My restrictive eating triggers people

[Cadelo]

I wouldn’t say I have an issue with food but I am very mindful of what I eat.

I am 30 and spent a lot of my 20s depressed because of my weight. I love being able to put on a dress and not worry how I will look in it. I love not always having to go for the flattering option. I don’t miss the comments where people made me feel like shit unintentionally - “her body is thick like yours”.

3 years ago I lost 60 pounds. It was not pleasant. I never want to go back.

I just know my controlled eating annoys people. My own sister will invite me over for a takeaway and get annoyed when we order pizza and I only have a slice/or 2 and make a big salad to go along with it. “You only live once”. Blah blah blah.

I’m getting enough calories to maintain my weight. My bmi is also healthy. Some people call me scrawny but like I said I have a healthy bmi.

So I do take scales on holiday as I weigh myself daily. And my SIL made a comment that if she sees them she’s going to chuck them in the bin. She’s a normal weight. I’m glad her life was never small due to confidence issues. If I see I am over a certain weight I just know to eat lightly for a week or so.

I know we will sit down for breakfast (we are going to Greece in 2 weeks) and she will say something or try to tempt me when I order a fruit platter. Or constantly trying to get me to have an ice cream (I do occasionally - and when I do it becomes this massive thing).

I’m so sick of my eating being a problem for others.

It's not that, it's that is also entails going for a meal and seeing a sad miserable person moving bits of bananas around the plate and jumping on the scale straight afterwards in fear she gaines 5 gramms.

She weighs once daily before breakfast so you’ve just created a work of fiction with that. Considering how nice the meals she usually eats are I’d doubt she is miserable - sounds like she enjoys her food. You can enjoy food in moderation.

You know when Kate Moss said that no food tastes as good as it feels to be slim? You better believe her. Op is elated and happy to fit into all the lovely clothes and swimsuits she is taking on holiday so I doubt she is miserable. And if you had read her post about what she eats in a day you would know she doesn’t just have a banana for dinner (and fruit plate for breakfast is perfectly reasonable) As for jumping on the scales - nobody has to see that but her and I would hope that she keeps it to herself.

Why are so many people making shit up? It's pathetic. Nobody is watching the OP jump on the scales after every meal, she said already that she weighs in the morning when she brushes her teeth in private. She mentioned eating fruit in the morning, not pushing bits of banana around her plate.

I watch what I eat but I still enjoy food, thanks to exercise I can eat over 2000cals a day and maintain my weight. I still make healthy choices though because it helps me run faster and be stronger if I fuel my body properly and that makes me happy. Im far happier coming home after running 10kms than I am after eating junk. I'm so sick of the narrative that slim people are miserable fuckers, that the OP must be miserable because she makes healthy food choices. Nothing the OP has said would indicate that, she seems pretty happy if only other people would keep their beaks out of her business.

@Tulipsareredvioletsarebue
I agree that having a meal with someone who has an eating disorder is difficult- we have a family member whom I suspect has one (undiagnosed, because meddle-aged men aren’t typically screened for them 🙁) and eating with him is as you describe.

But the OP isn’t like that.

Why are people on this thread and OP’s SIL so invested in what other people eat? I’m reading these posts and it’s like being back in the kindergarten having the dinner ladies watching my every move like hawks. No one had commented on what I eat, tried to guilt-trip or coerce me into eating more for over 30 years. The replies here are quite surprising.

How do you know the person is sad and miserable? Is OP sad and miserable? Is overeating a source of happiness? If so, why?

Do you often make things up as you go along ? OP weighs in once a day and says if she goes over a certain weight she cuts back for a week or two. And look at her update on what she eats - it’s substantially more than bits of banana. She seems happy and healthy to me, unlike some of the clearly sad, miserable folk trying to read in things which are just not there.

No, I dont. But I had two friends who did the same and although they thought no one noticed, and never commented on what we eat, made everyone around so stressed by obsessing over their own food, eating out with them was simply unpleasant and eventually the group of friends stopped meeting up with them, and they complained no one was inviting them out to eat out anymore.
What OP wrote didnt suggest neither happy nor healthy- thin, yes, but at the cost of another obsession.

I was with you until you said you take scales away - abroad!!! That is a step in to obsession.

That's not obsessive at all, it's getting to know your body and keeping an eye on hormones and endocrine system, symptoms, making sure everything is healthy, etc.

The truth is people in general now are very unhealthy, have no relationship with their body, no understanding of biology, etc, so if you happen to eat really healthily, take vitamins etc, have real respect for your body, take an interest in daily bodily functions and fluctuations, people just don't get it. I love my body and I am in awe of what it can do, and it's BECAUSE of that, that I keep an eye on mine as well (don't weigh myself but I'm religious about taking certain supplements, getting regular exercise, early nights, healthy food, tee total, stay pretty healthy on hols, and so on...OP just weighs herself which lets face it virtually all women do, daily, so lets not pretend they don't).

