Why do my parents insist on trying offering me scones and biscuits and chocolates everytime I go around?
And
Why do I have to explain to them every time that I need to lose weight and am TRYING to be good?
Ahhh! 🤣
Love them them though.
Hope everyone is behaving.
Cautious K
Oh tell me about it, 😩. I don’t know why we, as a culture, offer food as a reward, a thanks or to show love. . . I feel your pain! Well done on resisting, they will get the message soon 😊👍👏
Most of my friends are pretty good now, and true friends give me flowers . . or cheese (A very special friend brings fresh laid eggs 😂)
Ps I’ve mastered the art of telling little white lies
“Oh that looks lovely but I’ve just eaten”
“Oh how delicious it looks but I don’t want to spoil my lunch”
“Sorry but I can’t eat sugar” (only for people who don’t know you well)
I accidentally found that the phrase: ‘no thanks, I haven’t planned that for today” have a tendency to surprise people and shut them up 😂
At the moment it's a pretty desperate ,'no, I'm fine thanks', when clearly I am not, ha ha xx
Sometimes using different words can send a better message. ‘Trying to be good’ doesn’t sound determined enough, especially when children are rewarded with scones and chocolate for ‘being good’.
What if you tried something like ‘thanks, in order to be healthier I’m avoiding carbs and especially sugar, sadly, scones contain loads of them’. If they are home made scones you could add ‘even though your scones are the best in the world’ 😊
Just a thought.
Thank you for your advice but I have the strangest parents who have reverted to some childlike behaviour of only hearing what they want to hear.
My dad has a terrible diet and is way to thin but has lots of health issues. I have tried and tried to sort him out with informed advice but he shuts off to that too.
My mum likes to bake and share, she is a really giving person so I have encouraged her to share with neighbours x
I’m a. “Feeder” too . . . Now my children are older I generally take a whole meal with me, lovingly prepared from fresh ingredients of course. My son also comes home and raids the fruit bowl, he quips that he can’t afford fruit on a minimum wage!! Almost funny . . .
I love to bake cakes and bread and share them too . I am going to concentrate on learning some healthy things.
I am also going to rediscover gingerbread men with my granddaughter , very shareable 😊
I have the infamous chocolate box for when my children ( 28 and 26) come around. They still love it and amazingly I dont touch that x
I find my parents are fine if I politely decline but my Grandma keeps pushing until I accept something, she just won't take no for an answer, and if I were to explain I'm trying to be good she'll say I'm fine as I am (I'm about 7st overweight!)
Last time she offered me strawberries and ice cream, I'd actually had ice cream as I'd been for a long walk so treated myself (before I started calorie counting!) then she offered me biscuits but then she remembered she had cakes so I ended up with 2 mini cakes!
I suppose it's their way of caring in a way 
My friends Mum was always so insistent we ate something we joked that if you didn’t eat, she’d feed you intravenously 😩
This made me think how lucky I am...
A bit of history: my parents have been concerned about my weight for a long time, trying their best to somehow support and encourage me to address it, which wasn’t always easy on our relationship, as I would get super defensive and feel like a failure. Used to lead to some tensions and discomfort.
Now, however, when I visit them, they are checking with me what I will eat and if I want them to, they take the kitchen scales out to weigh the portion. And always only ask once if I would like something. If I say no - it’s a no, no further offers. I feel so grateful for that, makes my visits so cosy and comfortable.
So glad you are being supported.
I feel awful because my mum and dad are lovely and they know I am lonely with my husband going and they just want to cheer me up and as they are both housebound disabled, they dont have a lot of options. X
I had an issue with my Mum telling me I should lose weight a few years ago and it caused tensions. I knew I was overweight but it wasn't impacting my ability to do anything, including play squash multiple times a week., so it didn't really bother me.
I found my first success in weight loss when I got myself in the right headspace and I didn't tell my parents until I met my goal of losing a stone, I did have a very supportive friend. Covid has caused a set back so I only started again (and joined here) a week ago. hoping for more success
I am sure you will achieve your goal you sound like a very positive person and squash sounds exhausting x
People telling you the obvious doesn’t really help much, does it? 😊
It hurts, it really does.
My sister has terrible acid reflux and is skinny but has a rounded stomach because of it. She has been asked so many times if she is pregnant ( shes 54) and it really hurts her.
Parents are hopefully trying to help in their own undated ways but those closest to you hurt you the most.
Please dont do it for them though, learn to do it for you that's what I am doing now. When I did it for someone else, they were jealous and unhelpful and so my weight crept back on.
Take care and stay strong.
