I have also noticed that people frequently comment on my food, especially men working the checkout at the grocery store. One said, "Oooo, big lunch!" today. I've heard in the past, "Are those things good?" (usually referring to something Lean Cuisine or South Beach Living) and "Healthy snack, huh? Coooool!" and "Oh, you're going to kill that bag of beef jerky all by yourself, EH EH?" --I'm not quite sure what makes men (and more than half the time, it IS MEN, not women) comment on my grocery choices, but I really don't care anymore.
I've always been the first to admit that I check out the food in other people's grocery carts.
And it's getting worse as I go along.
I'm just learning to clamp my mouth shut even tighter (and hey, two birds... when my mouth's shut I'm not putting food in it).
But if someone mentions something health-food wise to me, I feel bad for them, it's like a flood of healthy-living-food-exercise information comes out of my mouth.
I survey the carts at the grocery store too! Although actually we have switched to shopping at the farmer's market and an upscale grocery that has more fresh foods and very few processed/packaged foods.
Okay, here is my grocery rant though. There's this magazine called "Women's World" that is always on the racks, always has a headline about weight loss, and always has a picture of some kind of cake or dessert on the cover. I see SO MANY women who match that pattern at the grocery. They will be buying Lean Cuisine, SlimFast, any sort of diet food for themselves, and then have a cart full of snack cakes and cookies and pop tarts and candy for their little kid. And people wonder why so many kids are obese??
I should add that I ate all that crap when I was a kid too, and when I was heavy I often bought prepared foods and junk food. My mom also constantly wanted to be "on a diet" while feeding everyone else junk food. This is something I want to change when I have kids -- if it's not healthy enough for ME to eat, it's not healthy enough for me to feed to my family!
I love talking. On any subject, but especially food. I haven't gotten snooty (usually even mentally) about it, but maybe that's only because I'm still far too big for any of my advice or opinions on the subject to not seem ridiculous, both to myself and others, but if I can strike up a conversation about good food, I will. I do feel a bit of a "mission" to spread the word that there are tons of healthy foods that taste amazing. That eating healthy doesn't have to break the bank, or tast like dirt. Maybe people are internally rolling their eyes, but they seem interested, even fascinated at my "you've got to try x, it's so good."
I've often loved variety of food, especially "real" food. Even at my heaviest, I never understood the appeal of fast food and most junk food. Even at 16 on a family vacation to florida, I was rolling my eyes at how often we ate fast food on the trip (ok, I was snotty back then), but I couldn't understand why with all of the wonderful seafood in florida, the most exotic meal on the trip was at a Red Lobster.
I do roll my eyes a bit whenever my mom whines "what if I don't like it?" when suggesting an unfamiliar ethnic restaurant, but I did that even when I wasn't watching my weight.
I laughed when my doctor told me that I could lose quite a bit of weight just by cutting out sweets. I told him that would work - if I ate sweets. Even junk food, the only real "junk" I was ever fond of was World Market's Sweet Maui Onion Kettle Cooked potato chips.
I gained 90% of my weight on "wholesome" food, just way too much of it (when you're a carb junkie, couscous or rice pasta can be just as fattening as french fries or cake). Eating fast food was a "last resort" for me.
I've always loved fresh fruits and veggies, and trying exotic varieties. I don't really judge others' choices, but I LOVE when someone asks a question about something I have in my cart. Like Ugli fruit, usually either the cashier or someone in line, will ask me WHAT that is (because they are so lumpy and awful looking, most people think it's a grapefruit gone bad). I not only tell them what it is, and that it tastes like lemonade, I don't lecture, but I do tend to gush. Before they got to be $2 or more per fruit, I would even offer to open one up right at the register and give them a section to try.
Still, now that they're $2 a fruit, just that I'm willing to shell out $2 for a piece of fruit does rather amaze some people. Usually someone will say something like "is it really that good," and I'll answer that I don't buy them every day, but I definitely think they are that good to buy occasionally. I do the same when someone asks about the ranier cherries, white peaches and nectarines, pluots (plum apricot hybrid) fingerling bananas (about 2 inches long) and other "exotic" produce I buy.
