Do skinny women ever think about food?

Farzana has reached the age where every conversation eventually becomes about one of three things: potential suitors, property prices, or protein. She contributes very little to the first two. Protein, however, she can discuss at length. Not because she's a nutritionist, but because she's been trying to lose the same seven kilos since Barack Obama was President.

The kilos have left several times. They simply have a stronger return policy than anything Farzana has ever bought. People often ask whether she's tried intermittent fasting. Farzana smiles politely. She has intermittently fasted, intermittently exercised, and intermittently believed she was finally getting her life together. Her commitment has always been consistent. Only the results have been seasonal.

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Lately, though, she's become less interested in losing weight and more interested in skinny women. Not in an envious way, but in the way archaeologists become interested in ancient civilisations.

She has long suspected they are a different species, not because they wear size XS, but because they appear to possess the one thing Farzana has spent half her adult life chasing: the ability to eat a croissant without mentally calculating whether it has just delayed her "summer body" until next summer.

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Farzana imagines their internal monologue goes something like this: “Did I reply to that email? I should water the monstera. I wonder if dolphins get bored?” Meanwhile, her own brain begins negotiations at precisely 8:07 every morning: “If you skip breakfast, have a salad for lunch, walk 12,000 steps, inhale positively and exhale calories, you can probably justify half a biscuit by Thursday.”

Every woman Farzana knows seems to have a spreadsheet running silently in her head. Hers just happens to be called Calories_Final_v18_ActuallyFinal_REAL.xlsx. There are tabs for yesterday's mistakes, today's compensation, and an optimistic tab titled “After Eid” that has remained untouched for six years.

People love telling women not to obsess over food, which is rather like telling the British weather not to discuss rain. Food is not simply something she thinks about; food is the project manager of her life. Every invitation first passes through the Nutritional Risk Assessment Committee. Birthday dinner? How many chips? Office cake? Could I just smell it? Girls' brunch? Do they have eggs? Can I convince everyone that eggs are exciting?

The people she understands least are the effortlessly thin ones who claim they simply forget to eat. Forget? Farzana forgets passwords. She forgets her umbrella. She once forgot her Oyster card. She has never accidentally forgotten lunch. Lunch introduces itself every forty-five minutes. Around half past eleven, her stomach sends a calendar invite with the subject line, “We should eat”. By eleven fifteen, it follows up with a marked “Urgent”. By noon, it has CC'd her mood, patience, and basic manners.

Then there are those mythical creatures who say, "I just stop when I'm full." Excuse me? There's a stop button? Farzana has been eating like Netflix. It simply asks, “Are you still watching?” and she instinctively presses yes.

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Every diet begins with cinematic optimism. This time will be different. This is not a diet; it's a lifestyle. Three days later, she's standing in front of the fridge at eleven o'clock at night, eating shredded cheese directly from the packet because apparently, utensils are where discipline draws the line. Weight loss also has an extraordinary ability to become a personality trait. You don't merely lose two kilos; you become the person who casually mentions you've lost two kilos in every conversation. Someone compliments your shoes. "Thanks. Also, I've lost two kilos." Somebody asks what time it is. "Half past three... and two kilos." The irony, of course, is that the finish line keeps moving. Five kilos become ten. A smaller dress becomes an even smaller dress. You finally wear the outfit you promised yourself you'd wear "once I lose weight", only to spend the evening wondering whether your arms look strange in photographs.

Perhaps skinny women aren't thinking about calories at all. Perhaps they are worrying about wrinkles, relationships, retirement funds, or whether everyone secretly hates them. Because being a woman seems to mean carrying around an invisible to-do list of insecurities.

Farzana simply arrives with nutritional information attached. Still, if there really is a woman somewhere who eats garlic bread without opening MyFitnessPal, drinks a milkshake without negotiating with tomorrow's treadmill, and hears the words "all-you-can-eat buffet" without mentally drafting a recovery plan, Farzana would like to meet her. Not for weight-loss advice, but simply to understand what it's like to have enough spare brain space to wonder whether dolphins get bored.