Food Bore

Look, I’m going to warn you right off the bat. I’m going to have to talk about diets again. Now wait! Before you shut your laptop with an irritated snap, let me just say I’m only going to mention diets in passing. This is not a blog post about diets. I repeat, THIS IS NOT A BLOG POST ABOUT DIETS. Everybody calm down. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to discuss food a little bit, just to set the scene. What kind of writer would I be if I didn’t? Because without ever consciously trying to, sadly…I have become a food bore…

I have been eating healthily on-and-off for five years now (sorry, this is the diet bit). It was a case of having to, really. Gastritis was making me unwell, and therefore, I needed to change the way I ate. My actual healthy-eating plan has kind of evolved over the years, as I’ve taken on board new research. But basically I eat approx. 1750 calories a day (more or less), have drastically reduced my sugar intake, and don’t eat many refined carbs. Then log the balance of my intake and output on Myfitnesspal. I do exercise three times a week, but I believe most of my success has come from my diet. I have pretty much remained at a stable weight that I’m happy with, and my gastritis (without medication) is under control. So I’ve come to the conclusion that when I eat sh*t, I feel like sh*t. Makes sense, really.

But I do have to put something out there right from the get-go. Just like everybody else, I slip up. I got too cocky a year ago and let a lot of weight creep back on because I thought I had the diet-thing licked. But I didn’t. Nobody ever has it licked. I will always have to watch what I eat. Always. When I go on holiday, the healthy eating goes out the window, and I pig-out on all kinds of crap. Then invariably pay for it later. If it’s a special occasion, I’ll eat a bit of birthday cake – or any other kind of celebratory cake. Then invariably pay for it later. I can tell you right now that I’ll be eating like a starving gannet who has never even seen food before when Christmas Day comes. I’ll be eating Quality Street for breakfast just like everybody else. But come Boxing Day, I’ll go back to the old tried-and-tested. Undoubtedly I’ll fall off the wagon now and then. I’ll mess up, and then I’ll mess up again. Still, I’ll get back on the healthy-eating horse (is there such a thing as a healthy-eating horse? Well, there is now), and do what I need to do. It works for me.

So that should be all fine and dandy, then? Yes? Hmm… Well, the problem is this; some people now have this perception of me as some kind of health freak (which I’m really not, I eat like this because I have to). And try as I might to keep my mouth shut about food, because I hate health freaks just as much as you do, I’ve unintentionally become a ‘food bore’. But you see, people force me to be a food bore. So it really isn’t my fault. The worst of my food bore tendencies come out at work, at lunch time (obvs). Every day at 12 o’clock, I sit down in the staff room with my salad and quietly set about eating it. And every day, another member of staff will invariably comment on the salad in some way or another – usually that it ‘looks healthy’, or something. It isn’t that healthy, in all honesty; there’s a fair bit of fat in it. But I don’t worry about good fats, I worry about sugar. I try to smile or say something innocuous, but it always comes out like some sodding lecture on nutrition. And then they question my eating habits a bit further, and then I proceed to do a full-on teaching session about food. And then somebody will go on to say that they lead a very active lifestyle but can’t seem to lose weight, and I can’t help myself and tell them it’s all about what you eat. You can’t outrun a bad diet. And then their eyes glaze over and the conversation dies. I’m so bloody boring!!! I even bore myself!!! Oh my God, why can’t I smile and nod and just shut up about food??

I have this one colleague who I sit and eat lunch with pretty much daily. She usually eats a lunch consisting of a sandwich and a packet of crisps. But on occasion, she fancies eating a nice pie. And why not? I’d love to eat a nice pie on occasion, but they make me feel very ill (can’t touch pastry), so I don’t. Anyway, on the days that my colleague fancies a nice pie, she will make sure she gets to the lunchroom before 12 and devours the entire pie as quickly as possible, so that I won’t see her eat it. I know this, because she admitted it one day when I asked why she didn’t appear to have any lunch. Isn’t that terrible? I must be such a condescending, ‘judgey’ food-fascist (or at least look like I am) that people are afraid to eat their food in front of me! I mean, we laughed about it, and my colleague has now taken to bringing in a salad nine times out of ten (and has consequently lost lots of weight). But I just really hope that wasn’t because of me…

So I guess I have to admit I’m fairly passionate about nutrition, but that doesn’t mean I have to rub that passion in people’s faces (believe me, I try SO HARD not to). I just have to learn to button my lip. If people want to pay £6 a week to be a member of ‘Weight Watchers’, yet eat a massive slab of cake on a daily basis and wonder why they don’t lose weight, that’s their lookout. If people want to focus solely on exercise, yet continually eat crap (and not lose weight – and wonder why), that’s their lookout. I could tell people where they’re going wrong, but it’s not for me to point out healthy eating mistakes. I make them myself. I honestly don’t mind what other people put in their bodies. It’s their body – not mine. I’m not a dietitian, so I really only need to concern myself with my own lifestyle choices (mine and my children’s. I’m a real food fascist at home. Not that anyone listens). Still, I promise not to lord it over friends or work colleagues. I’ll keep my big trap shut. You eat your lunch and I’ll eat mine. But if you ask me my opinion on food and weight loss…then just remember when your eyes go all glassy and you fall asleep at the table, you did ask my opinion. All I did was, well, give it…