To make excuses not to eat with my friend as her greedyness irritates me?

[Corpse]

My friend (we work together) is constantly going on about her "diet" and how she desperately needs to lose weight and was even trying to get slimming pills off the doctor etc. She's a size 20. We always eat lunch together and I'm sorry but her eating habits just really, really annoy me. She'll buy a huge pot of pasta and literally gobble it down in about a minute, she'll then wolf down a packet of crisps and then pop to the vending machine and buy a chocolate bar and then quite often she'll go to the bakery and buy a massive muffin. Now what she eats is her business and I don't care about her size but to go on and on about dieting and then eat like a pig really, really annoys me.
I just can't stand greed. A few weeks back someone brought in a box of maltesers to demonstrate something (he said for everyone to help themselves but the original purpose was for them to be used as a demonstration for something unconnected to eating). Anyway a few people grabbed one of two - my friend took 3, then she took a large handful - and then polished off the rest of the box laughing like she was being funny. Greed isn't funny! it's annoying!

So anyway I don't really want to eat lunch with her, it makes me uncomfortable and puts me off my own food. Will she twig on to why I'm doing this because I don't want to upset her.

Boysrstupid: on second packet of pombears here :o

Crunch crunch

Kitty I'm not jealous of your pombears theres not much substance to them.

I will admit that the only thing standing between me and a pkt of Frazzles (or2) is the kids are in bed and I'd have to actually walk to the kitchen to get them.

It was kind of obvious from your first post that you had ishoos. No suggestsions really. Don't have lunch with her. Do something else instead.

pombears finished boys This thread has inspired me to try an apple.

It's quite nice.

Oooooh Kitty you need to slice it and dip it in Nutella - then it really would be almost edible.

Now you tell me boys!
(I spoke too soon earlier though, apple is now stuck half way between mouth and stomach, I'll do more chewing next time)

As you can see from my screen name I am one of the perpetual dieters.

My boss would do similar, i.e. eat loads and then moan about his weight. I may have spoken out of turn but I said words along the lines of - if you don't want to be that size don't eat like that, takes a lot of calories to maintain your weight. He stopped moaning about his weight and instead told us all how much he loved his food, which I was fine with.

So I guess greed bothers me less than the moaning about his weight! I have had greed in the past - basically as I couldn't get in control of willpower. But I didn't moan about my weight.

Going back to your OP - " Now what she eats is her business and I don't care about her size" do you really feel that way? - probably not, so just make excuses and eat with someone else, or go out for a walk.

So sad to see so many women with deep issues surrounding food making them all miserable.

Fat is clearly still a feminist issue.

I worked with a man who had a heart attack. He came back to work and he was on a strict low fat diet. Previous he had been a big eater of cream cakes and the like, was overwieght.

He sat next to me, we were allowed to eat at our desks, so I pulled out a ORANGE to eat. He screamed at me infront of the whole office about how I did not care, how I was eating infront of him when he was on a diet and so on.

I explained that it was AN ORANGE and you can eat them they are healthy, but he would have none of it.

So at lunch time I bought a cream cake and ate it at my desk.

Suggest 3rd packet of Pombears to persuade apple into your stomach Kitty

Also suggest you learn valuable lesson, Apples are for looking pretty in your fruit bowl - not for scoffing on a Sunday evening infront of the telly.

I used to work with a woman who would get two fish suppers, a king size mars bar and a DIET coke for her lunch. I'm sure going for the diet option made all the difference.

It's the way she eats it - shovelling it in like a starved animal. It just annoys me so much.

OP of course YANBU to change your eating arrangements, but if you hadn't already said you had issues with eating what you say here would really indicate that.

To someone who enjoys eating your friend's habits may in fact look like just that: someone who enjoys her food. As for me, nothing irritates me more than someone who acts like fod is their personal enemy, takes teeny tiny nibbles, chews everything a gazillion times, pushes food around the plate, puts their knife and fork down between every sodding mouthful...it annoys me so much!

I don't think YABU to find it irritating, but you could be a little compassionate too because she's clearly got food issues - as much as someone with anorexia. Have you ever spoken to her, gently, and pointed out that you don't want to hear about weight/diet? A lot of overweight people feel like they should be making all the right noises about losing weight or she may want to, but may have problems that are stopping her actually doing it. Is it the fact she eats the way she does that bothers you or the fact that she talks about losing weight and then does it?

your problem will be that there is one of these women in EVERY TEAM! really there is! you could pull her up on it or avoid her and you'll end up sitting next to the new girl who is exactly the same!

I work with a few different teams and there really is at least one in every lunch group! They make ridiculous "diet" choices, like MASSIVE dressed pasta salads because they think that's the "healthy" option, a whole pack of those WW bars a day, no breakfast then dipping into the quality street on the desk all day before sitting across from you at lunch crunching on the most MISERABLE looking iceberg lettuce salad ever like the worlds biggest martyr!

They just make me feel either a little sorry for them or a little smug (depending on whether I like them otherwise or not!)

all you can change is your own reaction to this behaviour because if she left tomorrow another one would take her place!

Really? . Are people this ridiculous in RL? If you have issues with food, deal with your issues with food and dispense with the judgement-laden tabloid rhetoric about this woman's eating habits.

My mother and sister are both obese. Years of issues have gone into their eating style and there but for the grace of God went I. Don't expect sympathy for your underlying food problems if you can show none to others and, quite frankly, make your excuses and have lunch on your own. Good grief.

YABU. Just don't eat lunch with her. I am always on a diet. I see food and I gobble it down, if it is there - it will be eaten. I eat when i'm not hungry and eat til im overfull. I then feel extremely guilty and starve myself for days - it is an unpleasent cycle which I have been trying to break for years.

I am not lazy or greedy and I think it's unfair that you are so casually branding her as that when you have no idea what she might be going through. Or I could be totally off the mark but still it wouldn't hurt to consider that people might have a problem before unkindly calling them lazy and greedy.

Go and eat in your car or something.

This woman probably has so many emotional problems she wouldn't know where to start.

I see it a lot in my job.

I also have 2 colleagues who are like this, so I can see it from both sides - but equally, both colleagues have huge issues around food and family and feelings etc.

Don't eat with her if her habits make you angry, it's not fair on either of you.

When my dsis eats she does this..... mmmmmm mmmmmmm MMMMMMM mmmmmmm MMMMMMM the WHOLE time.