Stupid work food-pushers!
 

OK, it's not really as bad as the title suggests, but close. I am the school nurse at an elementary school, and this week I have turned down the following foods at work:
- pizza (which was plated up and literally shoved under my nose)
- Milano cookies
- Girl Scout cookies
- Sweet donut-like pastries (not sure what they are called, from a hispanic bakery)
- Barbeque beef sandwich

I mean, seriously people! This is friggin ridiculous! I feel like a have to walk around constantly on the defensive so I can hurriedly reject food before someone stuffs it in my throat. I can't really blame them, I haven't talked about my new eating plan except to my one good work friend, but still!

Not only this, but my lunch buddy has been on a fast food binge this week and I had to watch her eat Popeye's fried chicken (the smell almost did me in), Jack in the Box, mexican, etc.

Somehow, I stayed OP and did not indulge. Very proud, but exhausted from trying to politely decline food. Thank God I am off tomorrow thru Monday so I can have a BREAK from the pushers, LOL! Anyone else fight this battle?

There has been a lot of food pushing in my office lately, too. It is so hard to resist.

Nice work staying on plan!

Cheers,

J

Good for you for resisting. I have food pushers too! I hate the "It won't hurt for you to have this just this ONCE." Stay strong!

YES!!! OMG people are ridiculous with food. If I were you, I would bring in a particularly healthy and tasty treat, and ask people to eat it. You could say, "Yeah, this is a new fav of mine, I've been learning how to cook healthy for the past few weeks." I've down that before, and it not only calmed down the food insanity... It also inspired some of my peers/coworkers to eat healthier (or at least say they were), too. Congrats for turning all that down, you overcame a lot of challenges this week! I probably would have caved.

Oooo and another thing. I work at a bakery (Great Harvest Bakery, btw! check one out in your city, if you've got one!) and lots of well-intentioned (or promotion-seeking) people stop by in the mornings to get a dozen baked goods for the office. Lately, I've been pointing them to the low-cal, high fiber, delicious muffins that we have (cherry oatbran and oatberry... mmmmm) and asking if they want a print off of the nutrition facts. Not everyone's a taker, but more people think it's a good idea. A lot of people can also be talked into getting a loaf of our whole grain bread for the health conscious people. Not everyone wants to start their day with an 800-calorie breakfast that's all sugar and butter. Come on!!!

Oh man, schools are the worst with food pushing. I'm a sub so I always tell myself all those goodies in the teacher's lounge are not for me, they're for the regular staff. But all too often they make sure I know I'm more than welcome to their goodies. I need to not be welcome to it!

Ugh, I encountered this very same issue today! My manager knows I'm trying to eat healthier yet he asks me today if I want a white chocolate macadamian nut cookie! I said to him, "No, you jerk! You know I don't want one!" And that was that. I put my foot down so hopefully he won't try to pull that stuff on me again!

Nurse, good for you for resisting so many temptations!!!!

I think almost anyone who works is stuck with this problem. We have snacks all the time at work and it's just a matter of pretending they're not there and ignoring them.

Good for you for not weakening in the face of food and "pushers!" :)

Yes, I deal with this on a daily basis! I work at a bank and for some reason, people just feel the need to bring food and share. We are surrounded by fast food places and restaurants and I have had to turn down doughnuts, peanut brittle, pizza, ice cream, and to celebrate birthdays (which are at least once a month) they bring in queso and cake and snacky things! It is getting easier to resist because I'm seeing results in my new routine and determined not to go off plan, but you're right it is exhausting having to constantly turn down food. I've even blatantly told them no because I am trying to lose weight and they still try to get me to at least "try" some. Yeah right!

One of the volunteers at work, who has a little crush on me and keeps trying to get my attention, brought in a big batch of cookies he'd baked and I literally had to go into the ladies room and holler at him through the locked door to get that **** out of my office right now!!!! He all but literally shoved one into my mouth. Geez, and they call me a food ****.

My boss's wife is like the best cook in the world, and now and then drops stuff at the office.

I found, I can take the food, set it aside, while thanking her and saying "I'm busy at the moment, but I'll enjoy it later"

Later, well, I don't eat it. I've thrown it out, stuffed in my lunchbox, cuz they were looking, then trashed it later, gave it away, shared with customers, or whatever.

Last Christmas she brought cheesecake to die for, along with nutrition info, OMG! I did take one bite, bagged up the rest, took it across the street to my son and h is buddies at the state patrol. Wonder of wonders, these guys were getting ready for SWAT annual physical and training, they drooled, but said they couldn't eat it. So I explained the deal to them and threw it in the dumpster outside their office. Collaborated with the patrol guys, she still thinks they ate it! lol.

900 calories a slice! The stuff was darn near better than sex, but hey, at least sex burns calories!

With me the food pushers are not at work. They are family members. Often the same family members who then rag on me for not sticking to my diet!

Even my husband constantly offers me food. Ten minutes after I turn it down, it's "Are you sure you don't want any?" This makes me mad, because I shouldn't have to say No more than once! But the other family members do this too. I turn it down and turn it down, and they keep on asking if I'm sure.

Why do they do this?

