Life is too short to waste obsessing over diets and the numbers on the scales

[Pollyarna]

I'm not referring to people who's health is suffering or at risk of suffering due to morbid obesity, but the folk who teeter around the normal BMI or are perhaps just slightly overweight but not by much - and are constantly obsessing about dieting.

I have a friend like it. She's always fasting and restricting what she eats even though she openly talks about how she hates 'fast' days. I've known her for 15 years and she has never, ever been what I would consider overweight or even close to.

We went for lunch last week and she was aghast that I put two tiny sachets of sugar in my tea after having a pudding. I felt a bit embarrassed having a torch shone on my diet like that and felt a little shamed. I promptly gave my head a wobble and said that actually I'm not too focused on my sugar intake as I hardly binge or ear in excess and couldn't be bothered with all of that faffing about fretting about every tea spoon of sugar I digest.

Full disclosure, I'm probably around a stone overweight but perfectly happy with how I look and I'm reasonably healthy.

AIBU to think life is too short for that crap?

I have an earring disorder and I’ve been obsessing for 15 years now and I’m in my 40s, it’s miserable, soul destroying but it’s the only thing in my life I can control!

Go easy on your friend, she might have a disorder that she’s not told anyone about.

For people with eating disorders obsessing about food is ingrained in us and a big part of lives sadly

I'm also not convinced we should be worrying about the BMI calculator as the gold standard tool.

My DS has barely any fat on him he's just a tall 4 year old. The NHS BMI calculator claimed he is "very overweight" which is laughable if you see him.

Ooops I mean Eating disorder not earring disorder …..

💐 to those here who have, or have had, an eating disorder. I don't want to upset anybody and hope that I haven't. If I have then please accept my apologies.

I don't care if someone is 1 stone overweight or 10, it's not someone's business to police another adult's food consumption.

The evidence on being mildly overweight is inconclusive, anyway. You don't magically start being at higher risk when your BMI goes from 25 to 26, and being slightly overweight may have a slightly lower risk of death. Yo-yo dieting also damages your metabolism and has other bad effects, so constantly gaining and losing the same 15 lbs may be worse for you than just keeping it on. It's not automatically true that being a bit overweight then spirals upward.

Nobody 'shamed' anyone for goodness sake.

She was surprised about the sugar and mentioned it. It's not something I would've done but she did and it's not a big deal unless for some reason you're unhappy with your eating/drinking habits or your weight.

Live and let live and stop criticising each other 🤷‍♀️

You’ve not upset me, I’d much rather obsess about Tom Hardy than diets, food intake and how quick I can escape a meal so I can throw up but it is what it is! 😆

Therapy doesn’t help I just have amazing friends around me who listen to me going on and on but still support me and check on me regularly. It’s who I am and due to issues that even I can’t get my head around I’m stuck in the awful cycle of dreading food, eating food then being sick!

She shouldn't have mentioned it but it's true that sugar is really bad for you and most of us have too much.

The problem is that weight creeps on gradually. More and more people are overweight the older you get. If you're 30 and you put on 2 pounds a year you'll have put on nearly 3 stone by the time you're 50.

People like to test themselves and challenge their willpower.

Your friend has chosen to do it by fasting. Others might limit themselves to two cups of coffee, walk 10,000 steps each day, cut their shower down to less than a minute or sleep 8 hours every night.

Life would get very boring if we decided to indulge ourselves all the time.