To wonder what posh Mums cook for dinner…

[Primrosecottagelover]

I have just seen Pippa Middleton’s bikini photos on the DM. Three different bikinis so far, washboard abs & nothing jiggles as she chases three kids. She could easily pass as a fibreglass mannequin. I’m wondering why it is that the Middleton women and affluent women (even middle class at my child’s school), always seem to be so impossibly slim. I struggle with my weight and I would love to see the groceries, fridge contents, packed lunchboxes and dinner plans of the other half. Obviously I know what healthy eating and cooking is but, the bodies of Mothers these days is next level. Why am I struggling to keep my tummy from flopping out while women in their 40’s pull off wearing linen mini shorts (not in UK) and high waisted jeans.

As for what they eat, I suspect half of them a bulimic and eat when no one's watching

Please stop with this shit - it is really fucking offensive and upsetting.

Half of slim posh mums are bulimic, seriously? How rude. It couldn't possible be hard work and discipline along with some favourable genes. No no. It must be something negative like an disorder because you aren't fit and slim presumably and rather than accept it might be something they do better than you you'd rather put it down to something awful 🙄

@Dogfisher sorry. That wasn't for you. I'm agreeing with you. It's for the poster who made the rubbish comment.

I’m slim - I eat what I want but what I want is usually not junk - everything in moderation though. I also exercise. And I wear designer clothes and makeup.

The reason for that is I spent 6 years at university studying for a job that pays a decent salary. My mortgage is also £650 a month. So you’re wildly reaching with how ‘rich’ you need to be for that sort of lifestyle. Also money doesn’t make you slim. Sounds like excuses to me.

@Dogfisher

Regarding pronouncing frittata - you questioned how would this be pronounced other than 'fritaarrtaarr' - it would have a short 'a' at the end. And presumably there are some people whose accent would miss out the 't'!

@SpongeBob2022

I feel like there are different issues on this thread and they're all getting confused. For me:

PM is a red herring because she is effectively an athlete (fact, not assumption) with an athlete's figure. I think she looks great and the cruel comments on here are disgusting and unnecessary.

PM aside, 'posh' people will always have an advantage in life because they have resources to enable them to make good choices. I'm not sure how this can be denied as although it's a generalisation, this too is factual.

I agree with the above points.

I also think that there are

(1) people who are naturally slim and can eat whatever they fancy including chips, cake, whatever and due to their metabolism, they will mostly remain slim.

(2) people who have a preference to eat plain, simple food - for whatever reason. Sometimes people simply don't like the taste of greasy fried food or rich sauces. Or they just don't have a sweet tooth. Or they hate the effect that alcohol has on them.

(3) people who very much want to be slim - as in they want to be thinner than the natural point for their body - and hence they permanently reduce their calorie intake / cut out food groups / over exercise to maintain this .

And some posters are mixing up the fact that slim people fall into these three distinct groups.

Sadly I don't fall into any of them !

@Comedycook

Yes and they don't view it as healthy...we all think brown rice is good for us. If you actually read about it, it's not.

Why is that please ?

@llizzie I mean, if your assumptions are that sporty, fit and muscular women have Nannie's to place children in their lap and don't bend down and pick them up (amongst other things), you're clearly too stupid for me to explain it to you.

So no, I don't really need to explain.

I'm not entirely sure but if you google it there are all sorts of answers. Some think it's a sign of poverty apparently. Some say it contains anti nutrients which stop nutrients being absorbed. Some say because it's higher in arsenic. It's hugely touted in the west as being better than white rice though.

Rice picks up arsenic from the environment very easily when growing. Most of it is concentrated in the outer husk and bran. This is the part of the grain that's removed to make white rice, so of course white rice will contain less of the heavy metal.

However you can reduce the amount of arsenic in rice considerably by cooking it in copious amounts of water and pouring away the excess water when cooked which is the way I've always done it.

It's been known for many years that rice can be high in arsenic - it's nothing new.

Yes but I wonder if you live in a country where it's a staple and you are eating considerably more than an average person in UK does, it's more of an issue perhaps?