There are some weird responses here which suggest that OP should adapt what she does to suit other people. Take a tape measure because SIL threatened to throw the scales out of the window? Try to spare others the pain of watching her pushing banana around a plate?! (which she hasn't said she does anyway).

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking scales on holiday if you want to weigh yourself every day. OP hasn't said she does it ostentatiously in front of other people - it was something her partner mentioned to others, which provoked the SIL's odd response.

This need for monitoring and control might feel hard to understand for anyone who hasn't lost a significant, transformative amount of weight. I weighed myself every day when I was in the process of losing 50kg. Perhaps that's obsessive, but it was nobody else's business or problem. Now I'm a steady weight and probably weighing myself twice a week, if that. I've also reversed T2 diabetes but would be unlikely to mention that at a meal - certainly not to the SIL in this thread! OP it's entirely up to you what you eat & drink and when you weigh yourself.

Thinking about it another way - you mentioned you only met your DH and presumably SIL after you had lost the weight. They only know the current version of you. A slim, healthy person being obsessive about weight and calories is a little more jarring/concerning/odd - perhaps if they had been there for the journey they would understand a bit more. You have said she is slim, as are you now, so she probably views you as similar and doesn’t understand the extremities whereas perhaps you view yourself as almost an imposter in this new body and only a few bad choices away from going back to where you were. People are generally quite sensitive about weight topics with over weight people but less so with slim people e.g get that down you lass - you may not be used to this yet and your perception of yourself probably hasn’t changed but other peoples, particularly those who haven’t known you before, will be different.

The question is valid. Many overweight people to develop Type 2 diabetes, and it can be reversed by losing a lot of weight and very restrictive carbohydrates and sugar intake. That could be an excellent argument with sil, if OP has managed to reverse Type 2 D.

Yeah, except OP doesn't need an 'argument' or to justify her eating choices. SIL just needs to mind her own.

You’ll find from the rest of the comments that a very small minority of (I’ll say it again - obsessive) women weigh themselves daily. Any weight that you gain/lose in a day is either a) water or b) waste. It is a completely pointless and over the top exercise, you are not getting any benefit whatsoever via weighing yourself so often no matter how ‘healthy’ you think it is. Nobody needs to do anything more than weekly.

@stressedespresso what’s it to you though? I agree no one ‘needs’ to, but if people find it helpful to just weigh every day then I don’t see it as something to take an issue with.

There's actually a lot of advice that suggests weighing either daily or monthly is a better way to track your weight, and that weekly is the worst.

Weighing daily, you observe the fluctuations and can rationalise that every time the scale moves isn't a reflection of fat loss/gain, and can track patterns and it takes the stigma out of the scales.

Weighing monthly, you're taking in a longer length of time and scale movement can more reliably be attributed to fat loss/gain as any fluctuations over this time will most likely have evened themselves out.

Personally, I weigh daily when eating/training for fat loss, and take an average of my weight over the course of a week, and track my progress using that figure week on week. So I'll see the day-to-day fluctuations, observe them but not fret over them and also start to notice patterns with them.

With Weighing weekly in the like of slimming World and weight watchers, I simply would eat on weigh in day, then binge after class and the next day or two, then over restrict the rest of the week to compensate before weigh in day again. That's disordered eating caused by the scale. I also could have had 2lb of bloat on weigh in day thinking I'd put weight on, only for it drop off the next day but I'd miss it because I didn't weigh daily. Logic would tell me I didn't put on or lose 2lb overnight, but if I'd only weighed weekly, I could easily believe I'd put on 2lb in a week, and end up over restricting myself unnecessarily.

I also found weighing monthly useful when I was trying to loose the last stubborn 4lbs, as it was the hardest to lose and I found it quite demoralising not seeing the scales move at all, so tried something call 30 days head down, when I would set myself a step range target, a calorie target range and weekly workout target range (my range was based on bare minimum (ie bad day acceptable level) to optimum level (ie fantastic day level) , and as long as I stayed within those range targets, at the end of each month I would notice the scales move. Whereas weekly, it was looking like no progress was being made.

Personally now I like weighing weekly for maintenance because I like noticing patterns in my body (that are useful for more than jusy my weight!), it keeps me away from my scale fear I had before, it keeps me accountable on a daily basis and keeps me away from.over restrictive eating patterns, and structures a healthful daily routine that incorporates eating well, moving well and generally just taking care of my self and my overall wellbeing.

With due respect you don’t sound too happy yourself.

How do you know op is like your friend?

I weigh most days but don't get too het up about small fluctuations. But then I always weigh on a Saturday and take that as my official weight and my weekly barometer of whether I am doing well or not so well and whether I need to take remedial action or not.