women and food.

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:02 pm

What is it with women and food?

I was told to lose another 30 lbs or so to take further load off my knees. So I have been eating very healthfully and nutritiously. My wife would also like to lose about the same weight and one daughter is quite proud of herself for doing the same. The other has no need to lose any weight at all.

I'm easy to cook for. My idea of a good meal is some fruit chopped up in some yogurt with a few nuts, or some vegies with rice or pasta. if I eat beef or salmon or tuna I don't like it cooked at all although I realize others feel differently. My idea of a nice meal for friends is a plate of fresh vegies, fresh fruit, a bowl of olives and some fresh bread and a little cheese. Notice there's no cooking involved....Or I'll cook up some rice and beans.

So why does my wife feel she needs to keep bringing home cookies as a treat for us? Why do we have to have take out pizza so much?

Half the time at dinner now I make my own meal in order to eat with the family. That's fine. My real gripe is why does any social occaision need an over abundance of food, complete with large amount of cheese and lots of dessert? When guys get together we don't feel compelled to fatten each other up.

We tell our kids all the time that you can have a good time without drugs. Why can't grown women have a good time without food? I've talked to other women about this and they flat out say you can't have a party without a lot of food.

As you can tell I'm irritated. The family just went off to a church dinner that I am avoiding because I just know if I go I'll eat all the dessert. I keep telling myself that every 15 lbs I lose is supposed to mean a 50% reduction in knee pain and presumably postpone another surgery but put a chocolate cake in front of me and I forget. To me the obvious answer is to avoid the chocolate cake. Why can't other people seem to understand this?

Trying to lose weight has had a far bigger impact on my social life than getting clean and sober ever did, at least in terms of me feeling isolated because of the situations I wind up needing to avoid.

Absaroka

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:12 pm

For many people in the US and in other countries, being social and hospitable is associated with food, and celebrations alway have food as a central part of the festivities. In some cultures, to not eat with a host is a deadly insult. And it will usually be food they like that they want to share. My family has always been like that, which made it a bit hard for my sis and I when we needed to mostly eliminate sugar in our diets. Since I live alone, I do better than she does, but she cooks for 4-6 people most of the time who do not have our problem (yet), so she cooks what they want to eat, though she has made most things more healthy. So I do understand your lament, but its cultural, especially for anyone who grew up with people who lived through the Great Depression (most of us I guess).

Hang in there. I had to recognize that for me, sugar was a slow poison that could end my life painfully and early. That helped.

Love, Carolynn

Terri(SO) · Post by **Terri(SO)** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:05 am

As a a woman who is also trying to lose weight, I agree with you Absaroka! I'm doing Weight Watchers at work and couple of big things I've learned is about controlling the environment and keeping trigger foods out of it. Chocolate cake is obviously one of yours, if its there you are going to eat it in excess. Me? its only the frosting that triggers the binge, the cake doesn't matter.
I agree with you that the world demands food at every social event, even work meetings. Woman have always been the ones responsible for making everything nice - my boss is a man who says we should have the treats for a meeting but its the women who fulfull that wish so its their fault that the cookies are on the table.
Hang in there! By the way, if its any consolation, you are likely going to lose more weight faster than a woman following the exact same regimen. That ticks me off!

Violet · Post by **Violet** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:36 pm

The images promoted by our culture:
Food = Love
Good food = Good mother, Good wife, Good hostess, Good woman
Giving food, especially dessert or something 'tasty' like pizza = demonstrating that you care
If you fail to provide good (delicious, abundant, healthy but only for some people) food, you have failed in your duty as a good mother/wife/hostess/woman.
This is reinforced EVERYWHERE from our homes and families, to schools, to churches, to the media. We no longer believe that 'the woman belongs in the kitchen' but we still associate food with womanliness and caring.
Note this is beginning to apply to men also, esp. as in their relations to women. Some of my friends have a saying (don't know where it came from): 'let a man start cooking for you, and you'll never get rid of him'.

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:23 am

I think what irritates me so much is the whole food/drug thing. We spend all this time telling our kids they can have fun without drugs. But bring up to an adult that you can have fun without food and they act like you're from Mars. As far as I can see it's just socially acceptable substance abuse. Sure noone steals little old ladies pocketbooks to buy chocolate cake, noone gets the virus from sharing a knife and fork, no one beats or rapes family members because theywere under the influence of ice cream, but as a nation we are doing a good job of eating ourselves to death.

I remind myself that peanut butter and chocolate cake are the work of the devil

but still I get tired of the social exclusion involved in avoiding trigger foods.

Absaroka

Caith · Post by **Caith** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:54 pm

Absaroka, I grew up in a family where aunts, uncles, cousins, even great grandparents all gathered on Sundays every two or three weeks for a huge family feast. Grandpa would cook roasts, stews, and vegetables for the winter events, and barbecue beef and chicken outside during the summer. It was a great reason for the whole family to come together, even if there was no particular event. Of course, that was fifty years ago, and times have certainly changed. Families don't get together nearly as often, but people still cherish the positive feelings of gathering and sharing. Unfortunately, many people don't understand that sharing food means offering rather than pushing or forcing. It's a rather inconsiderate action after you've politely declined, but some people just don't understand and refuse to take no for an answer. I think that's when a rather firm (if somewhat direct) expression of "I said 'NO'" is perfectly appropriate. Just my two cents worth.

Virginia · Post by **Virginia** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:19 pm

I will not be taken to the wood shed! I will not be taken to the wood shed! I will not be taken to the wood shed!

Go to any mall on any Saturday afternoon and look around!

Virginia

Rony · Post by **Rony** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:27 pm

Virginia
Hang in there, "Will not go to wood shed"
facts are facts

Rony

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:09 pm

Virginia I could not agree with you more.

Rony the problem is not that people won't take no for an answer. The problem is that I have trouble saying no to some things. This means that in order to avoid things I have trouble saying no to I wind up avoiding a great many social situations because so many people seem to think that if they don't have a whole lot of food available then they have failed as hostesses. In particular my wife seems to think that if we invite people over that we should be offering them a whole lot of food that I would rather not be in the prescence of. We have compromised on the question of can we be good hosts by not offering stuff like chips, cheese, ice cream and the like by not inviting people over except for a few of my close friends who she is not worried about offending. By the way since they are my close friends they understand how my warped mind works and either are fine with this or are happy to sit around eating fruits and vegetables.

My wife is the sort of woman who will reward our daughters for eating healthily by bying them cookies because she wants cookies and tries to disguise this by pretending she is being generous. Last time I got really mad and told her to go scarf them down in her car in an unlit parking lot as soon as she copped at the bakery. That went over poorly.........

Absaroka

Denise Douglas · Post by **Denise Douglas** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:13 pm

I can undestand your frustration, I went through similar frustrations dealing with alcohol/abused substances, it can be very frustrating. My wife decided she needed to lose some excess weight and I was very suportive of this, we went on a modified Atkins diet and she lost over forty pounds. I didn't need to lose any weight, but the diet was not hard for me to deal with, it just meant that we cut out a lot of carbs in our meals (pasta, potatoes, rolls, etc.), I stopped eating chocolate at home to avoid tempting her, often had pizza for lunch away from home to satisfy my carb cravings. Actually I ended up losing a couple of pounds in the gut area that did need to go, so it was beneficial for me, she has kept the weight off for over two years now and we actually like the lower carb diet better. I hope you can work through this issue, I'll keep you in my thoughts.
Denise