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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be fed up of people thinking it is really easy for me to be slim?

186 replies

Pomegranatesaremessy · 11/01/2017 11:38

Yes I am slim but I am fed up of the comments I get around me. People saying it is ok for you, you are slim. You just don't put weight on easily like I do, you can eat what you want etc

Well no I can't eat whatever I want. I am careful and that is the reason I am slim. I rarely eat cakes, unhealthy foods. If I do eat a slice of cake people pressurise me to have more because it doesn't matter apparently.

I feel like I am belittled and I can't know what it is like to be overweight. Well yes I can because I was overweight and lost it all and am determined to keep slim now.

I wouldn't criticise anyone who was overweight to criticise their food choices but people think it is ok to make comments to slim people.

OP posts:
squoosh · 11/01/2017 12:23

How often does this happen OP? Sounds like a very strange situation. I don't think I've ever worked in an office where people comment on each other's food intake or their size.

Bluntness100 · 11/01/2017 12:25

Agree it's about calories not just at a given meal or day it's about balancing it out over a week or whatever so that in total you're not going over and when you do see the pounds going on being able to stop and pull it back, drop a few so you maintain, but it's hard.

I've put on weight twice in my life, apart from when pregnant, both times going up to a good size 16 and then having to pull it back and lose it. The first time, about ten years ago, I was that way for about two years or so, the second time, last summer, I hit a sixteen , was that size for a couple of months, and then went on a diet and got in the gym, and got back to a ten.

The people I know, have known be for ever, so I don't get the comments, as they've seen me fat and thin and they know I can and do put weight on. I like food and sitting on my arse, but I don't like being fat more, so I do it, but it's not easy in the slightest.

HotNatured · 11/01/2017 12:26

MrsJayy maybe read the thread title first, if it doesn't interest you, move on

I'm not interested in cooking so I avoid threads talking about baking. A simple, yet effective tactic

HTH

TinselTwins · 11/01/2017 12:30

BaDumShh - Tosh! There are absolutely generalisations flying both ways, so many comments about slim women not being "real" and how nobody under size 12 has curves!

Original poster
Pomegranatesaremessy · 11/01/2017 12:31

How often does this happen OP? Sounds like a very strange situation. I don't think I've ever worked in an office where people comment on each other's food intake or their size

Fairly regularly probably more now because so many people are on January diets

OP posts:
Touchmybum · 11/01/2017 12:31

Why don't you just say to them what you said in your OP?

You might even motivate some of them (us!) to move our fat arses and do the same as you?

You are the one with the motivation and control here - I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over it, just be honest!

MrsJayy · 11/01/2017 12:31

Oh my first passive aggressive HTH Grin I am interested in the thread i am a slim person who gets these comments i also get comments that i need a cake or pie or how do i manage not only is it rude but really dull. Women and it is usually women need to just stop talking like this imo.

Original poster
Pomegranatesaremessy · 11/01/2017 12:32

how nobody under size 12 has curves

I got told men like woman with meat on them Hmm

OP posts:
ShutTheFuckUpBarbara · 11/01/2017 12:33

YANBU, I get these comments too.

I have never been overweight, but I would be if I stopped exercising and ate whatever I fancied when I fancy it.

I eat healthily and I have the odd cake or glass or wine, but I keep an eye on things.

Weirdly, I received some negative comments when I felt it was time to lose the last of the pregnancy weight after I had DD. I didn't have a lot to lose, didn't (and still don't) want to be stick thin, but I got a lot of "why can't you just accept yourself as you are" kind of comments. I didn't go on an extreme diet, DD was about 12 months at the time, so it's not like I was doing anything outlandish. It was weird.

I also get weird comments because I enjoy exercise, like it somehow makes me a sad person with no life. I don't bang on about it, only volunteer the info when asked, yet some people are almost hostile about it.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 11/01/2017 12:33

It's not quite as simple as that though is it HotNatured?

Mrs Jayy makes the very good point that some people are obsessed with weight, terminally critical of themselves, and really quite fecking boring about it!

kimann · 11/01/2017 12:34

I'm like this which is why I tend to avoid people whom I know will make comments like this. I'm naturally small - always have been. I have a very unhealthy addiction to sugar though - 7 sugars in my tea, chocolates, biscuits daily sort of thing. People think it's ok to ask me if I'm bulimic, and if I have one piece of cake, they think nothing of giving me more 'because I need it' it because 'it doesn't matter'. My own family sometimes says things like this to me and I shut them down immediately. It's not ok, and it's not nice.

