This is completely random, but have I mentioned before my fear of buying food (especially unhealthy food) in public? It's true and sometimes its to my advantage and sometimes not, mostly when it comes to buying groceries.
I've been going grocery shopping on Wednesdays lately because I'm already in town and I figure its a good time to do it, but I'm already fearing going to the same grocery store I go to every week because I don't like being recognized. Have I also mentioned that I will almost (almost) never go through a drive through alone. I fear being seen as a cliche. I also do not like to eat alone in public, so I've eaten many meals in my car.
I developed this small fear, back when I still lived in Huntington WV (now known as the countries fattest city), when I would fast food hop. I would go from drive-through to drive-through ordering my favorite items. I didn't want to order that much food at one place so I would go to various places. Right down 5th ave you could get steak escape, Wendy's, McDonald's, dairy queen, burger king, captain d's and taco bell all within on one mile of each other. My favorite was captain d's a meal made up entirely of fried food: chicken strips, fries, hush puppies, fried fish with honey mustard and sweet and sour sauce with a large sweet tea. Its true.
Logically, I know no one is bothered with thinking about me ordering/buying food, its totally in my head, but it still lingers. I am happy though, that I don't drive-through hop anymore and have no desire to ever do that again, but I'd like to get over myself when it comes to my weekly grocery shopping.
Does anyone else feel self-conscious when shopping? I don't want to create paranoia where it doesn't already exist, just curious if other people out there have the same feelings.
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Thank you for the encouraging comments (and phone calls) regarding yesterdays post. I got on the scale again today (I know, I'm a junky) and its still. the. same. And I felt like I was doing a lot of whining and self-pity yesterday because I realize I can't eat so much food.
Sometimes I'm waiting for someone to give me permission to do this or that to lose weight. If a professional person said "you can eat what you want, and lose weight, but you have to exercise three hours a day" and I would do it. I don't know for how long-haha-, but I doubt with three hours of exercise I would even want to eat a lot. Why am I always waiting for someone else's advice to tell me how to lose weight?
It goes like this: I count calories, and get tired and lazy and half-assed with it. And then I think I should be more strict and eating less and losing more. And then I think I should do a lower carb diet where I don't have to count anything but carbs, but I hate the idea of that too. And then I think that I shouldn't count anything and be more intuitive with my eating and wonder how thin people keep track of stuff like that?
I often think: thin people eat less, and don't count calories, but they instinctively (it seems) know when to stop eating. (i should say, health-conscious thin people) Why don't I have that? And then I always go back to snapping out of it and just telling myself that this is my thing that I have to deal with and I have to work towards it and at it. Thin people have their things too.
And then today, I go right back to keeping a food journal and exercising, even if it sucks, but it doesn't have to. Its all about perspective, right?
Also, this post from Poppi Kramer (from the biggest loser) haunts me and has entered my consciousness since I read it many months ago. I know that this is very extreme (the exercise), and I can only imagine the comments I would get from posting this. Being honest, it has challenged me to think I should be eating better and less and exercising a lot more.
I often feel the same way when I go to fast food places, like how dare I deserve to eat? I also often feel so overwhelmed at the task at hand I dont know where to start, and when I dont see results in like a week I start plan hopping and thinking okay this isnt working what about low carb what about weight watchers what about slimfast like frantically grabbing at straws for a lifeline.
I feel the same way. Like last night, my husband was home sick and I went to the store to pick up ice cream and I was so embarrassed.
Sigh, if I lost a pound for everytime I felt self conscious ordering, shopping for or eating food I would be negative 130 lbs. I feel you gurl but I have to say that you gotta stop weighing yourself more than once a week,it only drives you crazy. You should pick the same day every week to weigh or better yet weighing once every month would be better.
If only we could weigh the fat loss and the muscle gain instead of overall pounds.
Keep on truckin’ girly because you are so worth it!
I found it really helpful to see a nutritionist. I had several appointments over several months. It was really freeing to let go of every diet fad I knew & put all my trust into a real professional who I could not doubt (and who I was accountable to).
All the best!!
xx
I sometimes feel self conscious when ordering at a fast food resturant or eating by myself, but not very often. I usually snuck food in my house. My mom would come home and half a value package of sandwich cookies would be gone and I would blame friends for eating all of them.
My hang up is teenage boys. I hate hate hate walking by a group of teenage boys because when I was in middle school I was teased by classmates and still have this fear that I will be made fun of again. Even though I have never heard a negative comment about my weight in years, for the longest time it took everything I had to walk past a group of teenagers.
me too, i feel so self conscious buying food– Or, now that I can fit into clothes at a “regular size” store, I still feel like the clerk or other people in the shop are thinking “she shouldn’t be here”. Sometimes I even ask for a gift receipt so that they think I’m buying for someone else.
It’s all in our heads, because at a size 10, I probably shouldn’t be thinking like this anymore, but I do.
Yes Kate, teenage boy groups are the worst.
keep up the good work/blogging!
Wow can I relate to this..
