Pressure at work
 

So, our clients always bring us all these good little treats. I have, of course, not been eating them, even though the brownies yesterday looked great. The problem is, some of my co-workers, and my manager, even though they know I'm trying to lose weight, try to force them on me. And it's not like a "Do you want to try this?", it's a "But this is soooo good. You have to try it. Just a little piece. It's not going to kill you, etc". It seems like they never give up. And then when I politely decline, they make fun of me, calling me twig girl, and anorexic. Yesterday, one girl went so far as to say that my lunch was already packed with calories and was going to make me fat so I might as well have a piece of candy. (Btw, my lunch was a ground chicken patty on whole wheat bread with lettuce, no mayo or ketchup, and a small bowl of miso soup). I know they're just playing around, but I felt horrible the whole day for eating it and had to force myself to eat dinner afterwards and my snacks to keep my calories up above 1000. Anyway, they either make me feel really discouraged, like I'm weird for wanting to lose weight, or they make me feel really fat and then I don't want to eat. What should I do? Sorry this was so long.

Hey Cammie,

Is it possible that your coworkers are reacting to the fact that you're already at a normal weight for your height? They may be joking around from concern - your goal weight would put you at an unhealthy-low BMI of 16.4, well below the "healthy" cutoff of 18.5. That might be where the "twig girl" comments are coming in. If you haven't run your goal weight by your doctor, please do so - it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a girl your height to achieve in a healthy way.

Regardless, if I don't want to eat something, I say no. Sometimes REPEATEDLY. Eventually, if you're persistent, people give up. I don't get angry, I don't really get bothered, I just simply say "No, thank you", "No, I really couldn't" or "thank you for the offer, but no". If you get heated/angry, it provokes people. Calm, cool, and repetitive will usually make them back down.

UGH people like that are such jerks. It's not anyone's business how you choose to nourish yourself! Just remember that you are doing this for you and your health and you're better off for it. I would just try to stay as calm as possible and be as polite as possible when turning them down, if you get angry you'll just be giving them more fodder.

I'm lucky that a lot of my friends are healthy eaters. My best friend at work is vegan so I don't have to worry about her nagging me.

Are you a model?Who else would possible weigh 105 pounds at your height?That seems a little extreme to me.Hope you are being realistic in setting your goal.

Oh dear, I agree 100% with mandalinn.

As far as the 105 goal weight. If you do get that low, you do realize that your beautiful hair will get dull and very thin, and start to grow in places you don't want it...your stomach will look bloated like the pictures of the little starving children we see on TV. Your periods will stop and you could possibly suffer irreplaceable damage to your reproductive system. Not to mention if you became ill from other causes and had to depend on existing body fat to get you though medical treatment. My Mother-in-law is 5'5" and got to 100 pounds as a result of an illness and looked like a living skeleton. It was gross. She was so weak she could hardly move. She almost died from malnutrition, they had to tube feed her. It was scary.

Declining the treats doesn't seem like the biggest problem you have here... and I'm ignoring the whole issue of your goal weight, since that's been covered quite a bit already. :)

There will always be people who say that you're too skinny or too fat or weird or on the wrong diet. People who make fun of your food choices. Some of them will mean it, and some of them will say it out of jealousy or to be manipulative or some other reason. Either way, that's about THEM, not about you. It's their problem. You can't take their comments to heart so much -- you shouldn't be left wanting to eat more or not eat at all just because someone else is being a jerk to you. I think you need to work on your confidence and learn to stick to your (sensible and well-thought-out) plans even when other people don't agree with them.

It sounds like your colleagues might be jealous of your self-control, or that they feel guilty eating the treats themselves and want as many other people to join in as possible. BUT I don't think it should matter why they're doing it -- you're eating healthy for YOURSELF and need to focus on that.

Thanks for all the support. I just told them politely today that I knew where the food was and if I wanted any, I would help myself. It seemed to shut them up.

I just want to address my goal weight issue thing, since everyone seems to have been commenting on it. I'm aware that my goal weight is under regular BMI weight. After much talking with both models my height and different agencies, 105 pounds is the weight I got that I would need to be to have 34-24-34 measurements. If I get those measurements at a higher weight, then I will keep it at that, but 105 is a tentative estimate. My Dr. knows I changed my GW from 118 to 105, and she isn't thrilled, but she's assisting me with planning i.e. daily vitamins, and EKG and holter monitor to make sure my heart is healthy enough, etc. Thank you for your concern though.