I dont know they are family members its what they do. Maybe they feel bad because they have to eat it all and your not eating any. It does get kind of annoying when you are asked over and over again though lol

btw I work in fast food talk about turning down food. Im surrounded by food all day(which after you work there awhile the food is kinda eh not so good so its easy to turn down) anyways.. I work with mostly mexicans who bring in food to share all the time. Its so good and I know their food is good which makes it harder to turn down. If I do turn it down I feel bad because then they are like oh she ate it before but not now what the.. is it my cooking? did she lie last time and tell me it was good and it wasnt? so then i have to explain the whole eating plan thing and they still dont believe me!!

It's nice to know that I am not the only one dealing with this! It is so hard when the stuff is sitting there staring you in the face, or when people keep telling you "you know there is food in the conference room, right", "did you get your sandwich yet, there is one in there for you", etc.

The hardest part for me is not wanting to appear ungrateful. Yesterday my principal got bbq beef sandwiches, chips, etc for everyone on staff. I stuck with my lunch of a turkey burger patty, grilled onions, mushrooms and bellpeppers and a side salad. OF COURSE he walks into the breakroom while I'm eating and stops in his tracks when he sees me eating. Says "you know you have a meal in there for you". I replied "I chose to stick with the lunch I brought, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness". He did not say anything else but I felt like an ungrateful poop. Why should I feel guilty? In my head I know I should not, but I still do. Ugh.

I think this is a great example that everybody had some significant and difficult barriers to staying on plan. For some maybe it is a spouse, or work "food-pushers"... For me it is the challenge of being on the road all the time and having to eat 3 meals out on expense account a day.

I think it's important to recognize A) That they are barriers and B) Acknowledge that you likely can't remove the barrier so we've got to figure out how to get around it.

Pure willpower is always an option in the aresenal (like when you went to Popeye's and had to ignore the smell temptation), but I always want to use that as my last resort. If I have to rely on willpower alone constantly throughout the day I think I am setting myself up for failure.

I always think this "food pushing" behavior goes way, way back in our species.

I think of a group of chimpanzees, after one has found a tree with ripe fruit & goes to tell the others, so they all converge on the tree busily picking fruit as a communal activity & gorge themselves together.

I used to think this at the office because there was a coworker, a hungry guy with an incredible metabolism, who used to wander by all the conference rooms & huddle rooms, looking for meetings that had just disbanded & checking out what had been left by the caterers on the side tables. He'd come back all excited, waving his arms, quite chimplike: "There's food! Conference Room A! Chocolate chips." Or "The senior leadership team left half its sandwiches." And people would start leaving their desks to go scavenge, or they'd carry off the plate full of cookies & place it in the breakroom for others.

I know this is a sign of generosity, of sharing information, even of bonding, when people stand around eating together. And if you don't eat with the other chimps, if you're not doing what the others do, you look standoffish, uninvolved. You have to overcompensate by saying brightly, so they know you're not a hostile b*tch: "My, that looks good ... Oh, I would, but I'm so full ..." & smiling all around like an actress in a bad sitcom.

Fight your chimp brain. It's your duty as an evolved & evolving human. And keep in mind that because this behavior goes back so long, it's never going to stop. Ever. You're always going to need an arsenal of strategies to cope.

(The only workplace I've ever been in where people weren't like this was when I interned at a famous NY magazine & all the women were dieting or had eating disorders & then they competed NOT to eat. But this was equally freaky in its own way & I would not wish to be back in that culture again.)

Yikes, that sounds terrifying! I remember something similar in high school. A small group of girls (I was one) competing not to eat. I felt I'd accomplished something if I could proudly announce I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast the previous day. And, believe it or not, I was taken to task for chewing gum! I was actually asked if I was aware of how many calories are in a stick of gum. Unbelievable. (Did I lose weight? Not an ounce.)

It occurs to me that being diabetic gives me a built-in excuse for the non-family food pushers. All I have to say is "no thanks, I'm diabetic," and they don't offer twice. But family members do. :?: My husband is also diabetic, and I guess he figures if he can eat it safely, I can too. But I'm insulin-dependent, and he isn't. Plus, being a woman, I simply don't need to eat as much as a man does. As for other family members, I have one who simply refuses to believe I am diabetic. She says it's just one of those fad diseases, it's being overdiagnosed, and someone's getting rich. (And she's a retired nurse!)

Ugh I hate work food pushers. My new "office" has more food than one can ever imagine. I turn down pizza, cookies, donuts and full catered lunches on a regular basis. My co workers are constantly telling me how everything tastes and how I have to try some. There is also a guy at work that sees all turning down of food as dieting and he swears dieting makes you sick...so you might as well eat....yeah ummm no thanks!

I find food pushing isn`t too bad at work. They all know I`ve worked hard to lose weight since I came here, so they aren`t forcing anything on me. However, that doesn`t mean I`m free from temptation. The special ed teacher made a birthday cake with one of my students for his 14th birthday. She brought it into the class and because she had to go see another student, I had to cut it up and hand it out to all my students. I purposely cut it in a way that made only enough pieces for each of the students. To accomplish that I had to make two pieces giant, so I gave those to the birthday boy and the student who finished his Math first. It smelled and looked so good, but I was strong.

Also, at my school teachers make cookies, muffins, and healthy snacks in the kitchen once a week with their students and sell them at the next day`s recess to earn money for the classroom. It`s been tough for me to make oatmeal cookies, apple bread, banana muffins, trail mix, etc., and not partake. Though the snacks are mostly healthy, I know that 2lbs of butter went into those oatmeal cookies, and I will not let myself have even a portion of that... even though I know it`s 2lbs of butter spread out over 80 cookies.