I did the drive thru thing for awhile.. I would go directly from a KFC to get a chicken sandwhich, to a Hardees for fried chicken fingers, and then to MaDs for a sundae,.. at these times I felt almost in a panic
I got into the habit of making a daily stop at a TCBY to get a “large cup of peanut butter delight ice cream” until one say I walked in there and the girl at the counter recognized me and knew immediately what I wanted… I never went back
I’ve felt exactly the same way. I no longer buy “bad-for-me” things, but when I did, I always felt incredibly self-conscious buying ice cream or pizza or what have you. I’m not sure if I still would, part of me thinks no. Now I struggle with going into stores like Nordstrom’s or into a store that doesn’t carry plus-size clothing. I can fit into the top end of their sizes, but I always feel like people must be thinking that I have no right to be there.
As to the other part of your post – I think thin people might be born with it or they weren’t resistant to learning it. I’m sure at some point in my life I knew what it felt like to be full or how to gauge a portion, but when I started losing weight, I really didn’t. The good news is that I think you can learn, it just takes a lot of practice.
I thought about this today too; how shame can be so easily equated with food and what we eat. I think somewhere along the line we learned that being “fat” made us morally inferior, therefore we have the need to hide what makes us fat: food. Or should it be unhealthy food. I never feel self conscious about ordering a large salad, although sometimes I wonder if people can read my mind and think “Oh My Gosh! That girl is just ordering a salad because she is fat and in public! But when she goes home she eats bad foods, why else would she be that big?”
It seems that the perception we have about what other people think about us, has more with how to we feel about ourselves, than what others think. We feel guilt and therefore expect that other people would want to shame us too, when I really don’t think people even care. Most of them are probably feeling guilty about eating those foods too.
And learning portion control, is just that. It’s learning. It takes practice, as mentioned above, and diligence. All behaviors can be learned, we’ve just got to learn how to think in a way that tells us we don’t need ALL that food. We can eat less and be okay.
You’re on the right track and are asking great questions that all of us ask ourselves during this process. =)
I know what you mean… even when I’m with friends I feel like I can’t get junk food- like I have to prove something about the way I eat.
Wow, I really didn’t know that other people had those same fears about being recognized. I don’t do the drive-thru thing but, I did go to gas stations a lot and I would drive around the block trying to get over my anxiety attack. I knew what I was going in for was not healthy and because I’m fat, I just knew that the people in there were looking at me and saying “what a fat pig”. So, more often than I’d like to admit, I’d send my kids in for me. How sick is that?? It’s good to know that I’m not alone.
Hi there, just want to say that I empathise with you about the feeling self conscious about buying unhealthy food. I feel like everyone is staring at me and judging, even though they could probably care less. I also don’t like to eat alone in public, and often eat lunch in my car! I should get over it, but I will never go into a fast food place by myself, (drive through however I will!)
I can totally relate. I absolutely cannot buy any kind of food from a gas station. I don’t like to CALL and order pizza, much less open the door. I actually prefer drive throughs so I don’t have to get out and can whisk through relatively quickly. The most psycho thing is that I would usually order 2-3 meals…drinks and all. Hoping that the drive through and/ or restaurant people would think that I was taking home food to the family. Is that crazy or what?!?!! Also, I’m amazed when I see people start eating at the window before they drive off. I could NEVER do that. I only feel nervous at the grocery store if I have ton of junk food…one or two things don’t usually bother me…unless there is a super attractive person in line and then I try to get the bad stuff in the bag first. I will also check out the cashiers for the one that I think will be the least judgemental. As if I can really tell! Oh gosh, I’m so glad that I’m on my path to weight loss and most of these don’t even apply to my life now.
I have done the ordering of a mighty kid’s meal and a meal for myself at McD’s when I had an ED. Very embarrasing to pretend you have a kid just to you can binge and purge. I am still over weight but have managed to come to stopping terms with food binging/purging, but I still eat crap. My big thing is I hate people looking at my food or commenting on it period. If I lunch at my desk and someone says it smells/looks good, I feel like I am being judged. We all have issues I guess.
you’re absolutely right about thin people having an intuition about how much they can or should eat… there was actually a study done on this with kindergartners where they gave them juice and cookies– they then measured the calories that were “left over” when the kids were done– those that drank more ate less– those that ate more drank less– and what was amazing is that it was all on an even keel in other words doesn’t matter if you drank or ate more– all kids ended up consuming the same calories.
What they then found is as people get older they learn to ignore the internal intuition that tells us we’ve had all the calories we need– this mainly comes from drinking sugary drinks with food and eating until we actually “feel” full. I find the whole thing incredibly fascinating. The main thing is that people who are overweight have turned off the trigger in the brain that tells you when to stop– so you have to retrain your body. They say how you do this is to listen really well to your body–eat slowly and the minute you feel like you’re no longer hungry stop eating/ drinking. They say you can reprogram your body and eventually just know when you’ve reached your limit.
Small World! I just started reading your blog and I live in Ashland. Funny coincidence.