To think my husband, son and daughter shouldn't have 'staged an intervention'?

[SoniaSwanners]

Last night, my husband, adult son and adult daughter and I were all in our car and my son saw a small pizza box under one of the seats. I'd had a pizza the day before, while on my own - as a treat. My son said, 'Mum, you've got to start eating more healthily, we all want you to live as long as possible and it's not good for your health to eat junk food', and there then followed an hour and a half of husband, son and daughter all saying:

• I'm overweight
• I should be worried about becoming Type 2 diabetic
• I should be worried about my blood pressure
• I keep saying I need to lose weight and eat healthily and then I don't do it
• I keep saying I want to treat myself occasionally, but then treat myself whenever I feel like it.
• It's easy to eat healthily - you just make sensible choices; what's so hard about it?
• I shouldn't make excuses or deflect - I should just do it and sort myself out.
• they're only going on at me about it because they care about me.

Now, all of this is maybe true. I have massive willpower in every other area of my life, but not in relation to food. I have always eaten too much and not as healthily as I should have. However...

• I swim every single day if I can, for an hour, which is very good exercise.
• I eat healthily (cooked from scratch meals, very healthy) most of the time
• my 'vices' are: lack of portion control, tending to finish off leftovers, and too many takeaways/meals out.

I felt very attacked and berated and kind of assaulted from all sides when they spent 90 minutes hectoring me about it last night - and felt a bit scared when they said, 'It's easy - just make different choices', because it might be easy for others, but it's decidedly not easy for me, psychologically - which is why I've never done it properly before.

Am I being unreasonable, and are they just trying to help me/ensure I live for as long as possible? Or is there something off/wrong about suddenly laying into someone over their weight/eating habits?

Congratulations. So inspiring!

I wish they sold mini packets of biscuits like you used to sometimes get in canteens. If I buy a normal sized packet it's very difficult for me to resist eating the whole thing. I have been known to buy a packet of biscuits, take a few and then get rid of the rest because I can't risk having it in the house.

I think your family were coming from a place of love and concern, but 15 mins would have been enough, not 90 mins.

I've gradually gone from size 10 to 12 to 14 to 16 to 18. I've yoyo'ed within that, I used to but always ended up going up. I wish someone had sat me down at some stage and said you should do something about your weight. I just bought new bigger clothes and ignored the impact on my health.

I love food, and like you portion size was a huge problem, as well as comfort eating, boredom eating, deserve a treat eating.

I'm on Ozempic now, it's slow but I've told a few close friends and my family that I'm on it, to spur me on. Took me about 6 months to actually look for a prescription after I'd decided to go for it, I wish I'd gone straight away, but it seemed like facing up to a moral weakness. A good friend is down 3 stone after a year, so I have seen it work. It's not been a miracle drug for me, weight isn't falling off, but I'm losing about a pound a week, it does add up.

I think you should give it a try. If the injections aren't for you, try Weight Watchers - I used to be able to lose with them, though of course put it all and more back on, but your family can help you to make healthy eating a lifestyle rather than a quick fix.

It's hard, but I think you should take this as a spur to lose some weight, they can turn their concern into support.

I agree with this, it's like Alan Partridge with his Toblerone overdose. I empathise as I have issues with portion control and bad choices, but I'd feel like I'd crossed a line at solo car pizza indulgence and feel like their concerns were justified. Whether it helps or not is harder to tell. It could be the moment to make a change as it has such an impact or it could have the reverse effect and intensify the issues.

I don't think you are being unreasonable, it does seem like it was intense and probably too much.

But it also sounds like it came from a place of love and care.

I would listen to them and be honest with yourself. I would also try to get to the root causes of why you over eat and why you hide it. TBH if you hide it (regardless of what 'it') is, there is usually a reason.

Have a look at Freuds theory on personality. the id, ego and super ego. It is very interesting. With over eating/ similar issues what often happens:

ID - I want to eat to help me feel better, I want that whole pizza now.

EGO - I don't need a whole pizza, maybe some sort of snack would do?

Super Ego - OMG you are terrible (insert any words you use) I can't believe you would ever do that.

ID - Feels super crap and does it.

EGO lost the ability to mediate. Then the shame/ guilt cycle continues.

Confrontation like last night was fuel for the super ego and a punch in the heart to ID.

Try let ego come in and do her job today to resolve it. BUT you won't get over this if you don't get to the bottom of why you feel the need to comfort yourself with food.

But you've gotta come off mounjaro at some point. Colleague of mine has had ravenous hunger in a way she never did before she was on the thing.Since she stopped it.

No, they don't need to become personal chefs, OP might need to take accountability though.

With kindness, it’s a bit odd to eat a pizza in your car and hide the box. I assume it’s hidden because you would’ve taken it in the house & used the bin if you weren’t eating it in secret.

You say you eat healthily, but this isn’t really something someone with a healthy diet would do. A take out pizza would be a treat, something to be enjoyed, not eaten in the car in a hurry.

