Criticism about being healthy and diaciplined

[Boatswatchingboats]

Hi everyone, does anyone else feel really, really triggered when critisised for living a disciplined and healthy lifestyle? I hate the snarky comments people make like, “well, we’re going to die one day anyway so what’s the point of working out?” Or “That’s so boring eating healthy, you need to eat more than that…”

I’m a healthy woman, don’t have a disordered eating pattern, I just value myself enough to be healthy.

it drives me crazy and feels really demoralizing. Has anyone else dealt with this in their lives and if so, please could you offer some advice?

If it is BFs then is it your ‘lifestyle choices’ or your rigidity over them? For example do you refuse to drink or go for the occasional curry with them? If so, then the criticism is about inflexibility and willingness to occasionally accommodate your partner’s preferences (or acquiesce to an unhealthy meal cooked by BF’s family without going to the gym for 2hrs first… yes I was like this in my 20s).

If so, then although you don’t have an ED, you may still have an overly rigid approach to food/weight maintenance which in itself is not always healthy. Is it about self control, would you feel bad about yourself if you let it go for an evening or weekend? Do you relax on holiday or only choose hotels with gyms that you use every single day so as not to disrupt your routine? Are you dressing up a health obsession as positive, when in fact it hides a fear of food or of gaining even a pound?

Either way, the issue may be that you need to find BFs who have the same values - who would rather stay home and prepare a healthy meal after going to the gym with you, who’d prefer Club la Santa/cycling holidays. So in part how you meet/choose your BF may also need examining.

It can be coming from a place of concern, particularly from people who are caught up in diet culture.

I’m a size 8 and struggle to keep weight on, which isn’t really a problem you can bond over. And when people see me exercising, or eating greens, or skipping dessert they assume it’s about trying to be thinner.

Actually I’d love to be bigger than I am, because I have no bulwark against illness. There is arthritis and diabetes in my immediate family. I just want to be fit and strong as long as I’m here because I’ve seen how bad it gets when you’re not.

But if you’ve spent a lifetime being shamed for having a normal body, and absorbing messages that women only have value if we starve ourselves, it’s understandable that to want to a) rebel and b) save others. I think that’s where most of the comments are rooted, even if some are filtered through self loathing, jealousy and internalised misogyny.

And that’s before you count how the odds are stacked against people by the food industry. The thing is that once you cut out sugar, your palate becomes so much more sensitive and real food tastes incredible. My tolerance for UPFs has dropped - junk doesn’t feel like a treat the way a lovely steak does, or a home grown tomato. I’m not banging on about this to anyone because no one gets it. It’s taken me about 5 serious attempts to get rid of processed sugar and I don’t want to slide back, so I just won’t eat the stuff. Having something to be polite was my undoing before l. I’m sure that seems extreme to most people but you wouldn’t offer an ex smoker a cigarette. The impact is similar for me.

You don’t have to be banging on about anything to draw criticism. If I’m wearing gym clothes, people ask questions. If I turn down dessert people make assumptions.

Maybe if we launched into a lecture about healthy lifestyles and openly criticised others they’d think twice?

That has to be one of the most misleading partial quotes of a post that I've seen in a long time.

That poster followed that statement by saying it was the constant commentary of the calories being consumed that was difficult.

They never mentioned wanting the friend to eat/drink the same things.

Triggered as in I start self-abandoning and feeling really attacked. I ended up gaining 15 pounds once when someone criticised my lifestyle choices and then it took me ages to get back on track.

Being criticised implies a single or couple of remarks which most people would brush off or be slightly irritated by. Putting on 15 pounds because someone once criticised you seems a huge over-reaction and would take some sustained and deliberate overeating.

It does sound like you need to develop some self esteem and resilience, and stop having such toxic boyfriends.

I think you aren't fully at peace with your decision. If you were you would be able to ignore/avoid the comments, by not being too vocal about it and just getting on with your approach, and certainly wouldn't let others comments to lead you to put on a stone!
I think you need to establish your baseline - do you like junk sometimes, or have you actually gone off it and find it bland? What is it driving you in your eating choices? A love for nutritious foods, or a desire to restrict calories or food types to maintain your weight? Do you struggle with social occasions where food and drink is 'unhealthy', or do you select the most appetizing bits and get on with and enjoy yourself? If your approach to food is making life difficult, then you probably aren't at peace. You need to work out what drives you and find a way to live as makes you happy, and drown out any criticisers. Mostly they are probably either jealous/ can't relate to someone who doesn't confirm to their approach to food

Triggered as in I start self-abandoning and feeling really attacked. I ended up gaining 15 pounds once when someone criticised my lifestyle choices and then it took me ages to get back on track

There’s something else going on here beyond people commenting on your “hearty salads” and clean living.

I don’t smoke and rarely drink (the latter of which does draw comment). No amount of negativity or criticism about either of those choices would induce me to “self abandon” or start smoking and drinking if I didn’t want to. It’s crazy to blame one person criticising your lifestyle for you gaining 15 pounds.

I’m not convinced we’re getting the full picture here.

I suspect it’s not the healthy and disciplined lifestyle people take issue with but the constant harping on about it. My colleague, for example, who will announce “I just want to check I can have that because I’m VEGAN”, in a vegan bloody restaurant where everyone is a vegan and so is all the food, just so she can virtue signal that she’s a vegan…..

I used to find that in the 1990s and 2000s when I was sometimes made to feel a bit mad for doing regular exercise and looking after myself. Now I find it's more the norm and people are more critical of others not following healthy lifestyles.

