My first skinny chick!

Below is my first "thin person" interview.  I'm hoping to have several of these each week. In most cases, I will not use their real name. Their name doesn't matter, but their story does.

This week, I learned a lot from the woman I'm going to call Jill. She's a busy mom and career woman. She has a very quick mind, but focuses more on enjoying her life rather than nurturing her home, her friends, her family and herself. Having said that, she's a very caring person and is called "fun" by everyone who knows her. She's not afraid to hug a person or to help out. And, while she's not at all a selfish person, she definitely thinks about how her decisions and those of others will affect her and has a healthy sense of self. She's definitely not going to eat something fattening just to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

The thing about Jill is that she has a knockout figure. Very athletic looking and not at all frail, but her legs and waist are slender while still having plenty of curves. Although it would appear that she is "naturally thin," the truth as she tells it is that she works at it every day.  Her life is a picture of constant balance and restraint. She's a planner, she says, and will think ahead about what she'll eat all week at work, when she has client meetings over lunch, what her plan is for exercise after work and what they are doing on the weekends. She'll pick up what she needs at the grocery store. It's not a laborious process, just a natural part of her thoughts.

When Jill wakes up, she's often not at all hungry and will eat a bowl of healthy cereal with skim milk simply because she must "for her health." Her primary focus for most of her daytime hours isn't food, but rather beverages such as coffee or tea with fat-free milk. She has purposefully chosen those beverages because they cut her appetite, she says.

Her food during the day is largely limited to a thin sandwich, a granola bar of some sort and a banana. "I can go for long periods without eating," she says. "And I don't have two meals a day." Which brings us to dinner. If Jill had lunch with a client at a restaurant, she won't deprive herself really. She'll eat a salad or a sandwich without fishing half of her ingredients (such as cheese or the bun) off the plate. She'll just quietly eat slowly until she's full and then stop. She won't have soup and a sandwich unless they offer 1/2 portion. There's no dessert, and she's not about to eat a plate of fries on the side.

When she does have that lunch out with a client, then for dinner she might have a yogurt or a small bowl of cereal, and nothing more.

She works out two to three times a week, and it's usually 30 minutes of cardio. Jill's not a superathlete who is busting herself in a full-out workout. It's just a consistent 30 minutes at a good rate. She might lift a few weights as well. There are times when she'll only go to the gym once a week, but rarely does she show up four times a week. She also is active in the sense that she likes to go out dancing with her husband or friends and is happy to do anything that's mildly active, but she's not a superathlete who will do several triathlons a year. She doesn't run, doesn't really hike and only occasionally rides a bike outdoors. Yet, if she can't get to the gym, she'll get a little troubled.

Jill attributes her thin figure to the fact that her behaviors are consistently more healthy than not healthy. "I have consistently worked out for 10 years," she said. She only eats one "meal" a day, the rest being small snacks. And she knows her weak spots and plans for them.

"The only time I have a craving is when I get home at 5;30. I want to eat right away. The problem is that I don't eat much during the day, so if I have something in the house for the kids, like Cheese Its, then I'll grab a handful and munch on them while I cook dinner for the kids." But, unlike fat people, Jill wouldn't think of eating the entire box. "I might grab two or three handfuls, which ends up being two or three portions. So I'm careful to eat just one handful."

She also likes a bit of sweet every day, but she chooses to add honey to some warm milk at night or to have a cup of sugar-free fat-free international coffee. Sometimes she'll have a bowl of ice cream on Sunday nights. In fact, weekends are the only time she really lets herself slack a bit. She limits alcohol to weekends as well as larger family meals, usually just dinner.

Other pitfalls just aren't her problem. Although her children live on chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza and the like, she doesn't (and wouldn't) ever eat that. And if anything is left on their plate, she wouldn't think of eating it. "I don't like to touch other people's food."

Jill said she wasn't always healthy. "When I look at photos of me in my 20s, I think I looked heavy. At that time, I didn't work out, I couldn't tell you how much fat or carbs was in anything. I smoked and drank all the time."

Her current lifestyle is predictable and easy to maintain, Jill says. And she prefers it that way. "I'm conscious of maintaining that balance."