It makes me wonder what else you snack on or eat in secret. Or not so secretly. If the people that love you the most are concerned about your health, it’s worth reflecting and listening. Their delivery might’ve been out of whack, but their message has come from a place of love and concern.

Toblerone is my weakness, I can disappear a whole bar, but yet to drive to Dundee in my socks.

Interested to hear if your family are all super healthy eaters OP, and if so how do you end up eating so differently to them?

I feel for you, how humiliating to be approached in that manner. It certainly wasn't ideal of them to all pile on you that way, and also not a way to properly engage you. I can imagine you were just completely embarrassed and wanted the ground to swallow you up, rather than genuinely considering what they had to say.

I imagine finding the pizza box (which you have said was small so I'm imagining an individual pizza, not the end of the world) maybe was a bit alarming for your son and could have given him the impression that you frequently eat junk food secretly in the car and then come in and have dinner etc. Which may or may not be the case at all, as you've said it was just a treat.

I think I would bring it up with your husband, and just let him know how hurtful you found it and you would prefer not to be ambushed like that again. Your son started it but certainly your DH shouldn't have jumped in as well.

But also, I'd think about what they said and whether it has any merit, and maybe about what you could do to try and eat a little more healthily. I know it's hard, I am there myself too, and I completely appreciate how tough it is, so I do sympathise hugely.

You need to do these things for yourself, and so does OP. You're not an incapable toddler, you're an adult!

I think you need to be honest with yourself. The food isn’t a treat, it’s an addiction. I think you need to stop referring to unhealthy foods as treats.

If you need a treat to feel good about yourself or reward yourself then it needs to be something you are not addicted to. Because otherwise it’s not a treat, it’s feeding an addiction.

You also need to remember that they are your closest family and they love you. What they said came from a place of love. I think you need to listen to them because they know you best out of everyone in this world.

I'd feel ganged up on too, regardless of how true their allegations were and how much it came from "a place of love"

OP does say it was a small box, so I'm imagining an individual 4-slice pizza, so not actually huge? Anything bigger wouldn't fit under a car seat surely.

Just because something comes from "a place of love/concern" doesn't make it ok. And shaming people doesn't work or very few people would be overweight!

'Snack' biscuits come in a wrapper but with individually wrapped separate packages inside, might that help? Purple and yellow wrapper, little shortcake biccies coated in chocolate. Cost around a pound or so per pack.

Me too OP, especially as you were hiding the evidence of it.

You don't say how overweight you are, how long you have been overweight, and if you do actually overeat a lot quite often. I will respond further when you confirm this. @SoniaSwanners

A small four slice pizza from domino's is a minimum of 650 calories and some of them are as high as nearly 900 calories.

That's around one third to one half of a woman's adult daily recommended intake of calories in one snack.

I'm slightly overweight myself, so I know how easy it is to delude yourself about how little you think you are eating. The fact of the matter is that is an enormous amount of calories for a snack to be eaten outside of mealtimes.

Halte einfach die Klappe - Du Kennst mich doch gar nicht!

I think it’s coming from a place of love. They’re worried about you.

Kindly, OP, you are an unreliable narrator. From your perspective everything is fine, you just have the odd 'issue' with food. From your family's perspective, you have an unhealthy relationship with food.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but if they are coming from a place of love and concern, then perhaps have a look at your diet and start making some tweaks?

Not for 90 minutes they’re not.

OP, how on earth did you put up with it for that long? After two minutes I would have said ‘I’ve got the message, now pack it in.’

But going forward, say nothing to them about wanting to lose weight. I need to lose some as well, but I suspect if I keep saying that my DSs will make a couple of comments. Not DH though, as he needs to lose more.

Tell them all to F off. You are an adult, OP, and you have agency. This is your life, and you can live it however you like.

Were you eating pizza in the car because you knew if you took it home, your family would be upset with you? Sitting in the car, eating pizza in secret is not normal behaviour. Losing weight is predominantly to do with the foods you are eating and portion size. Obviously exercise is important too, but it's mainly to do with what you're eating. To lose weight you do need to look at the calories you are eating and you need protein rich foods to help you feel full and help your muscles. No food groups should be completely missed out. Swimming is good but start using light weights (you can find work outs on YouTube) as it burns fat far quicker than any other form of exercise. However, to lose weight, you need to be in the right frame of mind, and want to lose the weight. You can have interventions from your family every day, but unless you're motivated to lose the weight, it won't happen. Your family mean well, they are clearly worried, and if they're that worried, I have to assume you are very overweight? Instead of feeling 'ganged up upon', start being honest with yourself. It's never easy hearing home truths, but perhaps they felt it necessary.

Surely though the pizza is not a one off treat, you even say in your post you have to many take aways:

• my 'vices' are: lack of portion control, tending to finish off leftovers, and too many takeaways/meals out.

Whilst I don't think you needed a 90 minute lecture, if it's something that they see often and then what seems like a hidden box in your car I can understand why they reacted that way. Why didn't you chuck the box in the bin or eat the pizza in the house? Is there an element of not wanting them to see?