I volunteer at a hospital and today was the last day so... cake for everyone on my shift!

So, it turns out me and another girl were the only ones to show up, with a giant sheet cake between us! I wasn't going to take any but got guilt tripped by by supervisor!

"Oh just take one piece, we bought this whole cake as a surprise!"
So I take a tiny tiny piece of cake.
"That's all you're going to eat!?"

Luckily, I didn't let myself be guilted into eating more than that. Honestly after cutting out processed sugars and sweets it didn't even taste good!


I added it in as about 120 calories (probably a 1&1/2 x 2 inch piece). It was just a plain old white sheet cake with sugary confectioner's sugar frosting.
Do you all think that's about right? I looked up cake and counted it as 1/2 a slice.

Thanks guys!

PS: I hate that everything *special* is celebrated with food! I could find a reason for every day to be a "special occasion" if I wanted to!

Personally I tend to calculate my (full) pieces of cake at 300 or 400 depending on if it has filling and how tall the icing is. But I try to be paranoid with sweets because I don't want to get in the habit of eating them all the time.

I think 120 sounds about right. Usually those cakes have whipped frosting, so it's a little less calories than regular frosting!

Now hold on. Three cubic inches of white cake with frosting is 78 calories, according to FitDay--and it sounds like you only ate something like half that. So, it wasn't all that bad.

Jay

Oh you've got to be firm with those food pushers. And there's a heckuva lot of them, isn't there?

But I'm sorry, I eat to please myself, not others. My calories are too precious to waste placating others. When the food pushers come around, that's when I give myself permission to fib. "Oh I can't eat that sorry. I get severe headaches" Which isn't so far off the mark when talking about sugar. There's always some excuse to come up with.

I think you did pretty darn well escaping with that tiny piece and I'm sure it did no harm to your weight loss. But next time maybe you want to be a little firmer?

Script: "I'd love to eat some and it looks absolutely delicious, but I just had a checkup and my doctor warned me that I'm a heart attack waiting to happen and I have to give up all rich foods." Only an absolute bozo would continue to push junk food on you when you tell them you are a heart attack waiting to happen!

It's tough at first but you just have to be firm. Around here everyone knows now that I don't eat the cakes or the kolaches or the cookies or the (fill in the various things that get brought to the office).

They know I'm not trying to be mean, but they understand my position because I've been clear about it. No hurt feelings to be had by anyone.

Ok, so what I do in this situation is this:
I get something to drink, I grab a piece of cake, I hold it. I walk around with it, I pretend to eat it. I finish my drink. I turn around and discretely smoosh up the cake in the napkin and stuff it in the cup. I throw the cup in the garbage.
OR:
I get something to drink. I walk around and socialize. I say I'll grab a piece on my way out because I'd love to sit and have a coffee with it. I grab a huge piece on the way out and everyone notices. I walk away and when out of eyesight, I pitch it in the garbage. Result: I don't have to explain or argue; people think I've had the cake; I don't have to worry about what I ate.

I was taking an evening course at our local college. Our instructor brought donuts every class. I refused at the first class and got the "Have one. I bought them JUST for the class. Please take one. Yeah, just have one. It is just one donut. One little donut won't kill you" -- and my PERSONAL favorite "Just have one, or I'll have to throw them in the garbage..." like I'm some sort of human garbage can. I then rolled out my second tactic -- I'd grab a couple of donuts on my way out the door on coffee break and pitch them right away (out of eyesight of the class). I didn't feel bad about pitching them, because it didn't matter if I ate them OR if I pitched them -- the money had already been spent. So better they filled up the garbage can than my butt!
Anyways, by the end of the course, people were just JOKING about HOW much I loved donuts, and HOW many I ate, and "keep the donuts away from HER. She'll eat them all" and so on. And they were serious. And I didn't eat a SINGLE donut EVER during that time frame (12 weeks...). Noone was the wiser...
Kira

The last time I had food pushed on me (coffee cake for breakfast instead of my usual cheerios at work), I said no thanks, she said oh come on, you have to try this, and I said (happily), "Oh, no thanks, you know I've actually lost 10 pounds in the last few weeks!". She was like, "wow, really? that's awesome!" and apparently forgot about the coffee cake entirely. It was very positive, and turned the conversation from concern about deprivation to celebration of a success. I'm definitely going to use that trick the next time I'm around a food pusher.

Yup yup. I keep telling people FREE FOOD ISN'T FREE. There's always oppurtunity costs. A local restaurant today was giving out free sandwhiches. They're actually not that bad for you but I had already packed a nutritious low cal lunch. My coworkers thought I was crazy for not joining them (well in spirit since we all go to lunch at different times anyway) "It's free!". Besides that several of them came back with giant sodas and chips at least one of them turned around and ate their packed lunch too. And then they wonder why I'm losing weight and they're not. It's one thing if you don't care (god knows I didn't care for years) but don't do that and then complain about weight gain.

my PERSONAL favorite "Just have one, or I'll have to throw them in the garbage..." like I'm some sort of human garbage can.

That was actually my turning point when I decided to get serious and start losing weight. My mother was standing in the kitchen eyeing a huge tray of lasagna she had made because she had like 1.5 lbs of hamburger that was going to expire. She said that since no one else in the family wanted to eat any I needed to eat it so she wouldn't have to throw it out. I told her it wasn't my fault she buys 20 lbs of meat a week (we've certainly requested, suggested and plead that she stop) and I wasn't her garbage disposal.

I have to say she gave me heck for the first few weeks but after she went to the doctor and found out she's gained another 15 lbs from a few months ago and seen how much I've lost all of a sudden vegetables are allowed in the house. And now she's even started buying her own vegetables instead of just using mine! Okay I have to share. She ate the last of my light bread and when I asked about it told me to use the regular bread she had just bought. I asked her why she hadn't eaten the regular bread and she said "Because its got twice the calories!" Well duh! Why do you think I eat the low cal stuff? So why didn't she buy more of it? "Because its more expensive!" *head desk* I need a deadbolt on my pantry. The colored stickers are not working.

I like these threads, and I really admire all of you who do what you have to do to stick to your plans. I was guilty of always taking free food from people to be polite, and I used to really think 1 one wouldn't hurt me when people said "it's only 1"! After so many treats and free foods, 1 isn't only 1 and they do add up and got me nowhere with my weight, only gave me more extra pounds. And I agree with the why waste your calories to make someone else happy? If I'm going to have a cake, it might as well be a cake I really like and will enjoy to spend some calories on.

Hopefully from now on, thanks to all of yours advice, I'm not going to let strangers push food on me.