A funny thing happened to me at lunch...

[Karen]

I can't believe she said that - twice. Well, you acted like a lady. I probably would have acted like a sailor.

Actually, she kept it up all night, trying to get me to take the bait. I didn't.

I get looks. I just see folks staring at me and my lunches here when I fix them. They don't say a word since I'm losing and they've seen me eat my way down all this weight. But I know they are thinking How Can she eat all that and lose?

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I can handle the looks -- because I think what I eat is pretty bizarre sometimes, for most "normal" people. The last couple of weeks I've been on this kick of broccoli sandwiches - I love them. Grilled (caramelized) onions & peppers and lots of steamed broccoli on rye bread with mustard. All eaten cold or room temp. Now I don't expect ANYONE who eats SAD to understand those...but my sandwiches are huge Dagwood things, so they already look kinda funny.

I usually have a pile of potatoes to go with it. And frozen strawberries for dessert.

So the looks thing is just fine by me. It's only when someone starts waving their chicken wing bones in my face (literally) to I go into the "ignore it" mode....and it isn't because I have class. It's that I want the person's bizarre behaviour to look even more bizarre in front of others. If I take the bait, then it looks like I think it's all in fun (which it isn't for me).

One thing as a lifelong dieter I pretty well have the calorie count memorized on anything I eat. If not dead on, then pretty darn close. So I would count up my plate in calories, and then theirs and compare. I often use that as an example for folks. You know the this plate of food has 350 calories. What does your lean Cuisine have? hehe

Hey, I can do that, too. More with fat grams, but the same theory.

It's funny that you mention this, though, because last week I decided that I needed a "check point" in my own understanding of what I'm putting in my body. So I've started logging my workouts and everything I eat. I haven't done that sort of tracking for years, but I do it sometimes as part of an inner course correction sort of thing.

So far I've realized that:

- I need to increase my intake of green, yellow, orange and red veggies (duh!).

- I need to really start watching sodium intake (my favourite BBQ sauce has 750 mg of sodium per serving!). I knew it was very high, just wasn't really aware of how high.

- I need to watch even the tiny amounts of oil I use (duh!)

- I need to stop caving in and using dairy when I'm tired or just inconvenienced (duh!).

- I need to work out more consistently and worry less about the big workouts (duh!).

- I need to eat when I'm hungry, not just bored or thirsty (duh!)

- I need to eat what I need to eat, not what my husband wants to eat -- we don't have to have the same dinner (translate: run your own race). DUH!

These are all things I've known for decades...but logging this stuff for a few days really makes it real - it helps me concentrate my efforts on what is right for me, not just what is easy.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments

[Lacey]

This is a great thread. I think any of us who have eaten our McDougall way in front of SAD eaters have heard similar comments. Though thankfully most people are far more polite than the stories that are posted here.

Earlier this summer my husband and I went out to dinner with friends at a place that had an amazing salad bar with fat free dressing. They also had a fat free vegan soup and baked potatoes. We were happy as there were plenty of choices for us which is not always the case when we go out with this couple.

We were eating and enjoying good conversation when the woman said to us, look, I don't wish to be rude but I have a question. She then said she had been watching us eat and she did not understand how we could eat so much food! She pointed out that I had had soup, two baked potatoes and that I was on my third huge plate of salad! And my husband was on his fourth. We pointed out that we were eating fat free vegetables and even though we were taking in a lot of food we were not overly full. the funny part was that I wanted another plate of salad but felt too self-conscious to go get it after her question.

This woman had loaned me a book that I did not think I would care for and I loved it. So when I returned her book I said you loaned me a book I would have not read on my own because you thought I would enjoy and I did, therefore I am going to loan you a book I think you will enjoy that you would not normally read. I loaned her The China Study. We went out with them last weekend and she told me that she has stopped using dairy. She has told me for years that she could NEVER ever give up drinking milk. Then the next day she called me to tell me that they had stopped at a sandwich stop and she had had a vegan sandwich (she asked them to leave off the cheese) and that it was wonderful! She said she had never had a sandwich from a shop that did not have both meat and cheese on it and she said it was so good she wanted to call me and tell me about it.

Sometimes I think that I/we don't make that much difference in a world full of poor eating habits, but there are times when I see that sometimes we do influence people in positive ways.

[Faith in DC]

Karen - it's a good idea to log sometimes I think. It's a good wake up call. I had mentioned a while back, that I do my Mcdougalling to weight watchers. For years as I mcdougalled, I'd either eat soo much starch and not enough fruit and veggies, or worse yet, eat way off plan, but then forget about it and pretend it didn't happen. So I needed a control on myself.

With Weight Watchers, to avoid the above, I used their flex point system. I told myself I could have whatever I wanted, just write it down. I haven't been 100% perfect, but my God how much I've become. So tracking does help me too. I do allow myself some weeks to try and mcdougall without tracking. But I continue to weigh in. This is part of my Training for Maintaining. I'm training myself to be a Healthy eating person. If I hadn't started WW I'd still be huge, calling myself a mcdougaller. Now I feel like I can look McDougall in the eye and be proud to say I follow his plan. The last time I saw and spoke with him I weighed 210lbs.

Lacey, that is excellent news. How about that. I would have not expected her to read it. Sounds like a keeper of a restaurant too.

[Nekkotronik]

I had a similar experience at a work party. A co-worker (who was also very drunk at the time) asked me very loudly, "Do you ALWAYS eat that much?"

I wanted to say to her, "Do you always DRINK that much?", but I didn't, I was too embarrassed at her comment and I didn't want to make her husband any more uncomfortable than he already was.

I've lost 30 lbs and she's still fat (and drunk, I hear).

Don't let others make you feel bad and if your friends don't stand up for you, they're not your friends. I'll stand up for any of you anytime!

[hope101]

Karen, I don't think people not speaking up and advocating for friends is unusual in any context. My husband loves reading about the Holocaust, particularly why normal people went along with atrocious activities without protest. He comments again and again about how easy it would be to create a similar situation because of group psychology.

I recall a time when I was a teenager waiting in a large bus shelter with a bunch of adults and two other adolescents. The hooligans started to wad up paper under the wooden benches, which we all watched with puzzlement. Then they took out a pack of matches and started to strike them. I looked at all the older, supposedly responsible people around me who just averted their eyes and it became obvious that none of them were going to say or do anything while a potentially dangerous crime was going to be committed under their nose. So I confronted the two kids who said they were just trying to get warm. When I told them they were producing enough hot air for the whole shelter that was it. They just turned and left the building. Not one of the 15 or so adults said a thing the whole time.

Lastly, there was an experiment a few years ago where people were brought in and asked to administer increasing doses of electric shock to people who were involved in learning tasks. The experiment was supposedly to determine if people learned better when they knew they would be shocked if they got the answers wrong. In reality, the learners were actors who never received a joule of electricity, and the experiment was to determine how far ordinary people would go in administering shocks just because someone in authority would gently ask them to. The vast majority would administer shocks marked as lethal! Only one person refused to participate after the "mild shock" category, and he was a minister. The supposition was that his years of training had prepared him to make the right decision about moral issues. Scary stuff.