CK
For me this time it’s for me only, for my own benefit and for my health, with no rush, no desperation and with gentle self-support. It finally came, with some maturity and, hopefully, some wisdom. I only need to make sure it stays. Wishing everyone strength and self care, as well as the right kind of support from the others 🤗
That’s hard. To be honest at times I’ve said - can I take one home for later? And then binned it as soon as I got home 🙄 or if feedback was required eating the tiniest piece and binning the rest. I’ve also started throwing away chocolates people buy me (especially now I’m WFH and can’t offload things on my colleagues!) ....I sometimes feel bad because it’s a waste but I don’t want to eat them but it’s not always possible to keep explaining why! Hope you can find a way around it 😊
I donate unopened boxes of chocolates to my local Hospice, at this time of year when children are leaving nursery to start school we do get v lots. I keep the wine though😁
Don’t feel bad about putting things in the bin, if that’s the only alternative to using yourself as the rubbish bin
Ha ha thanks I like that! 😂😂 - I will pass on where possible but if it’s stuff from friends there’s always the possibility it will get back to the person it came from. Donations are a great idea - but only from my part if they can be donated immediately because having them in my house for more than a few hours is too much temptation 😂😂
My wife is Thai so we buy rice in 10kg bags, normally 4 at a time. The rice cooker is always sat there with rice keeping warm in case someone needs a quick snack. If the kids are hungry it's egg fried rice or steamed rice with two fried eggs on top. I keep telling her and them that it isn't good for them but no-one listens. If they don't have that it's rice noodles with fish sauce. I think most Asian families are the same. The incidence of Type 2 diabetes is far higher in Asians and most of them are skinny. My wife is type 2 diabetic now and has to avoid the rice despite being 55kg size 8-10 but she still feeds the children rice all the time.
I'm trying to get them to change but it's ingrained in her culture.
It's so hard , maybe you could encourage them to try cauliflower rice . Just an idea, even if it was occasionally.
CK
My wife eats loads of fish and seafood. She's moved off the rice now and eats loads of chinese leaves and shredded cucumber, which she eats in the infamous Thai salad (possibly the hottest food you have ever tried, vindaloos and phals are not even close). The children are addicted to egg fried rice and fish sauce unfortunately. Both regard any vegetable dishes with extreme suspicion (probably from trying the Thai salad) and the daughter has gone pescetarian. She doesn't like peppers, onions, leeks, lettuce, cabbage, sprouts. She will eat broccoli and cauliflower but seems to subsist on noodles, egg fried rice, cucumber and garlic omlette. (plus chips, crisps, tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches).
"ingrained" 🤭
Have you heard about resistant starch? It's a kind of carbohydrate that behaves like soluble fibre. Starchy foods like rice, potatoes and pasta develop more resistant rice if you make them the day before and then refrigerate. Reheating doesn't affect the starch.
I googled to find a link, and found this interesting article. It might show a way for your wife to keep to her culture while being a little healthier.
The trouble with (in my view) saying we’re ‘trying’ to be ‘good’, is that it opens us up to being persuaded. Oh just one won’t hurt. It’s a treat. Blah. When I changed my life on 3 Jan (new diet, another story), I vowed I would not say I was ‘trying’ not to eat x or y. Even to myself. I don’t try not not eat x, I just don’t eat it. If anyone asks, and it’s noticeable, it’s about reducing the arthritis in my knees - because no one can argue that, but they can tell me I don’t need to lose weight. Obv it’s slightly different with parents.
I confess I don’t like the good/bad language around food. It’s not a moral choice. It’s a wise or unwise one. The ‘Syns’ language of slimming world infuriates me. Tonight I had fish and chips with my son, 2nd time in a week (we’re at the seaside). I am absolutely not going to say I was ‘naughty’. I just made a choice that makes it even more important that I make wise choices tomorrow.
I hope you enjoyed your fish and chips. They always taste better at the seaside x
They were great. Son was a bit worn out by the time we got there though. We ate them on a headland with him wrapped in his enormous fluffy post surfing coat/changing tent. I think I’ve burned them off with the 6am tent rescue in a storm on Monday...
I have got a friend who doesn't drink tea or coffee (or alcohol 😲) and will only accept water or a soft drink if she is actually thirsty. When she comes to my house and I can't bring her anything to eat or drink, I find it makes me quite uncomfortable for a short while. It feels like I am being a terrible hostess if I can provide her with anything.
It must be 10 times worse when it's a daughter when you know she is going through tough times.
That must be a bit frustrating... and very counter cultural.
I sometimes say something like, 'so sorry, they look so good, but sadly they just don't agree with me anymore' or 'I just can't eat them/manage them/digest them nowadays' something along those lines.
I do hope that you are still happy. I listened to Cat Stevens and am wondering if you made the best decision for your life ie “I know that I have to go away.” At some point you would have some time away from the navy to visit friends and /or family. All good wishes to you as you continue in your national duty.
My mum and daughter have been having a bake off every Wednesday during lockdown so I've got a constant stream of homemade cakes, cookies and scones and sweets coming into my house and testing my resistance which I'm generally ok with just having one over the week and then getting everyone else to eat the rest. I tried suggesting to my daughter she might like to try making something healthy once in a while. She didn't like this idea! Yesterday my friend came round with the gooeiest chocolate brownie I've ever seen. I couldn't resist 🙈 although I did manage a very small piece. It's so hard to be good when you have friends and family who love to bake so much. It's the thing I find the hardest. Good luck with resisting!
Well do enjoy your well earned retirement!
I am sure they mean well x
They just want to share all best they have with you x
They will eventually understand that you are serious about your diet 😁
They do mean well , poor things. I think they hope I will stay longer if they feed me 🤣
It would certainly work on me 😅
When we were able we went to cake and chat once a week. I had a cup of coffee and no cake or toast. The lovely ladies behind the counter asked if I was unwell and I told them I had started trying to lose weight. After that they were very supportive, my husband still loves cakes even though he is diabetic.
Week 1
Where do I start?
Why do I always want what I can't have?
Day 1
