To wonder when a diet becomes dangerous?

[Catchphrase]

When someone is dieting because they're overweight/obese and decide to cut out food groups, restrict calories and up exercise, they are championed and congratulated.

But when someone has a BMI of, say, 22/23 but wants to improve further they're told they are controlling, fussy, need to let loose and have a burger, have disordered eating, are slim enough already.

So is disordered eating only disordered when you're not technically overweight?

Is a diet only considered dangerous (eg anorexia) once you reach a certain (under)weight?

Diet (in terms of way of eating rather than meaning for weight loss specifically) concerns me if whole swathes of foods are avoided, always.

I recall reading that "super healthy" Gwynneth Paltrow had weakened bones and very low vitamin D. While you are younger and fitter taking anything to extremes in your lifestyle is probably best avoided. Fair enough if there is a medical reason for avoiding all sun or reducing body fat but just to achieve an aesthetic goal or to achieve some modern notion of virtue - no.

owlina - i guess i just think there are more interesting ways to socialise than eating and drinking lots!

It’s a cost/benefit analysis. The cost of “disordered” eating is high both psychologically and nutritionally.
The benefit of losing weight if you are obese however is huge and well documented.
The benefit of losing weight if you are a healthy bmi or just into overweight is not so great therefore not great enough to outweigh the cost.

lemons yes there is. But if a friend wants to go out for a meal for their birthday or your mum wants to go to the cinema for mother's Day but you say no you are going to the gym I think you are putting the diet and exercise in front of relationships.

I think a diet becomes concerning when the person following it prioritises the diet over everything else, so won't go out for a meal to celebrate a birthday, won't miss the gym for a special event etc.

But there's always a special event or birthday or an excuse to 'treat yourself' - if you're overweight you have to forgo those kinds of excuses to limit your calorie intake and lose weight.

I didn't say go to everything, and you don't have to 'treat yourself'.

You can always find something healthy ish on a menu. You don't have to have desserts and drink loads of booze.

It’s a cost/benefit analysis

That seems very logical and sensible.

I think you are putting the diet and exercise in front of relationships.

I'm not sure this is entirely true tbh. If I had a Drs appointment for example, and a friend asked if I wanted to go out, I'd say, sorry I have an appointment. I think if you're serious about heath & fitness you have to treat it seriously.

I think the difference is, when someone is too scared to go anywhere because they might eat, that's a problem.

Yes a doctor's appointment is a one off, unavoidable event though. If you were my friend and I asked you to come out for my birthday and you said 'i can't, I've got to go to the gym' is be re thinking the friendship as I wouldn't feel like I was very important to you.

owlina - would you feel the same if it was say an evening class or lecture that they didn't want to miss?

Anorexia used to be diagnosed as being 15% underweight which is very very thin. It’s now been converted to BMI think.

Tbh where PP are saying they know people who are normal weight but on constant diets I don’t really understand the problem? Clearly that’s what they need to do to maintain their perfectly healthy weight?

apparently BMI below 17 is now commonly used to diagnose anorexia

Humm. I think a one off thing, like a special event maybe. Also they can't necessarily rescheduled, but the gym is open all the time, you can work round other events.

I don't believe that weight is indicative for a healthy diet. I'm overweight and live mostly on vegetables and salads, courgetti and cauliflower rice. I cook everything from scratch so I know what is in it. My brother has a healthy weight but eats only junk food, doesn't like vegetables, thinks that fanta counts as fruit juice so is healthy because it is fruit flavored, breakfast is a sugary cereal, lunch white bread with chocolate paste and dinner pasta (no whole meal anything) without the vegetables, lots of cheese and then some ice cream as desert. That is not a one off day I'm describing, it's his normal day-to-day eating. Apparantly he is the healthy one because he has a healthy weight (although I don't know why tbh).

Well if you where my only friend then I'd understand that, but someone with a busy social life sometimes has to prioritise and a lot of people do have to see the gym as unavoidable.

Someone who isn't confident about their calorie intake or who has struggled with binge eating or resisting temptation, isn't going to think watching other people eat cake and drink sounds like a fun time, it can be overwhelming for some people and loads of people have the mentality that if they have one piece of cake, they've ruined their 'diet' and may as well have the whole lot.

Fatlogic, fatlogic EVERYWHERE.

Yes, some foods are 'bad'. In fact, they are BAD full stop and you shouldn't be eating them AT ALL.

There is NOTHING good about them. At all. Yes they WILL make you fat. And if you're already fat, you SHOULD restrict. Don't worry about nourishment, you're already overnourished. If you're as morbidly obese as some of the people you see on my 600lb life, DON'T WORRY ABOUT GOING VERY LOW CAL. You could probably live off your fat for months.

Diet becomes dangerous when you're headed into the underweight category. Don't be too kind to yourself if 'kindness' involves cake. Cause this mistaken 'kindness' will keep you fat and will send you to an early grave. I've been there. Never, ever again.