It amazes me how many people are fascinated by some of my purchases. I'm extremely outgoing, so if someone looks fascinated, but isn't speaking up, I will open the conversation. I'm astonished how interested people are in the unfamiliar produce and foods(even if their carts are filled with super boring, or super processed foods). It's like they want to try some of this stuff, but they're afraid to. A couple winters ago, on a way to a potluck party we were invited to last minute, I picked up a sushi tray at a high-end grocery store. It was all california rolls and other cooked sushi, but it practically drew a crowd, when I started discussing it with the lady behind me in line at the checkout.
Today, my idea of "junk food," would be that sushi tray. Fairly fresh, fairly wholesome, and too high in carb for me to control myself.
And yet packaged jerky and even pork rinds are a snack that I can eat legitimately in moderation (a small portion every few weeks). Although even with the jerky, since learning to make my own, I really can only stand mine which I only make around Christmas.
There's a health food store in Wausau called "Downtown Grocery," the generic name I think is less intimidating, but not just at my weight loss group, but also to friends and aquaintenances, I've talked up their lunch options, because they're super cheap, and taste wonderful (and not just "wonderful for healthy low-calorie veg*n food"). I tend to sing the praises of good, cheap, quick options - even to strangers - not for bragging rights or conversion per se, but because word of mouth is how these small places stay in business. I'd go door to door if I had to if it meant keeping my favorite places in business, because good weight-conscious restaurant or street food options are so hard to find. The downtown health food store has amazing, very inexpensive lunches. We've gotten lunch there probably as cheap as anyone could have off fast food "value menus." They have amazing soups and a salad bar that has a seaweed salad I just love, and a garlicky "jamaican jem" sweet potato salad that is "to die for." I haven't tried it yet, but their vegan reuben casserole smells awesome. They have a website, and I've even got that memorized to rattle off to a stranger if I need to (I'm serious about keeping my favorite places in business. I carried around carryout menus to the new thai restaurant for months with me, and I handed them out to friends and the members of my TOPS weight loss group).
Hmm, maybe I'm a bit more evangelical about my food choices than I thought.
Jessica - that's a very interesting point about all these women buying Lean Cuisine while feeding their kids snack cakes and chips. My mom was exactly like that, too; always on a diet but constantly feeding me and my sister whatever crap we wanted to eat. Yes, she made us eat our veggies at dinner, BUT the motivation behind that was to eat a big bowl of ice cream for dessert! My sister and I would come home from elementary and middle school daily and kill entire bags of chips/stacks of Pringles/boxes of snack cakes together. My family would also do huge grocery runs a couple times a month where we'd buy everything under the sun and then wait until there was almost no food left until we went shopping again. This definitely helped develop the eating disordered habits I formed later I was also quite a chubby kid from the ages of 11-14, even if not technically considered obese. I also had freakishly high cholesterol
Colleen - I LOVE PLUOTS! They're AMAZING! And most people don't even know what they are. That Downtown Grocery place sounds amazing. We have something similar to that down here called Fresh Market that everyone just calls "the rich people grocery store"
Also, as everyone else here seems to say, doctors really are not the best weight loss advisors. They tend to assume everyone who is overweight must eat crap and not exercise regularly. They usually believe in a very OLD school textbook type of healthy eating approach. Being a certified nutritional consultant, I tend to snicker at doctors every time they talk about healthy eating and then realize it takes all the self control I have just to keep quiet ...
I have always checked out people's grocery carts . And sometimes I ask people what an item is, how they cook it, etc. Most people are only too happy to explain their purchases . I talk to people in lines everywhere.
And a small confession now. When I used to binge eat junk food (usually Thursday night was the night) I would "hide" the junk in amongst healthy food. I was convinced that everyone else was checking out my cart as well.
