by MaryW » Fri May 20, 2011 9:29 pm
A woman brought lunch for everyone at work the other day. She made turkey wraps, and brought macaroni salad and potato chips. I was just going to thank her for her thoughtfulness. I had no plans to eat any of the food, but I wasn't going to tell her that. Not when she went to all of that trouble.
But someone had to speak up and say "Mary can't eat that, she's a vegetarian." So then everyone had to discuss what I could eat and what I couldn't eat. I HATE when people talk about my eating habits. They said things like "She can pull the turkey off the wrap, then eat it. Was there meat in the macaroni salad? She could eat that. I didn't tell them that I wasn't wasn't going to eat any of it. So then the volunteer cook kept asking me what she could make for me. She suggested a grilled cheese with tomato. I tried avoid a direct answer until I realized she was going to show up with a grilled cheese and expect me to eat it! Cheese is definitely a binge food for me. If I ate a grilled cheese out of politeness, it would totally set me off. Her response was "If you don't eat cheese, what do you put on your sandwich?" Well, the answer is, I don't eat sandwiches these days. But if I made a sandwich, hummus and sprouts is my favorite. So that's what I told her. She didn't seem to know what hummus was, so maybe that will keep her busy for a while!
I know people mean well, but their being "nice" is so unhelpful. A woman today brought in a whole bag of candy, cookies, chocolate, soda, etc. "Treating" myself and eating things because they taste good is exactly what got me to 300 pounds!