Last night I was eating out with a bunch of parents with my kid’s sports team. We were at a huge pasta feed in prep for today’s race, that had been prepaid (ie the menu was set). It was penne pasta in an amazingly delicious homemade marinara. Plus a salad with oil and vinegar.
Now I’m not any big pasta eater anymore, mostly bc my diabetes doesn’t tolerate it very well. But I took about half cup worth and a bunch of salad. Three of the women at my table were not eating ANYthing. I was wondering if they were shunning the salad because… it had oil in the dressing? They ordered off the menu and asked for a plate of grilled vegetables. In came a big plate of steamed carrots and broccoli, and then some grilled veggies. While they were delicious, I was like.. this is too much. I could almost palpably feel the anxiety of these (thin) women who didn’t want to eat anything.
After dinner I felt myself ravenously hungry for the first time in a very long time. Being around these women had made me SO nervous and wanting to eat, just out of being in proximity to them. Sitting with them made me want to order a huge plate of lasagne. I felt myself getting angry (at what, I am not sure) and I was completely off my “center.” It took several hours to settle down, during which time I didn’t eat, but I sure wanted to.
I had the feeling that they were doing the exact opposite of intuitive eating. It was like “fear eating” and I could smell the fear.
foodfoodbodybody 
April 18, 2009 at 10:18 am
You did a great job getting yourself talked down. I suspect those women “did” want to eat, just wouldnt.
April 18, 2009 at 10:20 am
Real WOMEN need food!!! you did great! 1/2 cup of pasta and a salad is totally healthy – a bit small. I have the same thing for dinner at least once per week and I eat 1 cup of pasta and TONS of salad. (and my dressing always has oil in it ~ I make a 7 Seas Italian dressing)! and I may not be thin but I AM losing!
I wonder if some women think they have to prove how hardcore they are to be THIN.
They are scary but they are also SAD. I mean just because we are trying to lose weight doesnt mean we have to Starve!
I don’t trust people who don’t eat!
April 18, 2009 at 10:46 am
WOW!!! Sorry to hear you had yourself so upset, but you did a great job of not giving into emotional eating. I can see it was really hard for you this time, but you did it!. I agree I think you should have had a full cup of pasta and more salad.
So, be proud of yourself!!! And just worry about you & your families health and don’t carry guilt about food…
April 18, 2009 at 10:53 am
Yeah, I know that feeling. One of my friends (before she finally got sensible about losing weight) would go on these crash diets and eat her 15 vegetable soup and glare at everyone else for eating anything else, and it was hard to want to be around her.
My mom, too… she starves herself from time to time, and it never really works, either. But being around her when she’s doing that makes me feel guilty about eating what I am eating, and it doesn’t matter if that’s something healthy or not, the fact that I’m eating at all and I’m not a size 0, there must be something wrong with me, and then I get angry for thinking about that…
You know, my mom is 80% of the reason I got fat in the first place. I think I did it to spite her. >.<
April 20, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Lynn C: I got fat to spite my Mom too.
April 18, 2009 at 11:09 am
Maybe what those women were feeling was the same tension you were: the knowledge that the foods in front of them were foods they could not eat safely and stay “thin” or healthy.
To maintain my optimal (healthy! not thin-to-be-thin!) weight I cannot eat more than 1400 calories a day. That’s not a lot of food; not compared to the way North Americans eat, at least.
As an example of what this means in practical terms, the eat-without-guilt website you mentioned in an earlier post has a recipe for glazed carrots featured on its blog: The recipe calls for three cups of carrots with three tablespoons of butter and three tablespoons of sugar.
If I eat a cup of those theoretically healthy carrots, I’m also eating 151 calories of butter and sugar! That represents over 10% of my daily calories, most of which add nothing nutritionally-valuable to my food intake! (And yes, frankly, if I’m gong to eat 100 calories of fat, I’d really rather roast my carrots, and eat the fat in cheese – much healthier, not to mention tastier, choice.)
If I eat a pre-dressed salad at a restaurant, I’ll end up eating even more than that number of calories in oil alone- and it may even be an oil that isn’t at all good for me.
It would be excruciatingly painful for me to be presented with plates heaping with pasta I cannot eat, and salad I cannot enjoy.
I, too. would have ordered off the menu in an attempt to make sure that I had an alternative that would at least give me the satisfaction of knowing that I had done the right thing for my body.
Those women-who-were-not-eating-anything were “thin” precisely because they were making those choices. It’s not like the hand of god reached down and just made them naturally lean. Not in this country, anyway.
Like them, I would have eaten the grilled vegetables and enjoyed them, but there is no way I could have avoided feeling the tension of all that unacceptable plenty right in front of my face. But that’s not because I am different from you, it’s because I am LIKE you!
