To think this is not under eating

[Buzzzlightyear]

Posting because I’m so fed up of this situation but don’t feel like I can vent to the people involved.

I have a group of friends who I’ve known for 15+ years. I am slim and always have been, they are all overweight and always have been (since I’ve known them anyway). I don’t have a problem with their weight 2 of them seem to have one with mine.

I’ve noticed the last few years they watch everything I eat (and what DH eats when other halves are there). They always comment that I’ve/we’ve hardly eaten anything. If I go round to theirs they’ll have loads of snacks and biscuits around but they always comment that I never have anything (I do. I’ll have say 2 biscuits and stop there). I get snacks in for them too and they will go through packets of biscuits at a time - this happened today and I got an eye roll for not having anything. Once after the pub me and one of them got a McDonald’s and she turned to me and said it’s SO good to see you eating and hugged me...like a long awkward hug. I once got congratulated for finishing my meal when we were all out for dinner. One of the girls said loudly oh buzz I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you finish your meal I’m so proud (this isn’t even true I’ve finished my meals many times when out with them).

The latest things that have pissed me off are firstly I’m not allowed to talk about my running because two of them have started running and it would demoralise them to hear that I’m faster. I get this but everytime they talk about their running they’ll look at me and say I know that sounds pathetic to you - but it doesnt!! I really don’t care about their running times I’m just glad they’re running and enjoying it. I’m always supportive on apps like strava. The other thing - we’re going to a spa soon for our 30ths and We have all been told by one of them no bikinis because it’s showing off and would make her feel bad. I only own bikinis in terms of swimwear so would have to buy something new, also there will be other women at the spa wearing bikinis and most importantly I like wearing them!

This is not a deal breaker friendship wise its petty - I love them, they’re very very kind to me in lots of other ways and our kids all get on great. However I’m at the point where I’m starting to get irrationally pissed off when they make a comment/eye roll and I’m worried I’m going to snap and it’ll come across wrong. Aibu to be this annoyed? Also aibu to think half a medium dominoes Pizza, and 3 sides shared with dh (wedges, garlic bread, cookies if it matters) is NOT eating hardly anything?

I think by asking your friends if they think you have an eating disorder you open the door to a far more revealing conversation about they do actually think (frankly, that they are overweight and jealous of your perceived will power) and how hurtful and toxic their comments are.

Often people with eating disorders post innocuous looking threads looking for reassurance that how they’re eating is fine

This is what I first thought.

And I too am a bit at the thought of sharing half of a dominoes pizza, despite posters banging on about it being a perfectly adequate amount and 500 calories or whatever it is.

Not because I’m fat or unhealthy or have ‘lost sight of normal portion sizes’. But because dominoes is shit food however much you eat of it - so it ‘should’ really be rarely eaten to be any kind of healthy. And the only people I know who really restrict their portions of shit food when they eat it are those with some type of food issue...constant dieters or those who are under or overweight.

The healthiest people I know are those who eat well most of the time but don’t count the calories or measure their portion of their monthly pizza or Chinese. Those with food and/or weight ‘issues’ tend to count the calories/points/size of their macdonald/pizza/white bread/burgers etc (ie shit food) regularly and advertise their ‘reasonable’ portions like a badge of honour.

Not sure I’ve explained that well - maybe someone can word it better if you get my point!

One of my friends DH once commented that all slim people must be miserable because they clearly don’t eat - well I’m not miserable and I do eat but I wonder if this assumption is quite common.

Well at times there's been a fairly strong consensus on some threads, that slim people 'deny themselves' certain foods and stop eating before they're full up.

Some people just cannot accept that as individuals, we have individual appetites.

But it was "half a medium pizza plus two slices of garlic bread each plus half a box of wedges and 2 cookies each".

I don't know why anyone would be a bit about that?

Again, it's about individual appetites.

A poster earlier on in the thread said half a pizza and a couple of sides wouldn't be enough between my dc age 6 and 10

I find that really difficult to believe that wouldn't fill children that age but if it doesn't then it doesn't.

Peridot passion - I’m not advertising my reasonable portions like a badge of honour. I think it ridiculous that I was told I ate hardly anything by my friends when that’s obviously not the case. I know how much I eat because it’s a meal deal we get if we have a dominoes and it’s roughly split between us. That’s not me counting or measuring it’s just pretty bloody obvious.

People are weird about other people's diets. Really, really weird.

My mother is obsessed with how much other women eat and weigh and whether or not they have put on weight. I have been on a weight loss diet for a few months, lost 3 stone and reduced in size very noticeably, she seems to think this means I am now keen to join her in obsessing about other people's diets and sizes. I'm not. It's very fucking boring.

The healthiest people I know are those who eat well most of the time but don’t count the calories

There's probably some truth in this. I've been the same weight within a few pounds my whole adult life, pregnancy aside, and have no clue how many calories are in any given food stuff. I just eat what I fancy when I fancy it.

The OP isn't unusual in encountering women who are insecure about their own weight projecting on to normal, healthy (current) size 8-10 women though. I've even had a random stranger throw food at me in the street while calling me an anorexic bitch. That was nice.

More common in my experience though are the fishing for compliments type interactions, 'wow you're sooo slim, you're sooo lucky' expecting you to respond with 'but I'm soooo jealous of your amazing eyes/hair/skin'. I used to get sucked in when I was younger but eventually learned to just say 'thank you' and change the subject.

I am overweight, but as I've lost 6st (2 to go), I find myself on the receiving end of a lot of similar behaviour.

The compliments have been replaced by an almost relentless nagging to 'go on, have a night off, you've earned it'.

