Your favourite competitive under-eating thread

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

We’ve had a couple of doozies lately - the woman who was told her Morrison’s jacket potato should fill her up for the rest of the day and was unreasonable to cook a roast after a ‘treat lunch’; the woman who thought her husband was ordering too much pizza and

it’s more likely the problem is with themselves

I agree with this, if someone is commenting about someone else's food it's likely to be about how they feel about their own weight and food choices rather than an issue the other person has.

Unless as stated there is a clear problem. Even then commenting needs to be handled with consideration.

But general bitchy comments dressed up as a joke, is usually all about the person making the comment and their feelings about their self.

But because being slim is seen as desirable it's deemed ok to comment.

And being fat is seen as all the things you’ve been posting on this thread so people feel free to be downright rude and abusive to overweight people. Often in the name of things ‘needing to be said’. Fat shaming doesn’t work.

And to be clear, I don’t comment on what anyone eats, ever. I’ve had enough aimed at me my entire life to know how awful it feels. Whatever size someone is.

The roast /baked potato thread the poster cooked a massive roast with all the trimmings for basically her and a small child.

No. That is you adding things that weren't there, as I think you or possibly someone else was told at the time when they said this. The OP didn't say it was massive. It could have been a small piece of meat, and the veg could've been a few bits in the pan plus a quick microwave steam. This is before we get onto the fact that lots of people get more than one day's meals from a roast, and that there were also two babies being fed. Both of mine at that age would've absolutely scranned a roast!

OP my vote is for the jacket potato lunch thread. I loved the way posters kept saying OP should have told her DH they were having a roast for tea, with no mention of him just having gone round the supermarket and purchased all the ingredients with her but not having stopped to think about when they might be eaten.

Bluntness100 I know a couple of people who don't derive pleasure from food, see it as fuel, get their kicks elsewhere. They never comment on what I eat, they might secretly judge me and my obese body, but they don't do it out loud.
I never order desert when I eat out because I don't really like puddings, this really irks people, they assume, with me being really fat that I will want a pudding and the fact I don't throws some of them. I have had some really snotty comments in this instance, where they feel my choice not to have one deprives them of their choice to have one, weird !

Mumsnet really pushes me off when it comes to this. It’s like eating like a bird is seen as massively virtuous or something. Eat what fuels you. If you don’t move much, eat less. But don’t pretend you are actually physically active and subside on fresh air and salad leaves.

I remember ages ago a thread about magnums (the ice lollies) & the amount of posters saying that they can't even manage one. Too rich, too sickly etc.
I'd love it if you could get the Waitrose coffee ones in a mini size, I do find the full size ones to be too much for something so sweet.

Of course we can't just happily treat food as fuel, nourishment and pleasure when it's being used as a stick to beat us with through every social media platform and by the people (usually other women) around us.
Most of us eat too much and our diets contain too much processed food and not enough vegetables. That's a fact, not a 'competitive undereating attitude'. But it's impossible for many people to hear that without it provoking an angry, defensive response. Because we are constantly bombarded with messages that our eating habits are indicative of a virtuous or bad lifestyle, or of a weak or strong personality or even of being a good parent or a bad parent. So we lash out at people who claim to eat less/more/more healthily/less healthily than us, as this thread perfectly demonstrates.

people who claim to eat less/more/more healthily/less healthily than us yes well when that includes going on about how 'bad' they have been for eating, how they will need to be 'good tomorrow' instead and include you in that, that sort of thing does make people upset. Understandably.

If they were is a good place they would have no need to claim to be better/ healthier , they would just get on with it

If they were is a good place they would have no need to claim to be better/ healthier , they would just get on with it

And again vice versa, if theywbere in a good place there would be no need to comment on people not eating enough etc, they would also just get on with it and eat whatever.

Really this does work both ways.

@Alrighteo me too. I literally can't finish a restaurant meal. Once a friend "made" me and I ended up vomming under the table. I have always stopped eating the moment I'm full and I can't eat any more from that moment.

BUT

Give me a box of chocolates and I can demolish it in a sitting. It's a really bad addiction!!