I never had the urge to chat about my choices because they were so mixed. And I was always aware of healthier food because my mother and father, being european, did not buy a lot of processed food.
Once a week we ate KFC but the rest of the time my mom would cook. So the grocery cart always had fresh meat, fish, veggies, and my mom had a bowl of fresh fruit in the living room for snacks. We also bought rye and french bread, rather than the Wonder bread at my friends' houses.
Funny story. I first became aware that there was square,pre-sliced bread available for toasters at my best friend's house. We used to slice off a piece of round or oval bread from the loaf, put it into the toaster with the two little doors (I am old aren't I), flip it over to toast the other side etc.
I was amazed to see this square bread that was already sliced at my friend's house and I told my mom about it very excitedly when I got home that night. She was a little less impressed than I was
Square bread - oh gosh that reminds me. My dad was a driver for Butternut Bread, and for a while, my Mom also worked at the Butternut depot store (the "Butternut Discount Bakery"). Before mom started working there, Dad would bring the bread home (whole wheat, rye, and the regular white bread "rounded" slices, but hardly ever the "square" sandwhich slices). We would get so excited about the "square" bread, and whine when we got the "regular" kind, but all the bread drivers always brought home the "stale" (their term for the "extra" bread that went to the discount store at the depot at the end of the day. The bread wasn't stale, just what hadn't sold "that day." So it was usually fresher than the bread you got in the store). The drivers called checking in the unsold bread as "staling in" and the extra bread as "stale" even though it wasn't (I got in trouble in 4th grade with my teacher for saying my mom had started working in the "stale store," instead of the "discount bakery," but I didn't even know that wasn't the "real name," because that's what my parents called it).
The drivers would "stale in," and then buy the same loaves back from the "stale store." On Wednesdays (one of the drivers' days off, the other was Sunday), the bread was 4 loaves for a quarter, otherwise it was 4 loaves for a dollar (and the regular price in the regular grocery stores was about $1 a loaf. So most of the guys took bread home for the week on Tuesday nights (they were given the Wednesday price if they staled in after a certain time of day).
I remember that bread was always an available snack, no matter how tight money was. Sometimes we'd eat just bread and butter for a snack, or cinnamon toast. I think back then "bread" even Butternut "white bread," was considered fairly healthy (and in moderation, I suppose it is), but in hindsight, I started my carb addiction pretty early. When I would diet with my mom, it just killed me to see my skinny brother eat 4 or 5 pieces of cinnamon toast as an afternoon snack (that boy was a bottomless pit, and must have had the metabolism of a hummingbird).
I have to admit, I enjoy looking at what other people are buying in the grocery store. I do feel sorry for folks sometimes when they have their cart or checkout covered with food I wouldn't care to eat. I've seen selections I'd label as bachelor food. But I just find it extremely interesting to see what people select when they have an entire grocery store to chose from. I think I'm discrete about it. I have been known to nudge DH. He's just not as interested as I am in everyone else's business.
Oh Glory! In my book you are on a pedestal and should never climb down! The first time I tripped over 3FC (I googled something or other and ended up here) I popped into your success story, was inspired, and have been here ever since. You are not in a phase - you are, and ever will be sooooo special!
Ha, you are way too nice! I am perfectly insufferable and smug most of the time! I would NEVER comment on a stranger's food choice or cart though, never!!
I'm not a shopping cart checker, beyond seeing how much stuff people have in their cart in line ahead of me so I can estimate my wait to check out. I may ask someone about something I haven't tried or respond about something I'm buying if I see it right in front of me. I used to really be self-conscious about buying feminine supplies and going to see a male checker. I hope that bodes well for me to avoid the prima donna trap. That's actually one of the things I put down under "negatives" when I made my postiives/negatives of losing weight list.
Okay, here is my grocery rant though. There's this magazine called "Women's World" that is always on the racks, always has a headline about weight loss, and always has a picture of some kind of cake or dessert on the cover. I see SO MANY women who match that pattern at the grocery.
