Friend possessed by diet police zombies!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I meet my friend to go work out last night, and some of the people there are discussing the virtues of different girl scout cookies. I mention that I’d had three (gasp!) of those caramel ones before heading there from a box that was being shared at work. My friend glares at me and starts “SEEEA-diver! Why did you do that?!?”. I thought she was kidding, but she continued for a while about how now the exercise was going to be for nothing, and I couldn’t go around eating those things, had to change my habits, etc. I got berated over three cookies!

Now, I know she means well, and is looking out for me and all that. She often fixes really healthy snacks for us, which is nice. I’ve even managed to start liking some of the rabbit food she’s introduced me to. But damn it, part of the reason I exercise IS so I can have a cookie if I freaking want one! I don’t want to be scrutinized.

Is this common among female friends?

Definitely mundane and pointless, but I’d rather vent here rather than make an issue of it. Don’t do this to your friends- it’s annoying, and they may hurt you if you try to get between them and a fillet mignon.

2

What are these “diet” and “working out” of which you speak?

3

If you really want her to freak out, the next time you are all talking about food just casually say, “Man, I had THE most delicious Big Ma… I mean, er, Tofu Burger, for lunch today. Tofu… yeeeeeeaaaaaa, thats it!”

4

I feel a rant coming on…

It’s all too common among women, SeaDiver, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sick. C’mon, ragging a friend over a few cookies? It’s a sad obsession that warps food and eating out of all sensible perspective.

A lot of women have a very sick, self-destructive relationship to food in this country. We’re bombarded with “thin and thinner” as ideals–common sense and aesthetics be damned–and food gets warped into a vortex of guilt, yearning, etc. Frankly it places a lot of women (and men) into an unwinnable conflict with the basic human need and pleasure of eating.

Food and pleasure in eating become enemies, suspect and to be guarded against. It’s unwinnable; people are whipsawed from spartan denial to defeated gorging and all stops along the way. You just got an upfront dose of the syndrome. Your friend may be thin and buffed but her relationship to food is warped. She’s reacting to food “issues”, not in balance with it them. (I use “issues” because that’s what they are: imposed constructs.)

Food can be pleasure, hospitality, comfort–and nurtering too, of course. But our culture has made a total mess of it. Super sized meals, you can’t be too thin, anorexia, guilt, fat-hating…it’s all damaging.

I don’t have answers. I wish I did. People caught in the vortex deserve decent compassion. Your obsessed friend (“you ate that!?”) is just as much a prisoner as those who over eat. Frankly I find it worrisome that your friend is probably rewarded for her reaction more often than not. Anorexia, bulimia, women exercising so hard they stop menstruating are no less caught up in the madness.

If nothing else this makes a mockery of something that should be one of the grace notes in life. When anything goes out of balance that’s not a good sign. Hearts starve as well as bodies. And hearts, character, humor, integrity, etcetera as just as important as bodies–or should be.

(I didn’t know this rant was building up. Whew!)

Veb

5

Hah, fortunately none of my friends (male or female) are like this. The healthiest of our group (and that’s not saying too much :)), Matt (who is pretty buff), eats just as crappy food as the rest of us…i think his lifting weights allows him to get away with that, such as you are doing sea.

So, next time she does that to you, Sea, give her the back handed bitch slap and tell her to step the hell off :).

6

And you didn’t just reply with “Thanks mom”??

Gee, a friend who berated me for three cookies would soon be on my “soon-to-be-ex-friend” list, no matter how well meaning she was.

7

Nope, none of my friends are like that. If anything, we share a BOX of cookies together.

Maybe she’s putting off her insecurities on you?

8

::having a Blues Brother in the black church moment::

Oh, yes, preach it TV, preach it, I say!

I agree with every word you just said.

9

:cheering Veb:

Veb, that just went on my list of things every 12 year old girl should read.

10

Demo, sk8, lola, BunnyGirl, and Zyada- thanks guys! Here, have some girl scout cookies :slight_smile: (I’ll definitely have to remember the “thanks, mom”).

TVeblen- extremely well said, it amazes me that so many people are oblivious to this kind of harm.

Dooooob!- how many calories does a bitch-slap burn, exactly? (I love her way too much, but that was funny)

Sue- You may be right, I asked her later on if all her efforts made her feel beautiful, expecting a resounding “yes!” after the workout. She said she “just doesn’t think of it that way”. That makes me sad, everyone should feel beautiful.

11

I just ate a half sleave of Thin Mints while reading that. :slight_smile:

12

I’m obsessed with food. I don’t drink, smoke, take drugs, or have a romantic life. Food is a major source of fun for me. When my friends and I go out, we eat. At work, my friends and I often order out. But as much as I love to eat, every bite I take makes me feel guilty. I have a problem maintaining my weight, and I try to work out as much as I can, but it doesn’t take much to make me gain. I still eat “bad” (pleasureable) things, but I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to before my weight became a problem. I try to take a sensible view of things…balance good foods with the fattening foods…but there is always a little voice in the back of my head…“don’t eat that…you’ll get fat…you’ll have to work out for two hours to work that off…” and so on. It’s pretty depressing. But I’d never nag my friends about their eating habits.

13

Cat, How’d you stop at half a sleeve.

I figure once you open the wrapper on the sleeve, you’re just plain committed to finish it off.

Such are the trials and trivails we who live alone must go through… no one to share the thin mints with :wink:

-Doug

14

I’m so glad this issue was raised; I’ve been having a very similar problem with two of my sisters. We’re all healthy and a little chubby (about 30 pounds overweight on 5’6" frames), but two of my sisters have just started diets again, and they are oh-so sublety hinting that I should be joining them (when I talk to them, I’m getting a proselytizing kinda feeling).

I have lost and regained my extra 30 pounds 4 times in my adult life, and I have come to the informed conclusion that I need to work on accepting my healthy body the way it is, and not letting 30 pounds of fat rule my life. I absolutely refuse to ever diet again. I don’t know how to tell my sisters to back off and let me like myself with my lovely round belly without making them feel like I don’t support them in their own life choices. Hmm, reading this, it occurs to me that I’m offering them a respect that they aren’t reciprocating for me.

ps SeaDiver, that sucks. Life is too short to get bent out of shape about three cookies, and life is definitely better with cookies.

15

Ah! I hate people like that. I had (note the past tense) a friend like that in college. At the time, I was working out at the campus gym 5 times a week and eating healthy (because salads were the only tasty thing at the dining hall). I was a size 10, which is the thinnest I’ve been in my adult life. But she would always nag me: if I had a huge salad, an apple, and some fries, she would pester me about the fries. God forbid I ever had any orange sherbet! You would think it was Armageddon. I was so depressed and lonely there that I didn’t mind her (or I pretended I didn’t), but I would sneak to the dining hall at 11 just to get some damn sherbet.

The only thing that works for me is: eat everything, just not a lot of it, and exercise. Food is a very pleasurable thing for me, and I’m an emotional eater, so if I want ice cream, I eat it, but just a scoop.

And what Veb said, too. :slight_smile:

16

I’m one of these “diet police” people!

Please forgive me, all of you. Let me redeem myself…

I had some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups just now.

Delicious.

17

Why certainly, Albert! Nothing easier.

Remember the “muster of bad guys” scene in Blazing Saddles?
“Chewing gum in line, huh? Did you bring enough to SHARE?”
::gunshot::

By all means pass 'em around! I love Reece’s Cups.

Expectant–and hungry,
Veb

18

Veb, I’m about ready to print out all of your posts and wallpaper public places with them. More people need to hear that message.