Don’t Blame The Baker.

Deciding to lose weight/get healthy was the easy part, I came to realize. So, this is where I clue you in on some of the odd reactions to expect if you choose to venture down the same path, as well as some tips and such that could make your journey just a tad easier.

First off, I love food. That is something that will never change for me. And honestly? Why give up something you love, right? No…my key to chugging toward my goal started with food journaling. Sounds like a cliché’ phrase, but it worked for me. I honestly had no idea how much food I was mindlessly grazing on. Try it. Take a week and write down everything you put in your pie-hole. I was shocked…and I’ll bet you will be too. Not just about the amount that I was eating, but about how sporadically I was eating. Nothing all day, and then macking out on the majority of a large pizza at night? Skipping lunch so that I could justify all-you-can-eat night at the local Mexican restaurant? And it became apparent that I almost never ate breakfast. This is where I learned a ton about listening to my body. Not eating all day was basically treating my body like some sort of concentration camp survivor. It was being denied nutrition so, when it was presented with food, it gorged and hung on to every single fat gram…every single carb…every calorie that it had been denied.

Clue phone: RING! Eating smaller amounts on a regular basis keeps me out of concentration camp mode, makes me less prone to hungry-crankiness and enables me to not pull a Miss Piggy when presented with a menu and a fork and knife.

Me.

Not that guy who brought donuts to the office. Not that girl who sits next to me with the cheesy potato skins and the double martini while we wait for our table to be ready. Not the people advertising tasty baked goodness on late night TV.

Me. I made the choice to eat like it was an Olympic event for a number of years. I was the one who was going to have to address the results.

So…this is where I talk about the notion of blaming other people for weight gain. If you do try Weight Watchers…this is the only common problem I see with the program.

Evidently…cake? Is evil. People who bake cakes? Evil. People who bake cakes and bring them into an area close to someone trying to get control of their weight/health? Way evil.

I don’t buy into this. Not one bit. Equating people who bake to drug pushers is just plain nonsense.

This became glaringly apparent to me during a Weight Watchers meeting. One of the other members, we’ll call her The Cake Hater, shared that she was angry that a woman in her office baked a cake for every employee’s birthday. The baker brought the cake into the office, where a small birthday celebration would take place during the lunch hour. The office staff, including the previously mentioned Cake Hater, would gather together…sing the birthday song…and then share the cake. The Cake Hater took this as a personal attack on her attempt to lose weight. In her mind, it was intentional sabotage! She HAD to eat cake EVERY SINGLE TIME someone had a birthday.

I sat there, listening to her share this experience, until she was red-faced and sweaty with rage.

“Ummm, couldn’t you just sing the birthday song, take a super small piece and…you know…enjoy the treat?” I said. “Or maybe sing the song, take the cake and pop it in the trash at your desk…you know…just to be polite? Or, hey, just say “No cake for me, thanks…but happy birthday!” and go on with your day?”

This was met with a glare from the “All tasty foods are evil” side of the room.

And yes, there will be people who feel that, to lose weight, one must never again let anything joyful and tasty touch their lips. I. personally, find them way cranky and lacking in even the most basic self-control. And I do believe this is due to the lack of baked goods. Just sayin’.

Some discussion and heated debate ensued…ending after I said…”Ummm, you chose to eat that big piece of cake. Nobody held a gun to your head and MADE you.” And then the meeting leader changed the subject, fearing rioting from the cake-deprived set.

So…here’s the thing. IF you are making the decision to change your life, don’t suck all of the joy out of it. Or out of anyone else’s life. Lots of people are happy as clams, just as they are. Let them be. Don’t harsh on their happy with a higher-than-mighty attitude about food. YOU are responsible for you. Own it. I know I did. As much as I would have liked to blame my weight issues on other people, the media, drive-thru restaurants and Nabisco displays…I made the choice to make them such a huge part of my mis-balanced diet. Nobody was standing down a dark alley going “Pssst, you want some good stuff?” And even if they were…I had the choice to ignore them. They weren’t pushing food. No. I? Was drinking the Kool-Aid all by myself.

So…yep. I totally think anyone who wants to change their life can. They just have to really want to. Unfortunately, you might come to find that, when you make positive changes in your life…some people will have not such nice things to say about it. Good friends will cheer you on. But it will be quickly apparent who your not-so-good friends are by the way they react. Those of you who have been down this same path know….and it can be a bit of a bitter pill. So be prepared for people who will insinuate that you have an eating disorder…or that you are wasting your time. Stick with the people who encourage you and you’ll be good.

Did some people drift away from me as I lost pounds. Yep. Did the women in the office I worked in at that time stop asking me if I wanted anything when they ordered out. Yes. Did it bother me? Of course. But mainly because I expected everyone to be as thrilled for me as I was. That just doesn’t happen. Some people are threatened that you start looking slimmer and better. Others might be upset that you can do something they can’t…or won’t. I dealt with this…and still do, when I run into people who haven’t seen me since my heavier days. I have heard second-hand that I “obviously had Weight Loss Surgery”…or that someone whispered “You know she doesn’t eat ANYTHING” or better, the very encouraging “You know you’ll gain it all back”..right to my face. Yep, people will talk. But I had to rest confident in the fact that I knew that I did it the healthiest way possible, and that I held the control over my own success or failure. I tried to remind myself of the time when I, a fat girl, sneered and said not so nice things about “the skinny girls”. I tried, when I could, to reason with the person who was being negative about my positive. Sure, listen to the feedback. Someone might catch you being a little too manic with your dieting…or excercising too much…and stop you from hurting yourself, but some are simply unhappy that you are happy. Those who cheer you on are keepers. Those who try to throw a wrench in the monkey-works, for no other reason than that perhaps your feeling good about yourself makes them feel bad about themselves….well…they should have been tossed out long ago.

Bottom line? Own your fat…and, if you are so inclined, own the way you go about getting rid of it. You worked hard (even if you don’t realize you did) to gain the weight, and you’re going to work hard to lose it. Be proud, but don’t be self-righteous. Do what you know is right for you, but don’t expect everyone around you to follow suit.

And, most important?

Don’t blame the baker.

A world without cake is not a very happy world at all.