Under The Influence of Saboteurs
It’s complicated. That’s all I have to say. And I will speak for myself, because I may just be a bit more nuts than the rest of you.
I had invested a lot of years in creating an extraordinarily unhelpful food history with most of my long time friends. For me, the fun has been the food. If we happened to do something else while eating, well that was just more fun, but secondary.
A side benefit I have enjoyed from deliberately addressing this preoccupation, by the way, is that I have learned to be more present to the people dynamics in social situations. I am more present to the friendships themselves. I once didn’t eat anything at a BBQ (having promised myself a really good burger later – a deliberate strategy) and I left there knowing what everyone’s kids were doing, where they were in college, how their jobs were going. I had never realized before that how much my preoccupation with the food – whether I was eating it or not, whether you saw me eating it or not, whether you would judge me if I had thirds, whether or not you had thirds, how I was to pay this back, and on and on and on….just how much that had removed me from the actual social experience. I have a nephew who forgets to finish his meal, so engaged is he in the social aspects of the gathering. Can you imagine?
So, in all fairness, I created most of the saboteurs in my life. I trained them to assume that I wanted to “be bad”. They learned. But, other than those folks, I have the fortune to be surrounded with support both in thought and deed.
But not so for everyone else. I have heard story after story of clients getting sabotaged by “friends” and family who know they are diligently, and sometimes desperately trying to change their lives and weight. Yet nonetheless they seem to deliberately set them up, or maybe just not care enough to forgo their own overeating plans. In all fairness, there are also those who truly “don’t get it”. You probably know who they are.
And, let’s face it, sometimes I am well aware of who this might be and I do nothing to save myself. I let the idea of the indulgence get a hold of me. I fantasize about the indulgence (romance the scone, so to speak), and then I can’t get myself to back off and accept the disappointment of not having it. It is important to know who these advertent or inadvertent saboteurs are if I have any intention of heading myself (and them) off at the pass. I can suggest a non-eating activity or a safe restaurant right from the start, from the initial conversation. If I don’t do this right away, chances are I am not planning to. Oh darn, they want to go for pizza. What a surprise.
Sometimes being “bad” together is how we bond, and I think that they are going to feel betrayed and sort of judged by my lack of participation in this tradition we have created. At least that is what I am afraid of. I’m guessing that this is particularly hard if this is one of the dynamics you have with your spouse. It is sort of like one of you getting sober. You just changed the rules of the game midstream.
I do have a bunch of options though. If I want to help myself at all, I may try to find a non-food activity to do with these friends. Or, I may bring something along to try to manipulate the food to be a little less disastrous. And, while creating other non-food traditions with good friends would likely serve me better in the long run, I always have the option of just going with the flow by banking my calories in advance. This would never work with anyone you live with or eat with all the time though. And, whatever conversation you do have about it might be best had out of context.
I have a client with a newborn. Both parents come from obese families and have a history of personal struggle with their weight. They want to change the family legacy for their kids. So they sat down an discussed this before their little boy was born. They agreed on a list of 10 food priorities/rules for their home (like how often they would eat red meat or eat out, what snacks they would keep in the house, that they would serve fruit for dessert, etc.), and posted it on the refrigerator. So far, so good.
Sometimes people who love you need you to tell them how they can support you. For example, asking me “if I should be eating this” isn’t one of them. Poor spouses. Sometimes there isn’t a right thing they can do or say. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Here are some of the creative ways I have heard that couples have found to support each other. One husband buys this wife the expensive fruit that she can’t justify. Another watches the kids so his wife can get to the gym. Another takes responsibility for getting rid of desserts when they entertain. One supportive wife keeps her junk food in the office or the trunk of her car. Another only bakes for company, gets it off the kitchen counter before he is home, packages it up and leaves it in the downstairs freezer.
Sometimes they truly mean it in the nicest possible way. They intend this gesture (like making you chicken and dumplings because they think you can use a treat given all the stress in your life) in the nicest possible way. They likely just don’t get it. Doesn’t everyone have at least one relative or friend like this?
They don’t get that a five pound block of expensive chocolate is not a gift. It is a curse. However, somewhere along the way they must have gotten the impression that you love chocolate and want them to bring it to you. Where did they get this idea? Do you want them to keep doing it? Can you find another way to manage it besides eating (wearing) it or asking them not to bring it? Is there something else they could bring you? Can you re-gift it? Are you even willing to once you have it in your hot little hands? That is the real question, right? There are lots of choices, but I have to know where along the continuum I am still willing to make them. Nose to nose with the chocolate is usually too late for me
Sometimes people sabotage you with an unintentional (?) back handed compliment. You can see the blood, but not the knife. “Oh, you’ve lost weight!…again,” they say. I personally often won’t say anything to someone who has clearly lost weight because I don’t want them to think I am watching them. Once I have acknowledged to you that I am noticing, I am stuck. What will I say if you gain it back? Do I become oddly silent? Or maybe they don’t comment because they struggle with their weight too and don’t want to draw attention to it. Or maybe your loss makes them feel guilty about their own weight. Sometimes their lack of comment has nothing whatsoever to do with you.
My advisor at college really put her foot in her mouth and felt just terrible about it when she gently asked me if perhaps I was pregnant(?). I don’t know which was worse, her thinking I was pregnant at eighteen in 1976 or the fact that I had gained forty pounds in one semester. It got to be really challenging to avoid everyone and everyplace anyone had ever seen me thin once I wasn’t anymore.
I occasionally run into a former client who has put weight back on and I go out of my way to avoid them, so uncomfortable am I with putting them on the spot, making them feel like they have to explain. Maybe they wouldn’t feel that way, but when that was me, that was how I felt. And if you didn’t say anything, that was equally uncomfortable. I bet that these are some of the reasons why we don’t always get the compliments we think we deserve.
In fact, I have a number of clients who feel that they are not entitled to enlist the support of friends and family precisely for this reason. They have gained weight back several times and they feel stupid asking for support from others when they clearly pull the rug out from under themselves over and over. How can I ask you not to keep potato chips in the house when you see my candy wrappers in the trash?
So what’s my point?
Most of us has at least some people who love us and truly want to help – but it is our responsibility to let them know how. Sometimes they just don’t what we need. Tell them.
Sometimes I am on my own to set up the situation for my success…perhaps in the face of an intentional saboteur.
And sometimes my worst saboteur is me.
There is a solution though – using my history to be aware of situations long before I find myself in them…and doing something about it. As always, I may not have control over whether or not I have an issue with food, but I certainly have control over whether I do something about it. The sooner I can get a hold of and act from my best self (before my I-don’t-care-self gets her hands on me) the better.
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