NOT choosing the grilled vegetables, of course, is why I yo-yo up and down in weight. I know better, but I am not always willing to make the choice I know I should make. In the end, making those choices, making them consistently and feeling good about them, is the real challenge I face everyday.
April 18, 2009 at 11:12 am
Fear-non-eating… I’ve been there and seen that ALL TOO OFTEN! Its kind of ridiculous. I have to just remember that its JUST food!
April 18, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I think it’s like the difference people who exercise to be healthy and people who exercise for “other reasons” (i.e., pro-athletes and people obsessively trying to lose weight).
Same way with eating–there are those who watch what they eat with the aim of being healthy…and then there are those who limit what they eat in the aim of something other than health (and when you see THIN women refuse to eat, you KNOW something’s up).
I get nervous in that same way, Foodie McBody. Makes me want to eat in rebellion, makes me want to eat on their behalf, makes me angry because I can’t believe THIN people are on a diet…
April 18, 2009 at 4:15 pm
It is sad, but true, that many women have a ‘fear’ of food. If they eat something ‘good’ like pasta, they feel guilty. I’ve seen this all too often and experienced it myself.
Hence, the name Eat Without Guilt 🙂
Some might say that the reason they are thin is because they eat things like vegetables. But I say, we need to eat vegetables as part of a balanced diet. Okay, I’m sure their daily diet doesn’t consist of ONLY vegetables, but you get what I mean.
There are also many other women (thin or not) who eat “good” in front of other people, then binge when alone or at home. I’m not that’s what they did, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
For me, it wouldn’t have killed them (or made them gain a pound) if they ate some of what was prepared. I mean, isn’t life all about enjoyment? It’s OKAY to eat a bit of everything!
When food gets in the way of life (and it clearly did for them) there is a problem or dis-connect. Just like someone who is overweight, these women clearly do not have a healthy relationship with food.
We often only think of overweight or obese people not having a healthy relationship with food — but one can be thin and still not have a healthy relationship with food.
And it’s actually something I’d like to educate more people about — this “disordered eating” that involves problems around food & body image. For me, these women seem to fit that.
April 18, 2009 at 5:17 pm
jadepark wrote:
“I can’t believe THIN people are on a diet”
But how do they stay “thin” if they AREN’T on a “diet”? I can’t keep my weight within healthy bounds unless I ALWAYS watch what I eat.
When I’m at my healthy weight, I’m small and thin; that’s just my natural body type, but I quickly put a lot of plush on my small frame if I don’t pay attention to what I eat, and how much. I can’t stay at my healthy weight without working (HARD!) at it, which, presumably, is why I “yo-yo” as much as I do. That’s just reality for me.
I’m not unique: That’s probably reality for a lot of people – it’s a case of “diet” and maintain healthy weight or eat without factoring in your own caloric needs and metabolic level and gain weight. So I’m guessing that there’s every reason to believe that thin people diet. They have to, at least if they’re over 25.
April 19, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I don’t meant to attack you (and that certainly wasn’t my intent, I was just ruminating on how I feel when I see thin people refusing to eat)–but like Eat Without Guilt says, there has got to be some wiggle room.
I’m well over 25 as well, and I’m not “thin” but I’m not “obese” (I could stand to lose 10-20 pounds and I still would not look anorexic) but it does make me very nervous (I empathize with Foodie McBody in her post) when people are constantly on a diet, even when they are “thin.” There has GOT to be room for enjoyment, and when you can’t even eat a salad, and you prioritize thinness above all other things, including a moment of enjoyment or a bite of SALAD…well…that makes me very very anxious. (There’s also exercise to burn off that extra 100 kcal of salad dressing).
I have been in the “I only eat steamed vegetables” camp–it’s very stressful. I have been bulimic and I have been anorexic. I have been as “thin” as 95 pounds on a 5’3″ frame. So I empathize with you and with Foodie McBody, we’re all just trying to be healthy here.
April 19, 2009 at 5:28 pm
This post and the thoughtful comments have got me, well, thinking!
Dinneen’s comment, “when food gets in the way of life (and it clearly did for them) there is a problem or dis-connect” led me to think: yes, absolutely, but what if there’s something wrong with the way “life” is? What if the life you’re surrounded by is shoving crap food in your face all the time, snacking constantly, etc, etc? I don’t live in rustic Provence or slow-food Italy. I live in Texas. Sometimes I feel like I will literally have to start eating like a foreigner if I am to lose weight and make my peace with food.
Back to your post, Foodie, I am truly impressed with the way you were able to grapple with and then mostly dispel the tension you were feeling. You inspire me :).
April 20, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I have a friend who lost a significant amount of weight and she used to say things like, “I can only eat half an apple now and I am STUFFED!!” I never believed it. She has since gained about half the weight back…
I don’t want to be perfect, I want to be happy.
I don’t want to be perfect, I want to be healthy.
I don’t want to be perfect, I want to enjoy my life and body.