To wish my relative would stop harping on about portion sizes

[Averagesizedsalad]

I have a relative who is doing my head in with their repeated "Oh I'm so teeny tiny, oh this is so much food however will i manage" dramas. I need to rant before I explode! Share with me your infuriating virtue signalling teeny tiny stories? Maybe I am just extra cranky because I am HUNGRY everytime I see them because I'm breastfeeding 🤷‍♀️

Said relatives recent examples:

• When served a totally average sized salad for lunch, lamented "Oh this is so large, however will I have room for dinner later? I shall have to skip dinner, this salad will keep me full until morning" (I WISH I was joking, but alas I am not)

• Recently cooked a meal of pasta for lunch, in which I could count the number of pasta pieces on one hand. Of course accompanied by "Oh what a large meal, I shan't want dinner later at all!" It equated to about 1 normal sized portion of pasta dish split between 2 people, so fair enough that might be considered a light lunch if you're expecting a big dinner later, but not so much food that you wouldn't need to eat later on!

• Lamented that after having a normal sized slice of cake at a party that they were "Being sooooo naughty and would need to go on a big diet afterwards". It's a single slice of cake at a birthday party for goodness sake! You're not eating 1/4 of a cake everyday for dessert!

Obligatory: relative doesn't suffer from any health issues that might result in a small appetite blah blah blah. They are just insufferable and enjoy attention.

Thanks for listening to a hungry lactating mother complain after having about 10 curls (pieces? Squirls? What is the correct term here??) of pasta for "Lunch"

horseyhorsey, huge props to you if you remained normal with that kind of deluded weight-skullduggery going on...

I have been known to ask for a doggy bag!

But no I wouldn't make a big thing out of it as I am generally a fan of large portions!

This would be my response along with ooh get a grip 😂

Hmmm. Jury's out on that one!

I have a sister with a serious eating disorder, she will die from it I’m sure in the not so distant future.
I myself have had a gastric bypass.
weight and eating is this constant battle.
At the start of the year I started making myself heard.

friend says wow that’s a big dish/meal
my response; please don’t comment on food, food I’m eating food your eating the amount your eating, I don’t want food amounts or diet to be a topic of conversation ever.

it’s a happier time. Tiny tini eater friends x2 seem actually happier when we’re together it’s just not important it’s not a thing. We go out we eat we drink we carry on.

Eh, wierdos gotta wierd.
Just think, "being wierd again!" and let it go. Their problem, not yours.

I do get that it might be fingernails on a blackboard but there's nothing you can do but turn your mind to lovelier things! You can't change people!

If your colleagues didn't say anything, how is it any of your business how much or how little they ate? I often don't clear my plate - keep your eyes on your own plate and stop judging others.

My sister and I went away with our aunt (late 60s) for the weekend. At every single mealtime she would start by saying that she doesn't have a huge appetite, doesn’t usually eat in the evening etc, and then eat an enormous plate of food. Was so odd. Just eat or don't.

Twirly whirlers of pasta is the phrase you are looking for.

I have a colleague who takes it to the next level by posting about the treats she has on holiday on Facebook but makes sure to write an explanatory comment underneath e.g. "Be rude not to eat this gelato when I'm in Italy", and then someone will say underneath "gosh looks delicious" or something like that, and she will write "I didn't actually finish this whole one and we had walked 5 miles around the town first. And I won't need any dinner later"....on and on and on it goes, along with numerous pictures of her in a bikini looking absolutely gorgeous.

I bet that went down well! Did she fess up or double down?

How did you work out its five pieces of pasta that fit in the posters hand? I can hold way more than five!

I am reliably informed by my niece that this is stealth-boast-thirst-trapping.

Apparently the casual dropping in of the location is because they are so much more glam than you, and the accompanying filtered photo is to hoover up the 'gawjus' likes and comments.

She said, "But I'm not overweight". My brother was.

I hate that kind of shit talk. I said that if she likes to behave like that at home and my brother's daft enough to tolerate it, he can - but not here. People eat what they want to eat.

She and I have never got on; I'm very happy about that.

Just make stuff that goes in the middle and people can control their own portion size.

It’s really not a big deal.

…and as evidenced on here, people like to talk about food and their appetite.

NOBODY WANTS TO EAT YOUR REJECTED HALF A COOKIE THAT YOU’VE BEEN POKING AT WITH YOUR CLAMMY LITTLE LIMP WEAKLING FINGERS AND A GRUBBY BLUNT DINNER KNIFE, YOU FUCKING MELT, DON’T BE SO FUCKING WET

@10HailMarys I think I luffs you just a little bit

It’s an eating disorder.

Sounds to me like she has some sort of disordered eating with a side helping of attention seeking or she’s just being a cow.

If it’s the latter, next time I would reply with “I’d rather eat cake, nourish my baby and be happy than eat 5 pasta curls and be miserable.”

LIMP WEAKLING FINGERS and "Kitten in a bun" have finished me off, I am howling.

My DH and DF both do a variation of this, it's irritating AND baffling. Both of them will exclaim if I have an evening meal or sandwich, with comments like, "How can you eat that after that massive lunch??" or "Where do you put it all?"

I now remind them, every time, that it was THEY who ate the massive lunch. Not me. I am hungry, precisely because I did not eat the massive lunch.

Drives me MarsBars bananas.

@Averagesizedsalad just tell them that you can no longer eat with them or have any future conversations about food with them as they are such a bore about it :) That should help

*Re focus on herself equals nail on head.

That is what my colleague does (she is not fat) mentions tiny amount she has eaten and how she might have an apple later*

Anyone mentioned the performative 'not eating at all' yet? a colleague did this when she was trying to lose weight for her wedding. I don't know if she was doing intermittent fasting or what, but her 'nope, I'm not eating, you carry on' ALWAYS seemed to fall on days when we had a department lunch in the pizza place downstairs. She'd sit there looking patient* while we devoured enormous pizzas. I'm happy to report it didn't stop anyone else eating.

*And having a couple of large glasses of wine. No calories in that, obvs.

Drives me MarsBars bananas.

Oh quality, @ClawedButler, quality.

This is really common with Baby Boomers

SOME baby boomers, if you don't mind. I stick to the seafood diet.

Where I work we do small versions of our main meals. They are tiny, the same portion as the children's meals, for example the small scampi is served on a side plate and has four peices of scampi and a tiny portion of chips.
The amount of women, and its always women, who have to make a big performance out of it drives me mad!

"Oh is that the large one? I only ordered a small! Oh wow! I'll never eat four whole pieces of scampi. That will do me for the whole day now!" 🙄🙄 Ffs, get a grip!

Also the women who when I say "I've got a large mixed grill." and they say "That's for greedy over there! I could never manage that!" While pointing at their husbands 😠 just let people enjoy their food!

This thread makes me miss my Mum.

She was a bloody brilliant cook and she kept a keen eye to make sure we were all eating well. Any comments about diets or portion sizes or got shut down immediately. I remember a male relative making a passing comment about my legs when I was a very self-conscious teenager. She tore strips off him straight away.