1.08.2008

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Tonight I went to Panera bread with some of my coworkers. We went to meet up with another woman we work with who has been on leave because she had gastric bypass surgery. Soon the conversation turned to nutrition, portions, sugar-free, carb-free, protein talk. There were stories about times that one of us had eaten an entire half gallon of ice cream or an entire pizza. We talked about weight watchers, nutrisystem, atkins diet, and everything in between.

Boys would never sit around talking about eating and weight unless they were discussing moving into the next boxing weight division. We women are funny with our histories of closet eating, emotional eating, cabbage soup binging, whatever it is... someone's done it. One of the ladies was talking about a special that Oprah did on people who had the gastric bypass surgery done and lost a lot of weight. Then they become alcoholics or prostitutes or addicts of some kind because they never dealt with the reasons they ate, the voids and pain they sought to fill or numb. My coworker seems to be doing well and was talking about her new mindset of eating to live and not the other way around.

It seems like almost every woman I know has had some type of food/weight/body image issue. Sometimes it's overeating or being obsessively restrictive. Sometimes it's obesity and sometimes its just moving on from an unrealistic size 0. I hope we're overcomers- who enjoy food but aren't slaves to food. Who eat foods that give us energy and make us feel good. Who don't compare ourselves to airbrushed heroinchic models. Freedom...

5 comments:

Lora said...

Aren't friends great! Boys would never talk period, unless it was about the latest sporting event.

Olson Family said...

well-said. that should be published.

Obsessive Foodie or Food Addict....You Decide said...

Good post, although if I just had gastric.......Panera is the last place I would be visiting.

freakface said...

Just a note from a guy's perspective - it's no different on the other side of the fence. I think, though, that it just takes us a bit longer to get there and in general we're more attack-and-destroy about it.

Personally I have a goal of losing one pound per week until a certain golf tournament this Summer. The question is - what do I do to keep it off afterwards? Losing is easy. Maintaining...not so much. M&M's are too yummy.

Anonymous said...

I just love that picture! And for the record gal pals are a must! Can't imagine not having them.