I agree with this - ‘I live a healthy lifestyle and no one understands’ can actually hide ARFID, exercise obsession and OCD, all of which tend to co-exist. That OP was unable to relax her diet/exercise programme and simply maintain her weight, means there is something underlying the need for control and I’d encourage therapy to get to the bottom of this.

We had an au pair once who thought she was being ‘disciplined and healthy’ and everyone else was being critical of her choices and being bullies who were making her life a misery. She actually had such an extreme eating disorder and exercise obsession that ruled every minute of her life to point where she would break down in tears if the times I needed her to mind the kids clashed with her 4-5 hours a day of exercise. She would not eat meals with the family, because she only ate broccoli (which had to be organic and grown in South Africa) and steamed salmon. Yes, for every meal. (Although she would also steal my chocolate and wine when I was out.) She weighed about 5.5 stone, you could see her bones jutting out and she was constantly cold and tired. I sat her down once and told her she was cold and tired because she was not eating the right things. Her response…?? ‘Why do so many people criticise me for being disciplined and healthy?’

The OP might be disciplined and healthy, she might be the very opposite. We don’t really know though do we? We are just reading her version of events on the internet so it’s impossible to tell if she’s healthy or not. One thing is for certain though - it’s not healthy to be really really triggered by people’s comments about your diet. Regular comments about people’s diets or exercise are rarely so extreme as to ‘really trigger’ someone unless that person does indeed have a problem.

Well, I am disciplined, as brought up, so never experienced any criticism so far at 45.
But, OP, the dreaded discipline is for you to benefit, noone else!
Sorry 😁

Do you go on about it a lot? I find people only comment when you go and on and on about your healthy lifestyle.

Whether or not YABU depends if your "healthy and disciplined" is coming across as unbearable sanctimony.

Oh, just realised you are one of these.
😂
Ignore, this stuff is for you.
Others have many problems with themselves.

That's really shocking coming from health professionals - mostly it's the opposite - lose weight (and I get it because being overweight does create health problems. I completely disagree with the idea that's it's fine and healthy to be overweight). Basically it seems like as women it's just impossible to win, even with some health professionals - too fat, too thin, too 'muscular' too curvy whatever....

If, as I suspect, the OP is at the bottom of the healthy weight range then gaining 15 pounds would put her towards the middle and she’d still be a healthy weight. It’s usually people at the bottom of the range who are obsessed with staying that way, IME, and devote all their mental energy to it.

I love sweet foods too and in the past, given the choice of chocolate in the morning or nuts, I would go for chocolate but now I crave nuts and will turn down sweet things.

But after dinner, if I am going to have something to eat, I will eat something sweet.

I bought a pastry in M&S once and the lady at the checkout made such a huge song and dance about getting her little booklet out to identify the pastry because "I never eat this sort thing", "I would never eat anything like this, so I can't really tell what it is without checking". I don't know if she knew that she was coming across as somewhat disordered...

I eat the same thing every day for lunch and pretty much the same things in the evening as well. I also have to have my pudding after lunch and chocolate treat every evening. It's strange to some but works for me and has nothing to do with calorie restriction but with me having food preferences not to mention it makes it so much easier not to think about what to eat since you already know the answer.😀

Just curious - would you mind sharing what you eat? 😄

Please explain what their coments 'trigger'?

That’s fine @arcticpandas I have about 10 meals I eat in rotation and have a few glasses of wine a week plus some chocolate. But when her diet is restricted to just fat free yogurt, berries, plain steamed fish/chicken and green vegetables it’s a worry. No other dairy, no fats, no sugar, no treats and two hours exercise a day. I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge of diet and fitness but surely your body needs decent, healthy food to sustain that level of activity.

A guy I was talking to was like that. Spent hours at the gym which he walked half an hour to get to and another half an hour back. So overall he would be doing about 4 hours exercise if you include the walk.

But very restricted in his diet. He said he didn’t like going out to eat and I don’t know if that was part of his restricted diet or he was a cheapskate and was worried he may have to take me out on dates to eat as he knew I liked food.

He wouldn’t even eat cake on birthdays and would often just eat once or twice a day despite working out so much . And he would make comments about me “eating again” and I’d be like yeah 2 or 3 meals and one or two snacks a day is normal dude! 🙄

It all put me off him and I realised we weren’t compatible so called off the first date. I walk daily, don’t smoke, drink or take drugs but I’m definitely a foodie! 😂

OTOH I once was talking to a guy who was into the gym but drank wine most weekends. He made more than one comment about how I should become a weekend drinker too.

That gave me an even bigger ick! I’m late 30s and except the very occasional glass of Prosecco once every few years, I’ve basically been teetotal since age 19. Why is he trying to get me to change that?

So I can kind of see it from both angles, I would not be happy at any partner trying to influence my lifestyle either way.

If someone is to obsessed with “health” to the extent it looks unhealthy to me, I’d just rather swerve them than date them and try and tempt them with bits of chocolate.

I have got comments like that in the past because I no longer drink alcohol (it gives me horrendous anxiety and headaches and flushed face etc) and because I enjoy running early in the mornings etc.

To be clear, I never talk about it but when people go on about why I am not drinking I just ignore it. It's always about them and their own insecurities - they say those things because it makes them feel bad about their choices even if you have not said anything even remotely negative. Thats on them, not me so I usually just laugh it off.

I am not going to do what they want me to do and feel like shit in the process just to appease their cognitive dissonance.

What is self abandonment?

I'm starting to think that you over-think things, going by your use of such terms, and the fact that a comment made you respond to strongly that you put on a stone in weight. It seems that your healthy living is something that you have attached to your persona in an unhealthy way.

In response to the person who commented on your lunch, I'd just have said "I like salad!" but you've been dwelling on it since, which is odd.