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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Your favourite competitive under-eating thread

310 replies

StillCoughingandLaughing · 30/11/2019 14:06

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

OP posts:
OlaEliza · 01/12/2019 15:29

I've just made tomato and leek soup for dinner thanks to the 'can't eat a whole tin of soup' references on this thread.

And I'll be having 2 bowls of it too Grin

IHaveBrilloHair · 01/12/2019 16:09

I'm having aubergine parmigiana, just a forkful as I had a whole smoked salmon sandwich for lunch. Grin

Original poster
StillCoughingandLaughing · 01/12/2019 16:53

Wow, a day away from my phone and we’re up to 12 pages!

And this is why we have an obesity crisis. If you eat according to your appetite and moderate that daily, or you don't want to eat a full three course meal you're competitively under eating, Any healthy calorie intake is perceived by some as some form of eating disorder.

@Bluntness100, who is suggesting there is anything wrong with some people having smaller appetites than others? It’s the ‘Oh my word, I couldn’t possibly eat all that after having had a lettuce leaf three days earlier’ brigade to whom people object. Why the boasting? Why the need for the gasps of horror - if having a smaller appetite is perfectly normal, surely those who have one can accept that larger appetites are part of the same norm?

The roast /baked potato thread the poster cooked a massive roast with all the trimmings for basically her and a small child. Not many folks would do that. They'd wait till the whole family wanted to eat. Nothing wrong with it, but It certainly wasn't the case people were saying she should only eat a baked potato all day.

She cooked a roast because she wanted to, had planned to and had had a small lunch - i don’t see why she shouldn’t have just because her husband had had a big lunch and then didn’t want to eat a big dinner. And while people may not have said ‘you should eat literally nothing else today’, there most definitely were comments stating the OP ‘shouldn’t need’ a big dinner because a jacket potato is ‘massively filling’ and, in one infamous post, was described as ‘a treat lunch’. Someone actually said ‘dinner should be something on toast’. Should? Who the fuck dictates to strangers what they should have for dinner?

OP posts:
Orangeblossom78 · 01/12/2019 17:00

It is the commenting which is the real problem - FIL is a nightmare for this. Across a table of extended family he will announce "Orange you haven't got much are you slimming or something? Food is for the soul!"

FromEden · 01/12/2019 17:14

I've just made tomato and leek soup for dinner thanks to the 'can't eat a whole tin of soup' references on this thread.

I've never heard of tomato and leek soup. Sounds blasphemous! Potato and leek is the only way to go in this house. Is it nice? Sorry, off topic I know.

TeachesOfPeaches · 01/12/2019 17:19

Someone at work brought a packet biscuits and left them in front of my desk. Every single woman that got one initiated a long conversation about how they need to be good/cut out chocolate/go to the gym etc etc.

Made me so annoyed, I flung the biscuits on another colleague's desk.

babbi · 01/12/2019 17:24

@JapaneseBirdPainting.....
Just wanted to say that I think you are incredible 👌🏻
What a lovely person you are with a very admirable attitude ... sounds like you acquitted yourself impeccably while that extremely rude individual was at large in your home .
Kudos to your DH for his support of you .

I wish you well in future health etc ... xxx

BlueCornsihPixie · 01/12/2019 17:29

It's the bragging about how little you eat, nothing to do with the actual quantity. I think some posters are wilfully misunderstanding.

And the faux innocence, "oh I couldn't possibly eat all that". The implication is that you are a greedy, and therefore bad whilst they are better than you because they eat less. It's not a comment on how much they are eating, it's a dig at you, the 'greedy' poster.

The pretence that they would only eat 2 slices because eating more than that is wrong rather than they want to be healthy, or lose weight. That's disordered eating, hiding the real reason why you are eating small portions, or implying that eating lots of food occasionally is wrong. Using emotive language to describe eating lots of food, that's disordered. Creating a moral side to how much food you eat

Being overweight might not be healthy, but it's not immoral.

MarianaMoatedGrange · 01/12/2019 17:36

I've never heard of tomato and leek soup. Sounds blasphemous! Potato and leek is the only way to go in this house. Is it nice? Sorry, off topic I know.

Same. I felt quite discombobulated reading 'tomato and leek soup', like there's been a slight shift in the universe.

lljkk · 01/12/2019 17:36

people shouldn't comment on each other's food choices and size

... but isn't it funny when you get an MN thread where OP moans "I've lost so much weight and no one has noticed!!" Folk can be quite put out about lack of comments. 🤷🏼 🎄

myohmywhatawonderfulday · 01/12/2019 17:43

When in a buffet type situation. I am quietly shocked at the portion sizes people give themselves. It is quite literally 50% - 75% more than me.

Whilst it is none of my business I do think that as a society our understanding of portion size has become messed up.

BlueCornsihPixie · 01/12/2019 17:55

But my why do you find is so hard to comprehend that people have bigger appetites than you?

Or might eat more than usual in a buffet type situation? Might have a different eating pattern to you?

It's really not shock worthy is it. It's perfectly simple.

