to think that no one has any idea of reasonable portion sizes?

[Mallorie]

The amount of food I see people eating at work is just mind-blowing. I batch cook most Sundays - nothing special or particularly healthy, just stuff like veggie pasta bake or sweet potato chili with rice, and I see people in the office microwaving similar food at lunch - but they're eating the amount I make for 5 meals over the week in one go! The guy sitting next to me will bring in 4 entire ham sandwiches and eat them at noon - AFTER having a sausage butty at 10am.
No one I've noticed ploughing through this food is obese, no more than I am, so maybe they don't eat much at home? If I ate those portions I'd be sick but if I got used to it I'd be the size of a house in no time.
Interestingly, I rarely see the people at work who ARE obese eating much of anything, which is odd.

The thing about us living longer despite being bigger is misleading.

Medicine has come in leaps and bounds in the last thirty years and we can now be cured of lots of things that would have been fatal in the 70s.

But the overall average life span is falling now because of weight related preventable illness.

Obesity is the biggest crisis for the NHS. Especially now smoking is seen as anti-social.

I am not preaching as a skinny person. I am very obese and have lost nearly a stone in the last month and have five stone to go. But I will do it because my health is too important. I want to see my daughter grown up. Fasting twice a week has really shown me that my portions and think about eating has been way off for a while.

Portion awareness is a bit low in general. That's part of the reason why lots of us overweight.

But you can't reasonably judge individuals to be examples of that trend, just based on what they eat at work with little other context. It's possible that they are actually eating reasonable portion sizes for their height and activity level.

My best friend put on quite a lot of weight after she divorced and was adamant it was due to some physical condition as she hate very healthy and refused to accept it was to do with her eating. Her GP was concerned and referred her to a healthy eating clinic. She refused initially but he said he wouldn't do further test until she tried it, so she did. The nutritionist confirmed that her diet was t too bad, but she tended to forget the extra snacks she had between meals and her portions were three times what she needed. She used the right proportions, a smaller ate and sure enough, 3 months late she had lost 2 stones.

We are indeed living longer, but the average years spent with a long term condition or more are increasing, almost 20 years I believe.

yanbu
had to look at my diet due to issues with my liver.
if you weigh out portions according to the packet they are usually a lot smaller than what many people would serve themselves.

I don't eat huge portions, but I find that cutting portion size is the least helpful way to lose weight, because it makes me so hungry, and therefore far less able to resist unhealthy snacks. Far better to have big portions of veg with smaller amounts of carbs and protein, adding up to a filling plate of food!

I know about portion size and tbh I am normally loosely following a diet or eating plan, not restrictive in terms of calorie content but i mess about with different eating times, eating (alot) once a day and that kind of thing

Sometimes in the pub I order a main meal, with combos or sides, so for example a steak with a combo of scampi, chips, peas, tomato, mushroom, then have another pint and then have another steak chips peas etc

Don't know why/how I can eat like that. I weigh 52kg and not much over 5ft

I'm obese and recently have become acutely aware that whilst "eating healthily" my portion sizes are out of control. Not in the sense of plate stacked a mile high... but simply my nice juicy steak would be 2.5 the size it should be. Big portions have been normalised. I've gone back to using side plates which are of course the size of a dinner plate from the 70s.

I actually fell out with my family when they took me to some god-awful "pile your plate" buffet place. I'd only just moved back to the UK and was stunned by the sheer gluttony on display - enormously overweight people who couldn't squeeze into booths and so balanced precariously on chairs which made moving around the "restaurant" difficult. It was horrifying to see.

@easyandy101 you probably just self regulate over the course of a week or so. So anyone watching will be like ‘wow, how can you eat like that and still be slim’ but the next day you get up and still feel pretty full. So you miss breakfast, have a salad for lunch and something light for dinner. The day after you go wild and have a breakfast butty, but you still feel full at lunchtime so don’t bother eating and take a walk for some fresh air instead. And so on and so forth. Over the course of a few meals/days your calorie intake just balances out.

It took me a while to learn that whilst my mum (who has an eating disorder), has massive, MASSIVE problems with lunch and evening portions, she doesn't really 'see' breakfast portions.

I load up on breakfast when staying there, knowing that lunch will probably be a satsuma and a BLT sandwich - as in BREAD, lettuce, tomato (when doing strenuous hill climbing).

I don't get your point about about portion sizes, OP. None of the people you mention is fat, so the amount they eat is plainly not too much.

"But the overall average life span is falling now because of weight related preventable illness"

It isn't just weight related, but diet and lifestyle related.

I attended a health seminar, Consultant led. Every clinic sees 40% correct weight people, who think they can overload on carbs/sugar, or not exercise, because they aren't carrying excess weight.

Which is the danger of focusing on weight.

Even portion size. It needs to be about nutritional content.

I eat a greater quantity of food when I'm eating healthier. Plates full of lentil/veg curry, with no carbs rice vs a small portion of chips or a few slices of pizza.

The reason obesity isn't good for us, isn't because we are bigger, it's because of the lifestyle that has made us bigger.

Follow a similar lifestyle and are thin, equals the same health problems.

Plenty of other groups, who are the correct weight but drink over the recommended amount, recreational drug users etc are filling up other clinics.

On the subject of carbs, FIL once made DH a lasagne served on a bed of pasta. All of you with your chips and garlic bread are carb lightweights.

" I don't get your point about about portion sizes, OP. None of the people you mention is fat, so the amount they eat is plainly not too much."

Overeating Carbs are what is killing us. It doesn't matter if you aren't over weight. You can't get away with a bad lifestyle, regardless of what you weigh.

I want some chips now.

I should have added that during the diabetes talk, it was asked of the audience who do you think makes up 30% of patience.

The answer was runners/weight trainers and those who use carbs for energy/to bulk up.

In societies were they rely on rice, but do the recommended activity (as part of their daily life). Aren't underfed etc, they still die young, from heart disease.

you're upset about what I've said here maybe you should examine your own food issues.

You’re over invested in what other people eat, to the point where you post about it on here, but we are the ones with food issues?

@birdsgottafly was that T1 or T2 diabetes?

You’re over invested in what other people eat, to the point where you post about it on here, but we are the ones with food issues?

This!

My DM is of the "oh I ate half a sandwich and an olive- I'm stuffed til Christmas" school. Eating out with her is a pain in the area as naturally i have to eat everything in sight simply because I cannot abide that nimminypimminy fucking attitude. We have agreed not to ever discuss food as it always ends in tears.

Pain in the arse. Arse. Not area.

I'll wade in and say the problem with obesity in the UK is less to do with what/how much people eat at mealtimes, it's what we eat in between. It's the incessant snacking. Sitting down and having a meal is healthy and necessary to mental as well as physical wellbeing. Snacking is just throwing fat and sugar down the cakehole. Brits have an obsession with all things snacky: crisps, choc bars...They've even made takeout food into snack food: Rustler anyone? Bag o chips? All washed down with a coke. We snack at work, on the way home, in the street standing up or walking, on the bus, watching TV. Everywhere, anytime.

Well in answer to your question in the OP YABU because plenty of people have a good idea of what is a sensible portion size. Where is your evidence that they don't? Other than what you've observed from a few work colleagues? It's a bit of a generalisation you make there.

@LisaSimpsonsbff you talk a lot of sense! I know quite a few of those 'greatest achievement is being slim' types and they are such judgemental bores!

I had 4 sandwiches for lunch yesterday
Yes 8 slices of bread!
(After eating breakfast too)

I just really fancied bread

And yes lasagne is great with salad
But far, far better with chips, garlic bread and peas