to be sick of the way some women talk about diets..?

[IvantaOuiOui]

as part of my job (CM) I take children to playgroups, have been doing this for years. Every woman I meet seems to be on a diet and they all talk about "being good" and "being naughty", how many syns/sins are in everything and what they've eaten in the last 24 hours. Is this normal? I am no stranger to trying to lose weight but I don't want to talk about it all the time when I'm on a diet.

Agree with turniphead. I know I'm objectively not overweight, but, like many women, I niggle unreasonably about being a bit thinner. But, like turniphead I never talk about it ever in front of DD, never have, never will.

I take exercise, jogging, but always express it, if I ever talk about it all, in terms of getting fitter, keeping my bones strong, which has the advantage of being true.

Exercise bores are as, well, boring as diet bores.

Great post FrozenNorthPole, very thought provoking :)

its because there are SOO many diet myths out there, from food lables "low fat", "natural" etc
and from the likes of WW

I did WW once and was a points bore

I'll never do WW again - it's terrible! the entire time I shied away from fruit (it had points back then) but had lots of curly wurleys and processed crappy WW "treats" that are full of sweetner and preservatives and very little nutrition. Meetings mostly involed tips about how to save up "wine points" and which processed chocolate treats are low points. And flippin choc chip meringue nests - a better option than avocado or nuts? I think not!

Our children are being taught young about these diet myths: fruit shoots, 0 cal cordial, NO natural sugars just metabolism confusing sweetners, fruit ALONE as a whole meal (no "unhealthy fatty" protein at snack time). Its scary!

I found this blog post about Fat Talk interesting. It suggests that if you reach straight for the cake without first saying you're fat and you shouldn't, it's naughty etc and waiting for your female companions to reassure you that it's fine, you are declaring yourself hotter and slimmer than them, as you don't have to worry about such things. That fat talk is a ritual and social lubricant between women. We put ourselves down so that we don't appear threatening.

Gosh, I never hesitate to get stuck into the cake. And I never say 'ooh I shouldn't' because my mouth is too full.

I'm the slimmest I've been in a long time though, thanks to bfing a hungry baby, and feel extremely awkward whenever the topic of weight or dieting comes up (usually with other mums, who say they are struggling to shift the baby weight). It's horrible to always be told, with disdain and/or barely-disguised loathing, 'of course you don't have this problem, you skinny minnie'. Perhaps it's because I'm not playing by the rules, and am inadvertently declaring my own perceived hotness (I wish).

Not awkward enough not to reach for the cake though!

And why waste time pretending I'm not going to eat it and lick the plate?

I go to Slimming World.
I went to SW in 2002 and lost ten stone. I lost it too quickly and got gallstones.
Never been in so much fucking pain.
Been in a sexless marriage since 1996 and i do mean sexless, no hugs no affection nothing.
After losing most of the weight and turning 30 i met a man through work and had an affair that lasted 4 and a half years.
Affair ended in 2008 and i comfort ate and put 5 stone back on.
Have lost a stone since last summer and have gone back to SW and lost 5 and a half pounds in the last month.
I dont tend to talk about dieting much outside of group cos i have found another outlet. I am trying to write a book about my experiences of living in a sexless marraiage and i am concentrating on that instead.

ha yanbu but for some reason i wanna now write a long boring narrative about my fatness and my thoughts on fatness.
I am well fat and I need to go on a diet but I can't be bothered because I know when I start to lose weight people will bang on about it and I can't be bothered with the chat :-)

Frozen - interesting stuff.
I am doing my best to ensure my daughter knows what's healthy and what's not but also knows it's nice to have a treat and to enjoy them
I think she's inherited DH's metabolism so she may never have to give a second thought to fat but I was inclined to chub and my mum was giving me incentives to lose weight from when I was about 10. I think I probably did need to lose weight and I have a healthy attitude to my body now but she herself did not have a healthy relationship with hers during her teens.

