But honestly, I think for many women it happens when they get married and have kids. It's a really tough, sloppy, physical and exhausting 24/7 job! For many women, gradual weight gain is just another part of a downward spiral in matters of appearance. Fifteen or twenty years go by, and you are not the person you were in the wedding dress!

I haven't totally let myself go. But I'm now trying to dig my way out of it. I am about 12 pounds away from a weight that I will look pretty good at. I know it's going to be slow going, so I'm focusing more on things like my hair, my nails, my skin and the clothes I plan to buy when I get there!

One funny thing is that in ten months I've lost 30 pounds and NOBODY ever mentions it! I'm standing my ground. I dropped a pound on the scale today, and two people mentioned that I looked really good. So I guess it's just baby steps.

My MIL is similar to the friend of the OP. She just turned 80. She loves to cook and eats constantly. She literally ate three times as much as me BEFORE I was dieting. She looks to be about 65! Her son, (My husband) has recently been diagnosed with being very close to type 2 diabetes.

So go figure!

Just to add to this...

I went grocery shopping early this morning, in order to snag the meat the is marked down by 30%. In front of me at the cash register was a man who had the same idea as me, except he snagged all of the baked goods that were marked down by 30%! Our carts of food couldn't have been more different. He looks fantastic, by the way! (I can only assume he's the one eating all of these baked goods...mabye not, but he seemed pretty pleased with his purchaes!)

Ah well. I enjoyed my 30% off rib eye steak this morning!

Mmmm..I love rib eye steak! I had split chicken breast for dinner and made a discovery that I don't really care for chicken breast and that I'd much rather have a chicken thigh. And, they cost less too! So, I'm off to the store tommorrow to get more thighs.

Breast is pretty dry, stringy and tasteless compared to a lovely chicken thigh!

Hmm, thanks for the thighs idea... yummo. Will give that a try.

I was never overweight, always easily skinny (though you couldn't tell me that). When I hit my 20s, I started becoming ravenous (don't know why), eating the worst foods and in large quantities. I'd feel my stomach stretching and keep going. Or I'd have a break then eat more later.

Of course I wasn't exercising either. I went from 60kg (133lb) to 97kg (215lb) in 10 years. There was a time in the middle when I lost a substantial amount of weight and toned up from eating low GI and running most nights, but I didn't weigh myself or measure (d'oh!). All I know is I started fitting into clothes from when I was 18 again. : D

So now after losing like 10kg (22lb) on Atkins, I intentionally fell off the wagon while honeymooning in Italy, and have dragged my feet getting back on.

It took so long for me to put that weight on, I thought I should be able to lose it easily, but it's proven quite difficult with lots of stalls. I wish you luck, maybe when you reach your goal you can cruise along with a similar diet to your friend's without gaining it back. I would say you have a similar problem to mine though: you couldn't lose weight eating like that.

I don't think anyone could lose weight eating like that but, once you're at your healthy weight, you can probably maintain on a very similar diet! It's not that different from what you'll find in my cupboards at this stage.

I seem to remember a similar thread a year or so ago. At that time, we came to the conclusion that people who are overweight and even obese, just might be the lucky ones because of the obvious signs of a diet that needs correcting. The slim ones are no healthier, many time they're less healthy but, because they are slim, everyone thinks they are eating correctly .... BIG MISTAKE!!

We might be the lucky ones ... our weight warned us of a problem and we took steps to correct it. Now we know how to eat for a healthy weight and for optimum health

On the one end, we have obesity and hyperinsulinemia. On the other end, we have diabetes type 1 and outright lack of insulin. In between, we have normal weight and normal insulin. Maybe this woman is not fat in spite of her high carb diet because of a lack of insulin or some condition that gives essentially the same effect? For example, she might be insulin resistant even in her fat tissue. Or insulin sensitive to the extreme. I'd vote for sensitive. But I don't know how to explain how that would work. The point is that it's got nothing to do with energy balance, and everything to do with the hormones that control her fat tissue. Well, maybe I'm just pointing out the obvious.