Clarification for a possible construction similar to ながら

Today while talking to a friend I naturally used an expression I used to hear a lot in doramas, [ている＋と]
Unfortunately none of my books have an explanation about it, I just got used to the contexts and reproduced it thinking it did mean [while].
I said:
「めしくってると、文句だけ言ったら、腹が壊すぞ。」 (sloppy nihongo I know, and rather rude)

To my surprise, my friend said this [ te iru + to] wasnt correct , and seemed like I was talking about a past event.
Now I'm here trying to find any notes or explanations about this construction I swear I've listened many times, though I'm having a hard time finding anything on youtube right now.

Is it a real construction(for while, instead of when)? Should one stick to ながら or is there more casual version of it?

Thank you guys

It is one of the conditional constructions and not related at all to 〜ながら as far as I know. This is just an example of the pitfalls of learning from cartoons and assuming you knew what it meant.

Have you not encountered the conditional と before?

Mike Cash said:

It is one of the conditional constructions and not related at all to 〜ながら as far as I know. This is just an example of the pitfalls of learning from cartoons and assuming you knew what it meant.

Have you not encountered the conditional と before?

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I have, in fact I know about its nuances and the differences between it and なら、たら and ば

I just felt like this ていると construction had a different meaning, as if a totally different construction at all. I never thought of it as a variation of [plain form + と] conditional.
Now I feel very embarassed for ever letting such an "uneducated guess" drive me into a conversation =/

thank you Mike

No need for embarrassment. Everybody either has done it or will do it.

So you can see now why that sentence sounded odd?

Mike Cash said:

No need for embarrassment. Everybody either has done it or will do it.

So you can see now why that sentence sounded odd?

Click to expand...

yup , just for a matter of fixing my mistake, if I remove と from the original sentence and add あいだ

「飯食っているあいだ、文句ばかり言ったら、腹を壊すぞ」 would this sentence somehow become any better?

I think 間 is just fine for that sentence. Not really sure about ながら. If you write 飯食っていながら... you would shift the focus on the other action, i.e., 文句ばかり言う would be the "main action" and 飯(を)食う the secondary. Not sure if you want to do that.

If you want to use ～ていると, the word order 文句ばかり言いながら飯食ってると、腹壊すぞ works fine.