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"

I have a weight-fraud person in my life as well. I have always had weight issues- my parents (despite both being overweight) prescribe a moral virtue to weight as well. I only see them about once a year so I have gotten into a binge-starve cycle to try and lose weight ebfore i see them- then binge like crazy because i had 11 months until I saw them again. (Last time I saw my mother she started laughing and called me a hobbit).

Anyway- the wife of a friend of DH's came to stay and was clearly shocked that i had gone up in weight- 13 stone by then. She looked me up and down and said ' I see I shall have to teach you how to eat properly'. Seriously. (I have actually told this story on here before). The next day they asked for bacon butties for breakfast and she made a huge show of cutting hers in half and handing it back to me saying; 'This is a correct portion size'.

Anyway one night she was busily going on and on and on about how she knew she had to lose weight now as she had now reached the dizzying heights of 8 stone. The woman is 5 ft 7 or more and although on the slimmer side of things was not a waif. There was simply no way she was 8 stone unless the consistency of her flesh was like an aero bar.

Ahhhh I know this scenario only too well! I am 5 foot 7 and have dropped down to 8 stone before (stopped eating due to depression) and looked like a heroin addict. I think that was actually what opened my eyes to the fact that other people around me were lying through their teeth about their own weight. It's so weird how people do this isn't it? What's the point - really?!

Fucking hell. I would have taken both sides of her bacon sandwich, put them in the bin and told her to leave.

Honestly, the rudeness of some people is staggering.

Fucking hell. Please tell me you drop-kicked out the front door?

No- did not drop kick out. But even DH who is oblivious and also likes to see the best in people commented to me privately that she was 'unbearable'.

They have not been back.

The last night she cooked for us and made a bit of a show about what a great cook she was. First course was corn on the cob cooked inside clingfilm in the microwave. No butter. Main was plain rice with some sauteed mushrooms. It was quite edible, granted, but nothing spectacular.

@DrSbaitso ah yes- met plenty of those !!

😂🤣You were lucky! I had to get up in the morning at ten ‘o’ clock the night before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down the mill AND pay mill owner for permission to come to work.

I'd just say " No worries " and leave it at that.

Class!

I would go along with the performance making sure she only got a crumb and nothing else. I would take all the attention and comfort from the malign compliance from the audience and assiduously police her intake.

That should cure it.

Copyright infringement lol

😂 You’ve got me bang to rights… and I also googled the script to make sure I didn’t misquote!

Is said relative trying to convince themselves they aren't hungry with all this constant talk of food?! I had an eating disorder in my teens and I was always telling people I was happy with just a fruit salad as I wasn't hungry. Looking back it was truly miserable but there would be no convincing me otherwise then! Sounds like this person has a fixation with food, even if they barely eat any.

I have an ED due to family member doing this. Every time I eat/did eat when Younger I would get ‘how can you eat that it’s huge’. If we go out they say ‘no chips for me not very slimming’ yet if they go out with someone else they will do. If I eat more than a salad leaf in front of them they ask am I hungry. As a result of this I have literally never eaten a mouthful without worrying about the calories in it.

I think there is a generational thing at play, some relatives have some odd ideas around food - one eats very little and I've never worked out whether this is because she doesn't want to or because she feels she shouldn't. There's a gender thing going on too, men in our family will get snacks etc made for them whereas the women don't

OTOH another will have a plate piled with food - and I mean PILED - half a packet of biscuits in one go and so on. If you want to eat that fine but then I get comments of "Is that all you're eating?!" when I have a normal plate of food or just the one biscuit. That's not fine.

Both hoard stuff and there's a weird dynamic around "being good" or "being naughty". I think it comes from their upbringings, sadly, and a whole mess of crap about how women should be.

My DM is like this, she will offer out her chips etc when we eat out saying she couldn't possibly eat them all. She's always referring to people as 'absolutely massive', 'huge fat woman' etc. All she seems to eat is tiny amounts of highly processed sugary rubbish and almost no protein. She has dieted away all her lean tissue and muscle unfortunately and I fear will regret this as she gets older.

She's so like her own DM who would comment in horror at other people's weight ('she must be 20 stone!' etc) in a loud voice as she was quite deaf, and who never ate in front of anyone but could be found with a mouthful of secret biscuits in the kitchen.

My DGM would grab at her clothes and exclaim how big they were on her and my DM does this as well now, delights in telling me how she's bought her usual size but it's 'absolutely enormous'. I find it ridiculous and attention seeking so I completely ignore it.

I find it really sad that older women in particular are so self-punishing and tormented around weight and eating. I watched beautiful Joanna Lumley in her latest tv show repeatedly referring to herself as 'fat' when she actually looks marvellously healthy and fit.

I think you've just indicated how judgmental you are. I didn't say anything judgmental, only that they all seemed to eat very little compared with me.

The last bit of your post was very rude.

I had a grandma like that - wonderful cook of the huge roast dinner/suet pudding with custard variety, ate piles of everything but bought Energen rolls (same texture as polystyrene) and Nimble bread because she was 'on a diet'.

I was giving you good advice - if you keep your eyes on your own plate, you won't notice how little your colleagues eat - how much they eat is absolutely none of your business.

Read it again.

She said she could count the number of pasta pieces on one hand, not hold them in it.

But did it occur to you that maybe she meant hold them in her hand and actually count them? Nobody would literally serve five pasta whirls.

Oh yes, I saw that bit when Joanna Lumley was calling herself fat. Please don't. You aren't, you know you aren't.

I suspect JL has disordered eating because I've read lots of interviews with her where she says she doesnt eat. She's said before she never eats meals and only grabs tiny snacks during the day like some nuts or a bag of crisps etc

I still love her but its not really healthy at all

Haha...i was going to quote the same @DrSbaitso but couldn't find it! I LOVED that thread; so funny!

Yeah - I'm pretty sure she has disordered eating from her modelling days. I remember reading an interview with her a few years ago where she said that she loved smoking because then she didn't need to eat and could just have coffee and cigarettes

I'll always love JL, but I'll never look to her for advice about healthy eating.