I think there are spectrums. There will be people who are very controlled over their diet to stay a certain weight but can relax and enjoy themselves (my mil is like this). There will be others who take that control to a different level and become obsessed. I was a bit like this before my wedding. I was exercising every day, eating very little and I still thought I looked chunky even though my wedding dress was an 8 (old style measurements) and the seamstress kept saying to stop losing weight. I had a healthy bmi at that point of around 20 but everyone thought I was a stone lighter than I was. My honeymoon broke the obsession. I was able to go and enjoy myself etc. If I’d carried on, I think I could have quite quickly moved towards disordered eating. After 2 kids, I’ve realised I’ll always need to be controlled to avoid getting fat as I’m quite greedy and can’t self regulate very well. The trick for me is to probably find a balance where I can maintain a healthy weight at a bmi of around 23-4.

My BMI is fine but my waist/belly isn’t! My weight is on the lower side because I’m naturally small built not cos I don’t have any fat. When I say I’m going to lose a few lbs I get a backlash, but I struggle with my mum tum! My weight isn’t that different from my 20s but I think it was muscle then!!

The other thing is I (and I’m sure many others) remember girls from school and women from various parts of life who would pretend to have an eating disorder for attention (because, particularly when you’re a teen everyone is on high alert for signs of eating disorders and it gets you a lot of attention) I have a friend who talks emotionally about her eating disorder- I was her closest friend all through secondary school and it’s simply fantasy. So I can totally see why NHs don’t treat people until they are a certain amount underweight- why would they treat anyone before? And more importantly, how? Anorexia has terribly low recovery rates so what could you do for someone who is just a bit obsessed with diet and exercise? There are millions of people like that.

I think a lot of people in this country eat in a disordered way and manage to live a normal life, stay a healthy weight, but for some people it can lead to severe consequences like anorexia which has the highest death rate among psychiatric disorders.

The posts on here regarding diets and diet culture make me sad. It's now the norm to be on very low calorie diets or cut out whole food groups. Sure it may control your weight but I'm not sure if the effects the diets have on long term health. Or people yo yo which again is not great for health either.
I'm not perfect, I'm a size 12, some on here would be adamant I could lose a stone easily on a vlcd or keto. But I eat a balanced diet and exercise 4/5 days a week and am active in work too. I want to live life and enjoy the time we have here, it can be short. I don't own scales and genuinely not weighed myself in years.
Disordered eating is definitely an issue in people of all sizes and diet culture definitely has had an effect on this.
And no I'm not jealous of skinny people that diet I'd rather be happy than counting calories/carbs/food groups/weight to the extreme and it's worrying that's now starting to be normal.

I get a bit of this from people. 15 months ago I was what I thought of as a bit overweight. Though I was actually bordering very close to an obese bmi. When I decided to tackle it, I knew I would have to do so by changing my habits for good. I lost my baby weight by cutting back but over several years put it back on. So I knew my attitude towards food would need to change. I cut out processed sugar nearly completely and that allowed my relationship with my attitude to reset. Sugar addiction is very real, so you can be eating quite a lot of the wrong food and still feel really hungry. With processed sugar cut out, my appetite lessened and my need for simple carbs dropped. I still have a proper portion of simple carbs, especially rice/potatoes, nearly every day but I don't desire it for nearly every meal like I used to.

I lost most of the excess weight and got my bmi below 25 in under 6 months. Then another few months brought it to 23.5. Around then I fell into a sport that I've always loved to watch and fantasised about being good at, and it turns out that I actually am very good at. It's was amazing luck, as I'd never keep up exercise, but having great fun all the time in a way that gets me super fit is amazing because I genuinely want to do it every single day. Over the last 6 months, I've lost a little over 1lb a month but I've gotten really, really strong. I have visible arm and leg muscles, my butt has gone back to where it was nearly 20 years ago, my waist has slimmed and my upper abs are just about visible. I have amazing endurance now and can move fast for hours and hours and feel exhilarated rather than tired.

I eat according to what my body tells me it needs or doesn't need. I don't eat a lot of bread or pasta because they make me feel bloated and constipated. I do eat a lot of protein. I never restrict fruit and veg and snack on apples/berries/bananas/carrots/tomatoes/beetroot/etc all day long if I feel like it. But I don't eat a lot of simple carbs unless I've literally done a marathon, unless I'm on holiday or having a night out. The nearest I'll come to restriction is if I know I'm going for a 3 course meal that night, I obviously won't have my main meal in the afternoon and that makes me hungry. I couldn't move like I do and I wouldn't have muscle like I do if I was starving myself. But still I have so many people comment negatively on my eating habits. Concern that I must be starving myself or "working out" as part of a crazed desire to lose weight. Do I enjoy how my body looks? Yes, yes I bloody well do. But beyond that, I enjoy what it can do far, far more. Obviously those two things aren't divorced from each other but the look of my body is a bonus rather than a goal.

As for the idea that being a healthy/ideal weight means not enjoying life. Well that's actually really, really fucking sad. There is so, so, so much more to life than over eating a bit. Would I be unhappy if hot chocolates, smores, bacon sandwiches, ice-cream sundaes and watching a movie in bed with a bar of chocolate were off limits for ever? Yes obviously.. But they are a small, small part of a happy and fulfilling life. And, food can be healthy and appropriately portioned and still be yummy and indulgent and make you really, really happy 4 or 5 times a day.

alittle sounds like you've got a good balance there.

I guess it depends on the motivation.

I'm size 8, don't need to lose any weight. However up until recently I ate no fruit and veg, just literally crap (pizzas, chocolate, sweets etc) so I've been trying to make better choices, not to lose weight but to be healthier. So I think that's fine.