When I was pregnant I gained lots of weight - I hoped some of it would stay on (curves are lovely!!) but it all came off really quickly, instead of saying nice things, people said 'is the baby even yours?' 'You couldn't have possibly been really pregnant'. I know they might have intended for their comments to be taken as a compliment as I was so slim so quickly after birth - but I didn't.

Do what I do OP and try to avoid/ignore these people. It's hard because I know it's hurtful (they don't seem to think slim people can get hurt over weight comments - no idea why?) but slowly and surely, you'll learn not to care. Good luck!

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest · 11/01/2017 12:36

In fairness, it's a whole lot easier to maintain a stable weight than to lose weight. I use MFP and tend to stick to the right number of calories over a week to maintain my weight - I had a look at what I'd have to do to lose half a stone and the calorie figure dropped so much. I'd probably be permanently grumpy if I had to eat that little.

albertcampionscat · 11/01/2017 12:36

Quite nice and sunny here MrsJayy.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 11/01/2017 12:37

As I said, I am quite fat but I also keep a strict eye on what I eat and have done all my life. I could easily weigh another 3 or 4 stone I reckon.

Obviously not quite strict enough but eating healthily and making good food choices is not purely the domain of the slim.

I don't eat cake or chocolate because I don't have a sweet tooth.

So the desire to have your effort continually applauded and made into a virtue is quite tedious.

FairyDogMother11 · 11/01/2017 12:39

I always had people telling me to "just eat a few chips" "that salad's so boring you may as well just relax and have something else, you're slim enough".

Not their place to say anything at all, but if you have to correct them, just simply say, "it's not easy at all, but it's worth it to look and feel good in myself".

Iknowwhatyoumeanaboutthathat · 11/01/2017 12:39

Yanbu but some people are lucky.
My DH is one. He simply can't put on weight.
Many years ago I went travelling with a skinny friend. We ate the same drank the same and exercised the same for several weeks. She stayed the same and I gained a stone.
So I think the thing is there are people who are just lucky out there.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 11/01/2017 12:39

Do you think we will all be covered in snow by the weekend MrsJayy? My kids and I are really quite excited!

MrsJayy · 11/01/2017 12:40

I was somewhere working that had a lunch club and it wasa roast 3 women were toing and froing over a roast potato or their lunch box of salad, its a bloody potato eat it or not the angst was frustrating they ended up eating a roastie and were sniggering how naughty they were but i was ok to have 1 cos you know i needed it

Bluntness100 · 11/01/2017 12:41

So the desire to have your effort continually applauded and made into a virtue is quite tedious.

CaraAspen · 11/01/2017 12:41

"bibbitybobbityyhat

Get a badge saying "I'm great, me" ?"

So glad you said that first. Saves me the trouble! Dear me, talk about a stealth boast.

CaraAspen · 11/01/2017 12:41

I am slim too, OP.
Yay me.

CaraAspen · 11/01/2017 12:42

So are lots of people, I imagine.

SanityAssassin · 11/01/2017 12:43

I think a lot more people criticise the food choices of overweight people than slim people! Do you really believe it's a one-way street here??

I am not overweight, I am also a runner but I love crisps so would eat them in my office - always comments from neighbouring desks until my boss replies *but she's go out and run 5 miles later are you?^

From the other side I continued running throughout pregnancyt and put on very little weight but the amount of people who thought I should just hang up my trainers and eat cake for 9 months was ridiculous - cos yep that would be good for baby (NOT)

Pineappletastic · 11/01/2017 12:44

I don't have time for people that go on like this. My reply would eventually be something like 'You've got the cause and effect the wrong way round there, the cakes you eat determine your weight, not the other way around, and that is why I'm not having cake, you go ahead, if you prefer cake to slimness.'

I get a lot of 'You've lost the baby weight quick!' Guys, you remember the months I had off work because I couldn't keep anything down? Yeah, that weight was ALL baby, but thanks for reminding me how horrendously ill I was :)

I was 'naturally slim' until my late 20s, I ate erratically though so pretty sure that was why. Now I'm naturally about a 12, which I'm fine with, if my jeans are tight I cut down the cakes, or walk the dog an extra mile, if they're loose I'll have that extra doughnut.

I can see how losing weight from a position of really overweight seems insurmountable, they need to cut out calories, where as you are maintaining, so yeah, it is easier for you to stay slim than it is for they to get slim, but that's because you've already done it. Maybe cheerfully offer to help them get slim every time they mention it?

squoosh · 11/01/2017 12:47

'Maybe cheerfully offer to help them get slim every time they mention it?'

'that is why I'm not having cake, you go ahead, if you prefer cake to slimness.'

Don't do this OP. Just say No firmly. Passive agg comments like those above will not do any good.