1. Actually, I'm happy just to have the food I'm eating. I picked it. I never got real joy from mindlessly shoving biscuits in my face anyway.
2. I earned it by behaving like this. I have to do this the vast majority of the time in order to sustain this loss. If I stop, I gain weight or stall, and I still need to lose some more (BMI just under 30).
3. This is me letting go. It gets said to me typically at occasions where I've saved up cals and planned so I can have a 3 course meal and some booze.
4. You gain sod all from me eating more. So why do you want me to?

(Re: 4, I have to say the worst culprits are those who told me that they too lost a lot of weight for their weddings but they regained it all, in the apparently hearty expectation that I'd do the same.)

My BMI is about 21. I don’t think about what I eat, some days I’ll eat not that much other days I’ll have 3 chocolate biscuits before dinner and 3 after.

New workies have decided I’m slim because I’m vegan and all I eat is vegetables

And the only people I know who really restrict their portions of shit food when they eat it are those with some type of food issue

I completely disagree with this. Eating only half a pizza does not mean you are automatically "restricting". Maybe you are simply just full then? Cognitive restraint is the act of stopping eating when you are full- its a healthy signal that comes from your brain. Binge eating junk food even if once in a blue moon is still not what I would consider to be "healthy eating" and actually the fact you are bingeing once in a while would actually suggest you are, in your words, "restricting" the rest of the time.

Eating until you are full and then stopping is the healthiest method of eating because you are relying on natural cues that you body has been satiated. If that happens after a half a pizza with other sides then that sounds perfectly healthy to me and not in any way representative of disordered eating. Not counting calories also doesnt = healthy.
There are plenty of people who over eat which is also an eating disorder and who never count calories, that doesnt mean they dont have an eating disorder simply because they are ignoring calories.

Nothing the OP has said so far indicates she has a raging eating disorder. We would frown upon people telling someone they are eating too much so why the heck is it ok for overweight people to heckle slim people? thats exactly the same thing, just in reverse. The OP has not shown any kind of disordered thinking or cognitive distortions around food- she has simply expressed her annoyance at food comments which is perfectly legit.

What awful envy at play. Prob worried their husbands all fancy you!

half a pizza and a couple of sides wouldn't be enough between my dc age 6 and 10

We visited Pizza Hut last week with DC, 15 and 13.
They have always ordered from the kids menu but you're supposed to be under 12 so we made them order individual (11") pizzas, thin base.
Neither of them could finsish them.
They're not calorie counting (they eat too many puddings in my opinion), but a full pizza is just too much for them.
Is it that hard to believe?

Yanbu. 2 biscuits in a sitting is normal. Packets at a time is not.

Half a pizza plus sides is also perfectly normal. I hate pizza, but I imagine this is what people who like it eat if they're having sides as well.

The running thing is ridiculous too imo.

It’s not half a pizza it’s a quarter of a medium pizza! Slightly different

Oooooh that is quite a small portion, but no, I wouldn't call it under eating per se.

FFS a quarter of a medium pizza is still two large slices of pizza. Plus, sides which presumably include potato wedges, coleslaw, chips or whatever. There is no way someone eating that is "restricting". You dont have to eat an entire pizza to prove to anyone that you dont have an eating disorder.

The size of your stomach is usually the size of your clenched fist. Compare that to two large slices of pizza, sides and drinks. Its hardly under eating is it?!

Is a medium pizza not a personal pizza? Would it really be eight large slices per pizza?

Ugh I hate pizza.

Irrelevant but true!

Just to clarify it IS half a pizza that I’m talking about! A medium pizza is 8 slices (I think) so 4 slices each. And I stopped eating because I was full not because I was calorie counting. I could have eaten more if I’d wanted to as there were a lot of pizzas ordered.

OP if you're a size 8 and you eat normally - that is you don't count calories excessively or throw up food - then your overweight friends are just being nasty

It really bugs me when overweight people say to me 'oh you can't possibly need to
Lose weight' and tut at me. I do need to
Lose 7 pounds and just because I'm not 3 stone overweight doesn't mean I'm not overweight for my standards.

I don't think your friends are lovely , OP ... sorry but I don't

Op, unfortunately it seems like there are a lot of people on this thread who are exactly the same as your friends! Please don’t waste your time justifying yourself to them. You sound like you have a healthy relationship with food.

It’s hard when you’re not confident calling people out - could you maybe send them a group message next time to say you’re getting quite upset by it? Sometimes it’s easier to phrase if you have time to think it through? I never get the tone right etc if I have to say it out loud. But its quite patronising the way they’re acting and they need to be a little more self-aware that their combined efforts are making you feel ganged up on. I’m sure, if they’re as lovely as you say otherwise, then they will sheepishly realise they’re projecting their own insecurities into you and hopefully stop.

People are weird about other people's diets. Really, really weird

Tbf I think a lot of people have weird eating habits too - not weird enough to be an actual disorder but still unusual to an outsider.

I know I do but I'm quite open about it. I'm the only person I know who deliberately yoyo diets. I am really, really good for about a week, only eating vegetables and not drinking then I have a week of eating disgusting amounts and going to the pub. I also an the only person I know who likes the feeling of being over-full. I actually love overeating. The unfair thing is the privilege that comes with being thin means people just find it a bit quirky rather than feel the need to make comments - whereas my habits are probably WAY less healthy than someone that's just a bit overweight.

@Namestranger

You really should go out with the OP and her friends when you're on a pig-out phase. Being eaten under the table by a skinny person will cause their heads to explode

We visited Pizza Hut last week with DC, 15 and 13.
They have always ordered from the kids menu but you're supposed to be under 12 so we made them order individual (11") pizzas, thin base.
Neither of them could finsish them

I assume they ate more than 1/4 though, probably more than half too? OP said it's only a medium pizza so not much bigger