It is all just so crazy. People will comment if you eat it and comment if you don't. How are you to win?
What I really don't get is the family members who are "concerned" about me because I'll eat something healthy instead of the junk everyone else is eating b/c they think I have some kind of eating disorder or something. Ugh.

Occasionally I have to remind myself that hiding what I'm eating is also unhealthy in its own right, and contributes further negative feelings about eating. I don't believe there should be any negative feelings about food of any sort, Krispy Creme donuts, cake, french fries included. Food is something we all need to live. If I eat something is fatty, well, I want to enjoy it, and then balance it with something not as fatty and/or some exercise. For me that is key to developing a positive relationship with food. I don't want to hide what I eat!

I love it Susan! Please call me if you are ever going to say this - I want to witness it! Now I'm going to fantasize about saying it myself.

This is hilarious, Susan (except that it made me snort coffee). I have brief thoughts of an even less subtle approach, which would be to lift up my shirt and flash my abs at the food heckler. I'd never, ever, EVER do that, mind you, because I'm way too well socialized. But, it'd sure be fun.

OK, maybe not.

Kim

Sometimes I make comments to my DH and my kids....we'll be out doing whatever and we see a fat family (you know that in the US 65% of us are overweight) I'll tell my kids "see, this is why we eat a healthy diet." I won't however, do it within earshot of anyone else.

Best rebuttal ever! And it would work in every situation too!

BTW I'm not in maintenance mode either, but I'm learning to maintain by this forever-long "plateau" I've been on.

There are a couple of reasons why I can really relate to this. Since I have moved from NV to CA to go to law school, I haven't made very many girl friends, not good ones anyway. I use to have a support system, and now I have these crazy thin and beautiful girls at my school criticising me for dieting at all. They diet, and they are 50 lbs thinner than I am. They tell me, "Oh, don't diet, if you are happy with yourself, who cares!?" Ummm, I care? I'm not happy with myself? Why do you think you know anything about it? Or me?
Also, at my law school, we have the "pizza rule", which means if your cell phone rings during lecture, next class you have to buy the entire lecture class pizza (there are about 100-120 people in lecture). It happens fairly often, and when we are all standing around when the pizza comes, people ask me why I'm not having any. "It's a free lunch!" Well, it's not free for me. I will pay for it in exercize, believe me.
Finally, when I go out to lunch with my guy friends at school, and I'm ordering a salad while they order cheezy enchiladas, they say "oh, treat yourself this one time, you deserve it". They roll their eyes, they say I don't have to lose weight, they say I look "fine", whatever. Do they know how many times I must have "treated" myself to get to this weight? And I don't want to look "fine", I want to look hot, and even have confidence in a bikini. So lay off, will ya!?
Whew, that felt good!

I'm pretty sure Susan didn't mean it as a rebuttal, but it is a pretty darn good one, I must say.

Susan I LOVE that line! I think I'm GOING to use it!

alinnell: @ the fat family comment... that sounds like something I would say if I had children. I'm sure if I ever do, my future kids (who will be raised with healthy habits) will hear lines similar. I will give them healthy habits for their own social sanity... being the fat kid is one of the worst things you can be! I know from personal experience, and the sad part was, I wasn't even obese! Just LITERALLY a FEW extra pounds... kids are BRUTAL!

kaw, if I HAD abs, I would not be above flashing them to anyone who attempted to dispute my healthy habits. If you have it, flaunt it!

also lipidful, "It is all just so crazy. People will comment if you eat it and comment if you don't. How are you to win? " <---so true. Y'know, when I was a little bigger... sometimes when I went grocery shopping for healthy food, some stupid cashier would say, "OH! What HEALTHY things! You're going to be THIN in no time!" And when I was buying any junk (usually not for me! haha), I'd think, "Damn... I know she's thinking, 'NO WONDER that girl is such a heifer!"" Now, people leave me alone. I'm an average, healthy size. (Not slim, but I'm athletic and I look medium.) My weight is no longer up for speculation... I'm glad. ALTHOUGH, like so many of you, people who SAW me at my HW and now see me the way I am ALWAYS think they have a right to stick their noses into my business. They need to sword off.

My view on this, not having read the whole thread.

For me, I find that people are actually in awe of my lifestyle rather than thinking I'm a bit freaky for sticking to it. Well, they think I'm freaky, but in a good way. Because my lifestyle is very much based on exercise (and picking exciting sounding challenges like the New York Marathon) and homemade vegetarian food, rather than calorie counting or cutting out food groups, some people don't realise that I'm actually on a maintainers diet. I meet new people, they see me pulling out homemade meal after homemade meal and shoving them into the microwave at work, and they're jealous that I find the time rather than wondering why I do it. They tend to comment on how good it smells rather than that I must be feeling deprived. Or maybe they're just polite

What winds me up more is the people who DON'T see what I eat every day, who assume that I can't eat various stuff. My dad lives in Spain, he came over and caught me eating wholemeal toast with honey after a run. He said "is that allowed on your diet?". I felt like hitting him (sorry, I'm tired and emotional at the moment), as I'm not on a "diet", I wouldn't be eating it if I wasn't meant to, and it's none of his business anyway!

This is how I feel about it too. People in my building, should they run into me with my lunch, tend to comment that it looks and smells really yummy. No one has ever said anything negative.

I think in my case too, since I maintain on a large number of daily calories (2000-2500), I do seem to eat like a normal (healthy) person. In fact, aside from the occasional people in the office who see me with my healthy and well balanced lunches (we have private offices, with doors, so people only see what I'm eating if I run into them by the microwave), I wouldn't be surprised if people weren't wondering how the devil I keep the weight off, now that I've lost it. In public and at parties, I eat pretty normally. If I'm out for a bottle of wine with friends, I'll partake of a cheese plate, if I'm at a dinner party, I'll eat everything and compliment the cook, if I'm ordering pizza with friends, I eat 3 slices. In my case, the 'behaving normally in public' part comes as a tradeoff for eating very cleanly the rest of the time, counting all my calories and pursuing nutritional perfection. They just don't see the all the fussing that makes a carefree Friday night possible.

audreymonroe, just a tip about eating out with the guys. If you're ordering a salad and they're ordering enchiladas, and they ask you why, there is no need to say "because I'm on a diet" or "because there are too many calories" or anything like that!

I never reveal what is motivating my food choices. It's nobody's business! I just say, "I don't want that." End of discussion. It works pretty well! No one can argue with it. If they say "but WHY don't you want it," I just say, "I don't know, I just don't want it!"

Jay

Sometimes I say that, or I just say "I don't like it". Or (but I don't advise to do THIS on a date! ), I say "eating this food makes me sick; do you really want all the intestinal details now, or shall we rather enjoy our meals?". Which IS true with some foods, and people who know me also know I won't hesitate to be crass uncouth when it comes to depicting such stuff. Yeah, I know, having grown up with male friends didn't help my feminity to develop pure and untouched.

Kery! I like that intestinal details one... guys will roll their eyes at "too many calories" or "trying to stay slim" but intestinal details? Oh, they suddenly understand!

Potatoes do make me feel full and awful but this story worked very well.

You know when the coyote swallows the inflatable life raft and then it inflates? That's how I feel when I eat potatoes.

I was reading Miss Manners this morning and found some advice that could apply to this topic (though the subject of the article was different):
(From http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/c...ry/176647.html)