Food, Glorious Food

                There’s a scene I see being replayed daily at the Starbucks I work in (with some minor variations). A woman comes up to order her skinny latte and asks me several times “That’s nonfat, right? The syrup is sugar free? I just can’t have the calories. You used nonfat right?” Once in a while I will go on autopilot or the nonfat isn’t marked on the cup and the drink is made with 2% milk. When asked if they want me to remake it, I hear, “Yes. I can’t have all that fat.” Or a woman will come up and stare longingly at the pastry case and sigh as she tells me, “It all looks so good but I just can’t have anything in there.” I always feel bad for these women who feel they can’t have something. And yes, 99% of the time it’s women. What have we done to ourselves that we feel forced to drink skinny drinks and refuse pastries rather than feeling that it’s a choice we make?

                I feel that this is the point in the blog where I should make a disclaimer, in case you don’t know me. To most of society I “don’t have the right” to make any comments on drinking skinny lattes or indulging in a pastry because I’m a skinny girl. Always have been, and based on the build of my mother and maternal grandmother, always will be. I have been blessed with good genes that entitle me to be considered petite and to be able to “eat whatever I want” and not be worried about gaining extra weight. Trust me, I am 100% aware of all of this. But I choose when to eat that chocolate croissant for breakfast and when to eat a yogurt instead. I choose when to have a Frappuccino and when to have a pumpkin spice latte without the whipped cream. And I guess I’m lucky that in a lot of my food choices I choose better for me choices. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel guilty when I make the bad choices. I’ve just decided to choose to own my choice and make a better one next time.

                But let me go back to my statement that I feel bad for those women who say they can’t have something. Food is supposed to make us happy. Food makes me happy. I get hangry when I don’t eat, as I’m sure many of my coworkers and guests could tell you. But if we feel forced to eat something then no wonder we don’t want to continue eating it. No wonder diets fail. It seems like we’re told that we should or shouldn’t eat something because then we’ll be skinny and people will like us. Trust me, as a skinny girl, that is definitely not true. There are plenty of people who don’t like me, no matter what size I am. Being skinny doesn’t mean I get the guy at the end of the movie. There are plenty of “fat” (I use society’s term, not mine) women who I see every day with husbands and kids. I have no boyfriend, haven’t for over two years now, and I live alone with my two cats. So if you are obsessing over making sure your latte is skinny in this delusion that somehow you will have a better life because you’ll be a certain size, listen to me when I say that it just isn’t true.

                So anyway, I look at these women and I feel sorry for them because I feel like their choices have been taken from them. Now, this is not to say that we should all feel free to eat whatever and whenever we want. That isn’t healthy. And I guess maybe that’s the key word for me: healthy. Yes, there’s a lot of crap out there that we should not put in our bodies. Now that I am firmly in my mid-thirties (hello recent 36^th birthday!) I am making much more of an effort to eat better. I’ve recently taken on a thattagurl.com challenge (a website that I absolutely love started by one of my fave soap actresses Kelly Sullivan—seriously, go check it out) to cut back on sugar. I am not ready to remove it completely, but I’m trying to be more aware of what’s going in my body. I’m eating more organic. I’m trying to stay away from Reese’s, although who am I to refuse the Reese’s pumpkins? They’re just so cute! I know I have a long way to go before the food choices I make are where they should be. But I never want to be the one denying myself an occasional Washington Apple Pound Cake at Starbucks or freaking out if I forget to tell my co-barista not to put the whipped cream on my drink. (Seriously, you would be surprised how many people insist you scrape it off if you accidentally put it on there.) I don’t want to look over at someone else’s lunch in the break room and say “I wish I could have that.” Believe me, I am guilty of saying “I shouldn’t” when faced with an unhealthy food choice. I am not preaching from a pedestal here. But I want to change my wording to “I’m not going to have that today.” I want to make the choice for me and my health. Isn’t that really what it should be about: our health? Our happiness with ourselves?