Agree @Elphame I'm always apologising to waitstaff about food left on my plate.

This fish finger 'Oh I only have 2' business is a perfect example.

Google says 70 cals each.

2 @ 70- 140 is not enough for a dinner. That would be say 400 if eaten with baked potato and peas.

Maybe if you're restricting to lose weight but otherwise no.

4 would be the norm.

I can't understand how people can do intermittent fasting though, I'd probs have to eat my arm if I tried it. Eating small meals does mean my fuel runs out quickly. I definitely eat three meals a day.

I literally can't finish a restaurant meal. Once a friend "made" me and I ended up vomming under the table

How did the person make you and you actually vomited under the table?

@Bluntness100 he wouldn't let me finish or go until I had eaten the full meal. Told me it was bad manners. Not as bad as vomming under the table! Into a handful of napkins luckily. I was so ashamed.

Were you in an abusive relationship?

Like many, many MN threads involving comparisons of anything, some of these statements/comments are meaningless out of context. A three course restaurant meal is not a constant quantity. I can easily eat three courses in some places but would struggle to eat more than a main in others. Lots of places serve enormous portions.

Also, when we say ‘eat’ do we mean clear our plates at every course or just eat what we fancy? Again, very different ideas of what we’re actually saying.

It’s impossible to know what much of this means. And it really doesn’t particularly matter of course, but I hope no one reads these threads and judges themselves.

@Bluntness100 no but I can see how it seems that way. Just a friend (who came from a farming family if it makes a difference). And he'd obviously been taught to finish his meal at all costs and thought I was rude to leave anything at all!

That’s horrible, sendhalp. I’m sorry you went through that.

I can't understand how people can do intermittent fasting though, I'd probs have to eat my arm if I tried it. Eating small meals does mean my fuel runs out quickly. I definitely eat three meals a day.

But have you tried? I used to think I had to eat three meals a day and I'd probably die if I missed one.

I tried intermittent fasting with DH, eating absolutely nothing every other day, and I didn't die. In fact, I feel better for it.

Thanks @Doubleraspberry . He learned his lesson from that!!

I haven't tried IF @PhoneLock though I have managed to stop snacking except for morning tea- and that's normalised my hunger to three times per day. Maybe I should do it and I wouldn't even be hungry three times per day? I don't need to lose weight though.

I never order desert when I eat out because I don't really like puddings, this really irks people, they assume, with me being really fat that I will want a pudding

I never do, either. I really, really don't like sweets much. I love food, but not desserts.

I never comment on what other people eat/don’t eat and it drives me mad when people do. My boyfriend’s mum does the whole virtuous “I couldn’t possibly eat all that” thing and it drives me crazy. Once we’d ordered takeaway - chicken shish with a big salad and some rice. She stood over me peering at me going “how on earth are you going to eat all that, oh my goodness I couldn’t manage it, I wouldn’t be able to eat all that” and eventually I just said “just as well it’s me eating it and not you then, isn’t it?”
She’ll order salads in restaurants but then take huge handfuls of everyone else’s chips/starters/puddings, then afterwards go on about how full she is from the salad and she doesn’t know how we managed to eat our portions (I’m thinking, with significant help from you! Lol) It’s exhausting to be around and makes me feel sad - this isn’t a woman with a naturally small appetite, this is a woman who constantly has to justify and rationalise what she’s eating or wants to eat, and has to compare herself to others.
Unfortunately I rarely seem to meet women who make absolutely no comment about food. It makes me so sad. There’s so much more to life.

yes well when that includes going on about how 'bad' they have been for eating, how they will need to be 'good tomorrow' instead and include you in that, that sort of thing does make people upset. Understandably.

I know, exactly. But people have such a messed-up, virtue-associated relationship with food that all remarks about food are taken as loaded, judgy remarks, even when they aren't meant to be. To the point that it's completely impossible to have a civilised discussion about food without it descending into vitriol and nastiness. And equally, as Asthenia says, it also seems impossible for most women to resist talking about diet a lot.