Ha, my weight loss story (written by the lovely and talented MileHiMama) was printed in a copy of Woman's Day...well, you guys judge the cover
(personally, I think it looks DELECTABLE and I want to LICK IT).
Ha, you are way too nice! I am perfectly insufferable and smug most of the time! I would NEVER comment on a stranger's food choice or cart though, never!!
OH, I never comment (out loud) on other's purchases; and I've been known to give DH a good thwak if we get to the parking lot and he makes some comment about an overweight person's choices (to his credit he does make sure we are far out of earshot of anyone else but I still thwak him anyway).
I just feel like I've become such a self absorbed little snot that I barely notice what other people are buying any more. Which is one of the reasons I'm concerned that I might be blathering on and blurt out something the lady behind me with the cart full of poor choices might interpret as being directed at her. When I was at my lowest point, I was convinced that every teenager who snickered, and every less than complimentary comment I ever overheard was all about "that fat lady" (me). Hey, I guess I was self absorbed then too
I love pluots! My recent thing that nobody knew what it was - hominy. I thought hominy was pretty common, but Fresh Market didn't even carry it and the people working there had never heard of it. Mmmmm, hominy....
Shane - I shop at Fresh Market! I would rather spend the extra $$ for quality fresh food than spend that same money on clothes or stuff like that. I'm also on a local/whole foods kick so most of my food is from the farmer's market.
You know what I looooove about Fresh Market? It hit me when we shopped at Meijer (for those of you who don't have Meijer, think Walmart SuperCenter or SuperTarget) again after not going there for a couple months. The atmosphere in Fresh Market is SO much nicer. Most of the store is taken up by produce, fish, butcher counter, deli counter, bakery counter, fresh bread, and bulk foods. The small amount that's left is split evently between wine and packaged foods. They have like three or four freezer cabinets. They play classical music on the loudspeaker. There is only half an aisle devoted to dish soap/paper products/etc. It's not usually crowded, and we NEVER have to wait to check out.
I love that store. Contrast it with Meijer, where the speakers play a mix of country and pop music frequently interrupted with announcements, there are about a million people, including innumerable little kids, all rushing around like maniacs trying to shove as much stuff as possible into their carts. 90% of the store is the non-grocery part. Of the grocery portion, about 20% is taken up by produce, deli, bakery, bulk, butcher, and fish counters. Oh, they also have a fried chicken counter and an ice cream counter. Then they have two aisles of beer and wine, two aisles of junk food (the "chips/snacks" aisles), maybe six aisles of real food, and two aisles of miscellaneous household stuff (dish soap, toilet paper, lightbulbs).
Okay, sorry for the grocery store ranting. The great thing about Meijer is that the produce is better than Kroger and Marsh (at least at our local ones) and it is way cheap. Yet somehow we always managed to spend $130/week there for two people . . . hmmm . . . maybe it was all those processed foods!
You fluster them.
Checking out the carts
. And sometimes I ask people what an item is, how they cook it, etc. Most people are only too happy to explain their purchases 
. I talk to people in lines everywhere.
was the night) I would "hide" the junk in amongst healthy food. I was convinced that everyone else was checking out my cart as well.
when I got home that night. She was a little less impressed than I was 
I love that store. Contrast it with Meijer, where the speakers play a mix of country and pop music frequently interrupted with announcements, there are about a million people, including innumerable little kids, all rushing around like maniacs trying to shove as much stuff as possible into their carts. 90% of the store is the non-grocery part. Of the grocery portion, about 20% is taken up by produce, deli, bakery, bulk, butcher, and fish counters. Oh, they also have a fried chicken counter and an ice cream counter. Then they have two aisles of beer and wine, two aisles of junk food (the "chips/snacks" aisles), maybe six aisles of real food, and two aisles of miscellaneous household stuff (dish soap, toilet paper, lightbulbs).
