I’ve been thinking about this post on healthy lifestyle sabotages a lot since I got back from vacation. Of all the things that I thought might be professional roadblocks for me (eclectic taste, high standards, etc.), I never in a million years thought that the way I eat would find its way to the top of the list.
There aren’t a lot of vegetarians where I live; it’s really a red meat and beer kind of culture, but I’m not trying to convert anyone. I don’t carry some sort of veggie membership card, and I’m not a PETA member. I’ve never given a serious speech relating meat to murder or suggested that the vending machine might not be the best place to snag a healthy lunch – in fact, I can’t think of any comments I’ve ever made about a co-worker’s lisfestyle choice.
My diet (as in “the food I consume”, not “a slimming program”) has been a point of concern and fascination since my first day at my current job. For the first two months I fielded comments about “losing weight for my wedding” (note: no wedding is scheduled) and “being too healthy”, as if my tupperware of tofu and broccoli was secretly a commentary on their lunch choices. Next, I got to play the foreign exchange student from veggie-land during the quizzing phase: “Do you eat this? Or this? If you ate this, how would you eat it? What about this?”
We moved into avoidance a few months ago, which is uncomfortable but quiet. We’ve all been out to lunch together a few times, and socially there are no difficulties. So why the remarks about my soup and salad lunch? I promise that my healthy eating isn’t some sort of smug holier-than-thou attack; it’s just what works best for me. I’ve begun to feel that I need to take my healthy eating “into the closet” so it won’t offend anyone.
It’s such a strange and complicated (and gendered) issue.
Women and eating and control and weight and insecurity…it’s a nasty tangle. That’s why I love what so many of the good food bloggers have been producing for the past two years – like me, they’re just doing this for themselves. I eat healthy and work out because that’s what I want for myself. I hope that my decisions now will turn out to be the ounces of prevention that keep me around a few years longer, able-bodied and sound of mind, really living rather than passing the days. Also, vegetables taste darn good, and I like waking up with energy, rather than shuffling through my morning and burning out in the afternoon. Should that keep anyone from enjoying their stuffed-crust pepperoni pizza? Not on my account, please.
This has all been circling around with this: when I wrote yesterday that I had eaten nothing but junk food, I was referring to the list below.
- a Kind berry-yogurt bar
- an iced soy chai from Starbucks
- 4 falafel balls with baba ganoush and cucumber salad
- a piece of 85% dark chocolate
- a small handful of almonds
That’s “junk” to me because it contains few vegetables and a bit too much sugar (especially given how sweet the Kind bars are). It’s all still real food, and it’s definitely within the limits of what I “should have” eaten yesterday.
I don’t know why it’s significant, but there it is. Now I’m going to go finish planning the cheese plate for tonight’s get-together and bang out some emails.
I didn’t eat my morning snack because it was a busy, busy day but I eventually got to my afternoon snack: a plum and this new-to-me Wallaby fruit on the bottom yogurt. Today’s was grapefruit, and it was deee-licious. The fruit part was a bit too sweet for me, but it was otherwise an exciting afternoon treat. (But look, y’all, at that thick layer of fruit on the bottom! It was fun.)
Like this lizard! (Circled, because I couldn’t get close enough with my blackberry to get a better shot without scaring him off.) I see dozens of these guys on my runs, especially the long Saturday one – I’ll have to document more of them sometime.
