Tedious performative under eaters

[SlimPig]

The thread about the PIL's measly portions reminded me of this, and how iritating it is. I remember once at work they bought us all fish and chips on one friday afternoon. When it arrived the two other women started their bs as soon as they were handed their box - oohh the weight of that! I'll never eat all that! Hadn't even opened it and looked at it yet.

Then, once opened, both of them, oh my god, I'll never eat all that (measly takeaway cardboard box portion, not a massive, in paper, large portion) ooh dear, we won't need dinner, or breakfast tomorrow now will we! Don't think I can eat my peas too, I'm so stuffed. I'm going to need to go for two runs tomorrow now! On and on, through the whole meal.

I was starving and had to make a conscious effort to eat it slowly because they were fucking about and pushing it round the box and I didn't want to look a pig, I'm a fast eater anyway, but that meal was just so god awful! In the end I just ate it at my normal speed.

Why? Why do people do this? Why can't they just eat their food normally? Why does everything have to be justified and offset? Just strikes me as so sad that they couldn't just eat their food without a whole performance (infront of all the men in the office, only 3 women there, me and them) of how birdlike they normally eat 😥

I can’t stand it when this happens or gloating dress size comments - my favourite is from a close friend referring to “when I was big” or “before I lost all my weight”, with her ‘before’ being the size I am aspiring to get to! She is also obviously fully aware of all this…

My SIL also loves to drop into conversation that she is a size 8, at any opportunity she gets.

For the record, this obsession regarding food portions, dress sizes etc always annoyed me even when I was very slim. There is so much more to life!

@GoldenCupidon

”have once said I wouldn't need dinner when presented with honestly the world's biggest lunch, but I was brave and eventually soldiered through dinner (having not eaten all the lunch).”

why did you need to be brave and soldier through dinner though? If you’re not hungry, don’t eat! Or have an apple or a banana or whatever rather then making dinner

it doesn’t do anyone any harm to miss a meal from time to time

I once brought Tupperware to an afternoon tea. There's so much waste otherwise! The kids ate the leftovers on the train home.

My dad is like this, always has been, and his neurosis around food has got worse as he's got older. Now he's got early Alzheimers and his filters are starting to break down, he can be incredibly rude and judgemental about what people are eating. Every meal I serve him is met with "I'm NOT going to eat all this, I can tell you that now", or "super rich, you don't need a lot" or "this is a whacking great portion". He was a war baby and grew up in extreme poverty, and so many of his problematic traits stem from that upbringing. It is very wearing, especially as I have eating issues myself and find his comments triggering, but I know he can't help the way he is. We all have our frailties, and this one stems from deep-seated anxiety, not malice. MIL is even worse, any meal out with her begins with her literally gatekeeping the menus and telling people what they ought to have based on their body type. At home, she serves different food to men and women (steak for the men, salmon and salad for the women!) and again, I grit my teeth and find it intrusive and upsetting. But she also grew up in poverty, she has osteoporosis and other health problems from poor nutrition and compulsive exercise. She can't help it.

@SomePeopleAreJustBloodyStupid

nooone should be eating two packets of biscuits

My mil is the exact same. Even in Michelin star restaurants she'll scrap half of her food onto fil's plate.

Yes and if you go out to eat with them it's so dull as you can't really order a 3 course dinner with extra garlic bread when they are picking the croutons off the caesar salad that is all they are having 'Oh that much bread and I'll be bloated for a week' - 'won't need to eat tomorrow'.

Well I know you can order a 3 course meal - but it does suck the joy out of it a bit.

That's literally the whole point of the thread. Because they are demanding attention for their under eating.

The bit the irritates me about this whole subject is the way it's so gendered.

I work in the kind of industry where women put quite a lot of thought and attention into their looks and grooming etc. In my office most of the women without fail will eat only salad for lunch and have weird appetite suppressing tricks such as licking Marmite from a knife instead of having a snack and other borderline eating disorder behaviour.

But the blokes are celebrated for their gourmandise. There's one man in the office in particular who is a huge foodie and eats constantly (and fair enough. But the double standards are bizarre. I'm openly mocked in the office for eating a Pret sandwich because its "huge" and "greasy-looking" (the implication being that I eat like a bloke), but this guy is constantly indulged and slapped on the back when he goes to buy himself a portion of chips mid-afternoon.

There are an awful lot of women in this country for whom the line between "healthy eating" and "disordered eating" is very thin indeed and who use it as a weird kind of status boost.

My MIL is like this. She has declared a toastie with salad as “fit for a king” and loves telling us how she couldn’t possibly finish whatever it is she’s ordered when we are out. She even tries to order half portions telling the waiter how she really can’t eat that much. It becomes embarrassing.

My SIL is ok with food but she runs like 10 miles a day so she’s now super skinny. She frequently refers to “when I was fat” referring to when she was the weight I am currently trying to get back down to.