The social culture around women not liking their own bodies or feeling obliged to declare that they don't are awful. I love that ad (not sure if it's in the UK) where there's a toddler looking in the mirror saying she loves her body and her family and everything!

Who should fuck off, BMF? OP, posters?

I am fat. I don't feel it though. I feel happy and enjoy life, and running around after my toddler and enjoy food.

I have never been able to join in the dull, repetitive, false conversations about food and diets. People's relationship with food often seems completely messed up, you need X amount of calories, get them enjoyably from a wide range of foods. You HAVE to eat, and I meet so many people who seem to wish they could go without completely.

The only thing I would like to do is more exercise as I do less than I used to, but for me that's because I am less fit and I miss that. However, 1 year old DS is getting faster and we hardly ever use a buggy so that may be taken care of.

This thread is like a breath of fresh air

I'm lucky enough not to encounter this sort of thing very often, though I did spend one summer working in an office full of women so I know what you mean, OP!

Honestly it's probably a trait of bored women who don't have much else to occupy their minds. Just and don't get involved in the conversation - or try to change the subject to something more interesting!

Your post is very interesting Frozen. It's a shame women have to speak badly about how they look, their figure in particular, in certain groups where it is the norm.

Start changing this conversation and then the attitude tends to change. I know it can be hard but I'm sure it's reinforced by the diet industry which makes it even harder.

OP - talk to me, I will never diet or talk about calories or crap like that. Nothing bores me more.

I also get disproportionately angry when grown women talk like this infront of children. I never know how to tackle it though.

Its not a shitty little thread BMF

Do you think its ok that women feel the need to aplogise for eating food?
Do you think its ok for grown ups to be reduced to five year olds over a cake?
Do you think its ok for women to feel they have to justify every single thing they eat?

No it fucking isnt. Its shit and all women should be saying ENOUGH.

This is not a fat bashing thread. Its a fed up with women being treated like idiots and expected to starve themselves thread.

Do you own WW or SW?

If not I cant see why you would be so upset.

"Food isn't a moral issue for me".

Repeat. Repeat and repeat again.

Works a treat.

(Size eight, btw).

Even worse though than women obsessing over their calorie intake, is those who feel compelled to obsess over others' - I used to work with a woman who would grab the wrapper of my chocolate, at tea break, then start exclaiming loudly about 'did I realise how many calories were in here?'

I didn't ask, I don't care - why are you ruining my tea break?

I agree with the OP.

DH's family do this whenever we go round for a meal. They will talk for hours about how they need to lose weight, going into every little detail about their diet and excercise regimes, whilst simultaneously insisting that everyone pile their plate high with food and getting offended when I refuse third helpings.

To make things worse, I am fat. I am not trying to lose weight and have nothing to say on the subject of diets. This makes me the pariah of all pariahs, or at least I feel that it does. It's got to the point now where I try to avoid visiting them.

Diamond its even harder when your own mother does it to you as mine sometimes does. You would expect a 76 year old woman to not be affected by the diet industry and celebrity culture but unfortunately not in this case.

Some of you are being unnecessarily scathing and unsupportive towards those people who ARE trying and succeeding to lose weight and get fit.

Unless you have been in the situation where you are dieting and SUCCEEDING you have no idea how empowering, energising and all round fantastic it feels.

You're bored by your friend posting how much weight she has lost on fb? Tough. Maybe you should be a bit more supportive or admit that you're a crap friend and de-friend her?

And if someone at work is talking about something you aren't interested in, go and talk to someone else FFS

FWIW I lost weight with SW, would recommend them to anyone and have NEVER heard women "shrieking like 5 year olds" over a plate of biscuits.

Have a low fat

I choose my friends carefully.

They al like food, yet are not obsessed with it.

so we have nice meals and drinks and relax.

it is more fun that way.

(maybe it is a country side thing? In LOndon I once went out for dinner with 6 girls from work, and the ordered 2 plates of sushi between us...I had to have a kebab on the way home )