53rdWay · 01/12/2019 17:56

And the faux innocence, "oh I couldn't possibly eat all that".

Yes! One of my relatives does that at every single meal. Eating out - "oh this is HUGE, I should have asked for a half portion, I'll never finish it, what a waste." Eating in - "oooooh no this is far too much for me, I couldn't eat that, half that would be plenty for me."

But she will always finish all of it. And when I make meals where everyone dishes up their own from a central pot, she'll give herself a tiny portion to start with - and then have seconds, and then thirds. She always ends up eating about as much as the rest of us, it's just that we have to go through this "oh for ME? oooooh no I'd be STUFFED I never eat that much!" rigmarole before it, every single time. It's quite sad really.

Namestranger · 01/12/2019 17:59

Wouldn't it be refreshing if we had a thread where everyone just admits it what ways they're fucked up about eating.

I have slightly disordered eating and am quite open about it. Interesting a poster wrote;

I don’t think feeling uncomfortably full or bloated is something anyone likes, somehow

Because I bloody love it. I am quite thin naturally but go through intentional yo-yo dieting cycles so I can biiiiiiiinge big time.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 01/12/2019 18:00

I'm nodding at Arnoldwhathisknickers' post about not having a sweet tooth. I'm the same. I loath chocolate, always have. I keep getting told by women, "Oh, aren't you good!". It's patronising and patently untrue. I loath mushrooms too but nobody congratulates me for not eating those. I would happily eat a multipack of Wotsits in gone but I try not to do that. The will is definitely there. I'm not 'good' for dodging donuts and mince pies and other cake stuff because it's not my thing. I will though eat a quarter of a lemon tart at a time - normal portion is 1/6th. I don't care, I'll step it up at the gym and not eat that every day.

People are weird about food and everybody has an opinion. It would be better if the obsessed would just STFU about what other people are eating/not eating, full stop.

myohmy do you routinely watch other people's plates or are these people you are actually eating with?

AlexaAmbidextra · 01/12/2019 18:02

My dear departed father had the right idea. For pud after Sunday lunch my DM would make an apple pie which we’d have with double cream. There were three of us and it would be cut into four so a quarter each. I would invariably leave some, only because it wasn’t my favourite. So DF would have his quarter, the spare quarter and what remained on my plate. I would jokingly ask him about his waistline and his response would be that it was ok as ‘fruit was slimming’ completely disregarding the all-butter pastry and the cream. Then we’d both laugh.😂 He wasn’t overweight and loved his food until pretty much the day he died.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 01/12/2019 18:03

Namestranger, yes it would. It would be fab but I doubt it would be truthful. I'd never heard of 'orthorexia' until Mumsnet.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 01/12/2019 18:04

Alexa that's really sweet. Bless him. Grin

BlueCornsihPixie · 01/12/2019 18:10

We also know that someone who is obese eats a lot

Its not really a shocker when they then eat a lot. I don't understand why someone eating a lot of food is in anyway shocking.

Saying your 'shocked' is total bs. What you actually mean to say is it makes you feel better about yourself when you don't eat as much as others, you are congratulating yourself for your smaller portions. In your head you are setting up a competition between you and the other buffet goers, and you are winning. Why hace you even noticed how much others are eating? Why do you spend time thinking about quantities other people eat?

MrsFoxPlus4Again · 01/12/2019 18:18

@AlexaAmbidextra that’s exactly like my grandad!

Original poster
StillCoughingandLaughing · 01/12/2019 18:21

When in a buffet type situation. I am quietly shocked at the portion sizes people give themselves. It is quite literally 50% - 75% more than me. Whilst it is none of my business I do think that as a society our understanding of portion size has become messed up.

But if everyone else is eating twice what you are, how do you know it isn’t YOU who has a messed up idea of portion sizes?

OP posts:
TellySavalashairbrush · 01/12/2019 18:27

The ‘what have you eaten today’ threads are very dangerous imo. As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder, I’ve learnt not to open these anymore. Most of the posts boast about a daily intake which is far far less than a healthy amount should be. Mind you, I’m thinking half of them are made up tbh.

OlaEliza · 01/12/2019 18:55

@FromEden It was ok, the leek cooked down into it. It was a bit rich, I only had 1 bowl, not 2.

dontalltalkatonce · 01/12/2019 18:59

Saying your 'shocked' is total bs. What you actually mean to say is it makes you feel better about yourself when you don't eat as much as others, you are congratulating yourself for your smaller portions. In your head you are setting up a competition between you and the other buffet goers, and you are winning.

This! Same goes for 'I don't understand'. Of course you do, you just want a chance to show yourself up.

Bluntness100 · 01/12/2019 19:10

Most of the posts boast about a daily intake which is far far less than a healthy amount should be

Interestingly I think that's the posts you notice. Because I read them and take away the opposite, how some people eat so so much.

In reality there is a fair mix, but there is definitely a lot of people posting on there that eat what I deem to be a large amount, and if I ate that I'd be very over weight indeed. However I do also see the ones where people eat very little.