My dh and I have a running joke about the portion sizes my mum dishes up. All the males will be served a regular to large portion. All females are dished up a serving roughly a third of that. If she only wants to eat one roast potato or a 4cm piece of baguette - fine. It's the assertion that all females should restrict that bothers me.

There are obviously extremes of this, but there are many women who would probably benefit from remembering that on average women need fewer calories than men. It’s not about restricting but about what you need. I’m constantly having to remind my OH that he shouldn’t serve us the same portion sizes as I don’t need to eat as much as him (and shouldn’t eat as much as him).

Fish and chips is filling though, we share a medium portion between us here. We like our food too.

My MIL is the worst for commenting on food - I now actively avoid going out for meals etc with her. She made comments that I feel are inappropriate towards my toddler and couldn’t understand my issue at all when I raised it with get so I’d rather just avoid eating with her now which is a shame.

Things like:

• as soon as your meal is sat infront of you - “oh, username...you won’t be thinking about having dinner tonight too will you?!” Which will then be asked multiple times throughout the meal 🙄
• she’ll invite you for lunch, wait until you order and then just order a coffee for herself 🙃 while commenting on the fact she doesn’t know “how you can possibly eat 3 meals in a day!”
• Towards my 2 year old when I ordered him a full kids meal and she thought he had too much food on his plate - “you’ll need to be careful - if you eat all that food you’ll get a yucky big tummy!!” 😡😡😡

Just thought I'd answer the OP - when I was very underweight, I did this too. I never realised it would make people feel bad - I was just genuinely feeling swamped by the amount of food. I'd feel full quickly and find the grease of something like fish and chips really filling and off-putting. I used to find eating a bit of a chore, so a big plate of food would make me think 'omg, how do people eat this much for one meal' maybe it was tactless to say they can't finish it, but for people with a small appetite it's the truth.

Everyone has different appetites, who cares!

I don't think you should have a problem with people saying "that's too much for me, I'm stuffed" etc, it doesn't affect you

You've missed the point.

It's the constant conversation around it.

She even tries to order half portions telling the waiter how she really can’t eat that much. It becomes embarrassing.

What's wrong with that?

I'd rather explain that I wanted half a portion due to having a small appetite, than have the waiter possibly think it was because I couldn't afford the standard one?

You can't order half portions and expect to pay half price for them! That's so rude.

Just order what you want, eat what you want and leave the rest. Without the constant commentary.

Yep, this. On the occasions my DH goes on a diet, he is very, very strict. And he loses his weight really quickly, like most men do. Typical.

He said to me once when he was on a diet about seven or eight years ago... 'I notice how much you eat when I'm on a diet. You eat quite a lot, don't you?'

I was absolutely fucking furious - I was not eating 'a lot!' I was eating a normal amount for a middle aged average sized woman. He was just eating fuckall to try and drop weight quickly. That really offended me actually.

And yes, as a few posters have said, when people are on a strict diet, they are really boring, and talk about nothing but their diet/food consumption/weight loss/calories/vital statistics/how many clothes sizes they've dropped etc etc.....

Tedious. As. FUCK.

All this reminds me of is that the other day I had one of my son's friends over and we/they were all so busy playing he practically got nothing to eat and afterwards I realised he hadn't actually eaten everyone I'd given him, he'd left it in the sitting room on the window sill. The guilt! Everyone here thinks it's hilarious that not time he comes I've already planned the food and goodies so he doesn't think it's the norm here!

You can't order half portions and expect to pay half price for them! That's so rude.

Yes you can...in many many restaurants.

Sometimes it's advertised as 'half portions for children', but more often than not, it's advertised as 'for the smaller appetite'. I guess because some adults would be embarrassed to ask for a children's portion.

This thread’s making me hungry. Pretty sure I’ve got 2 packets of biscuits in the kitchen, problem solved! Although OBVIOUSLY I won’t be able to eat until next Tuesday after scoffing them all.

I’m actually finding this thread and the majority of comments such a comfort, thank you OP! it seems I’m not the only person in the world who enjoys a decent portion 😅

I don’t have much family myself so Christmas, Easter etc are almost always spent with my IL’s - and I have constant, low level anxiety in the run up to events, that I’ll be judged on how much I’m eating. That’s not right, and this thread is helping me see that clearly ♥️ I agree with the poster who said there’s often a very thin line between what’s seen as ‘healthy’ eating and disordered eating.

My MIL is a performance eater. She still orders s starter (goes to waste) main (goes to waste) and a pudding (goes to waste). It breaks my heart to see all that food going in a landfill.

ps I used to work with a girl who got a bar of chocolate every Friday and talked about it all lunch, how she'd have to run extra to work it off, asking did anyone want some etc. It was a fairly small bar and she had the best figure and was a regular marathon runner. I actually started hiding food when we sat together because of the guilt-I'd eat the most treatish part before she got to the table

This reads like a much less snappy take on Kate Moss' 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.' 🙄

Dear heart, why would eating food render someone incapable of buying clothes that fit them properly?