This. Thank you for this.

Luckily all the people I currently have in my life are totally supportive. The only thing that gets awkward is that every time I eat at the MIL's house everyone makes a big deal about what I drink! And not in a bad way, it just seems they forget that I just want water and offer me all sorts of other things while saying, "Can you drink this? Well what about this one? Oh wait, we've got this in the back of the fridge, would you like it instead?" I don't drink sugary drinks anymore and can't have aspartame, yet this somehow confuses them, lol.

Not that I've never had the issue of people making a big deal about whatever my current choices were at the time. I've had all sorts of people pick apart my food choices in the past, healthy or not. The most amusing time was when I'd made myself some kind of sandwich on whole wheat for my lunch at work, and a co-worker freaked out on me for eating something so unhealthy and full of carbs . . . as she was scarfing down a BK Whopper! Some people. :lol:

Serenity, same here! I also do not drink sugary drinks and cannot have aspartame. I drink...water. People run through everything: tea, coffee, every variety of pop, flavored water, lemonade, beer! LOL! "Just water" isn't often well received.

LOL! I will order iced tea in a restaurant and am happy with just lemon, and I'll brew some fresh at home as well. The only tea they have at my MIL's is already bottled and either loaded with sugar or aspartame . . . bleh! :dizzy: I also will go to McDonald's drive thru specifically for iced tea when I'm thirsty and on the go, and will get angry when I explicitly state that I want unsweet tea and they still give me sweet tea out of habit (many managers have told me that typically far less than 10% of their tea sales are unsweet so the employees are quick to assume people simply want the sweet tea).

I'm not sure why some people seem to have such a problem with plain old water. That was all we were allowed to have with our meals growing up, as soda or kool-aid or whatever was a rare, special treat. I also get really annoyed when I ask for water at a place and they won't give me tap, but instead want to overcharge me for bottled water (which is why I got in the habit of ordering the tea, it's cheaper for its size).

I think I am pretty thick-skinned regarding comments about my food choices. Being a recovering vegetarian I am used to tons of people commenting on what I eat. I am more annoyed when people ask 15 times whether I "can" eat this or that meat now. I could before I just chose not to. And yes, I "can" eat any meat now!! And yes, I will.
No fish though. Yikes. ;-)

YES! Sirenity, I do this too at McDonalds. Same with iced coffee. I ALWAYS taste test before I drive away because I would say about 50% of the time they mess it up!!