We have had to run lean and mean.

"That makes business people run lean and be cautious about investing in new capacity," he said.

We run lean, and need to for a lot of reasons.

Efficiency - Recent tests gave good results, for a gasoline engine, when running lean.

Reliability, especially when running lean as is required for good economy.

And I like to run lean as hell.

"The question is, Are we running lean or not?"

Tombstone, you've got to be running pretty lean right now.

Diesel engines, in contrast, run lean, with more air available than simple stoichiometry would require.

The Ell children tended to run lean, since a high level of physical activity was the accepted thing.