What I say when someone comments on my plate

Something I got right was continuing to go out. I nearly stopped for six months and I am glad I did not.

What I would say is that leaving food is allowed. I had a lifetime of not being allowed to and unlearning it took a year.

The commentary from one particular relative was relentless and I eventually said, once, that I would rather not discuss it, and that was that.

My rule is that I go for the company. If I eat, good; if I do not, that is also fine, and reframing it that way fixed most of my anxiety.

Something that helped was going out at lunchtime instead of the evening, because my appetite is much more reliable earlier in the day.

I ask for a box now without any embarrassment, which is a small thing that changed the whole experience of eating out.

A waiter once quietly boxed the rest of mine without being asked and said nothing at all, and I have never forgotten it.

No advice, only that you are not the only one who found this part hard.

Something practical: I look at the menu before I go, always, because deciding at a table with eight people is where I get it wrong.

The work lunch is the hard one because you cannot leave and there is a social script. I now eat something small beforehand.

What helped was having one sentence ready. Mine is that I am not very hungry today, and nobody has ever pursued it.

That is a very clear way of putting something I have never been able to put clearly.

My honest experience is that most people are far less interested in what I am eating than I imagined for the first year.