I think the OP asked the wrong question. This poshness obsession is a red herring. I don't know any posh people and yet I have known many slim women. Some are neither rich nor poor while some are really struggling. Some seem to eat anything they like while others have to be more careful with their diets. The real question is why some people are slim, and that's been satisfactorily addressed by @ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea . The 'posh' women referred to seem to be those likely to be snapped by cameras, so they have incentives to stay slim. We don't see the unseen posh women. Not all of the former are slim. Sarah Ferguson claimed it hurt a lot to be called Duchess of Pork.

Yes but I wonder if you live in a country where it's a staple and you are eating considerably more than an average person in UK does, it's more of an issue perhaps?

But it is a staple here for a lot of our population. It's not the 1960s any more when it was a novel food usually found in pudding or Vesta box curry.

This has been on my mind a lot this week - ignoring the class comments.

But the question was what do they eat, not what don't they eat.

It's OK to say cut out UPF, but for those of us that didn't necessarily have an upbringing that taught us good food habits we don't really know what we should be eating. Is it the same few meals rotated through the week?

I've been thinking about the obstacles I face when it comes to weight loss. What my bad habits are and what stops me making the change.

Today I've had porridge (with a little milk but mostly water), with a banana and some pumpkin & sunflower seeds. 400 calories. This is higher than I'd usually have for breakfast, but did keep me full all morning.

Lunch was lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, mushrooms, 2tbsp hummus (is that a UPF), 30g feta cheese. 200 calories.
It was delicious, and I'm taking the kids swimming this afternoon so that'll keep me from snacking.

Dinner is going to be salmon and veg, with some roasted sweet potato and celariac. I haven't calculated the calories yet, but I will do before I cook.
I will also have to cook a 2nd dinner (at least in part) while I try to encourage the kids to eat more variety - they will have a bit of mine to try. Luckily for me DH is out so no 3rd dinner to cook.

I'm working full time and haven't exercised today. I won't get much exercise while the kids are swimming, but more than sitting on my arse. I definitely need to do more - not an easy challenge.

So...food wise today is good. But how do I maintain this? What else can I have for dinner?

Yes it's not unusual obviously but I doubt most people eat it more than twice a week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2F1MDzyW55pg97Tdpp7gqLN/should-i-be-concerned-about-arsenic-in-my-rice

Some interesting stuff here - basically 100g a day is fine. And cook in lots of water and rinse.

Well done you! That sounds good. The only thing is, you might find that when you do a final calorie count that it's quite low. If so, then it's OK to have some days like that and actually a boon because it gives you leeway to have a little more some days. However if you consistently come in at a low number of calories day after day, you'll probably lose weight to start with but may struggle to keep it off. I don't know how low that would have to be, but below 1200 for women sticks in my mind. I would say don't bother about UPFs. It's a minefield and every article contradicts the one before. Good luck.

This food sounds lovely but I am post menopause and would gain weight on this amount. I have to eat so little to lose weight or even maintain my weight these days. 😫

2tbsp hummus (is that a UPF)?

Strictly speaking the commercial ones are in that they often contain rapeseed oil which is a UPF. If you can find one made with olive oil that would be better.

However, there are far worse things you can eat so, I wouldn't worry to much about including it in your regular meal planning. I try to avoid UPFs but used a pack in tonight's supper myself....

@Dogfisher If you will gain weight in under 1200 calories a day you must be exceedingly slim. Or underestimating the amount of calories you are eating. Under 1200 calories really is very low for the long term.

How is it scientifically possible for someone eating less than 1200 calories a day, to keep the weight off……?

@Idontpostmuch thank you :)
It would have come in quite low, but i had two pieces of fish to make sure I wasn't hungry.
It feels like a lot of food when it's proper food. I haven't really been hungry today, except when I'm about to eat.
Dinner was about 650 calories. I'm about 5 stone overweight (to sit nicely in the middle of healthy) so I should lose weight if I can maintain this number of calories a day, and increase exercise.

This would be massively easier if I had proper time to exercise daily, and someone else planning/cooking my meals. Or at least if I only had to think about my own meals!

I am going to guess that you have not gone through menopause yet?

Do you mean how is it scientifically possible NOT to keep the weight off at less than 1200? As I said, I don't know what the number is. But at some point the metabolism adjusts and as soon as you start eating normally again, weight piles on. So you have to be careful not to go too low on an ongoing basis. Although I remember something about 1200, I can't remember exactly what the context was. The number to avoid going below may be higher.

I think that the above is nonsense sorry.