Office Offender- meet Cookie Push

It’s hard enough to walk the healthy walk with our own “stuff”. Our sleep, work stress, family life, hormones and cravings are obstacles on any given day. But so are other people and sometimes it’s not even the people closest to you. We spend a lot of time at work and coworkers can affect your behavior. In the Little Book of Thin I talked about the candy bowl person.  There’s usually one candy bowl person per workplace but there’s another type of office offender.

A few weeks ago, I opened the door from my office to our waiting room. A client* sat on the white couch with an It’s Sugar shopping bag next to her. She noticed that I noticed and said, “It’s not for me” and stood to come into my office.  I had to ask, “So who is it for?” “It’s for someone at work, she loves Reese’s” my client said and proceeded to pull out a package of peanut butter cups the size of a shoebox (a shoebox lid). We joked a little, she told me to take a photo for Instagram (I passed not knowing it would help this post) and switched gears.

This past Wednesday, I saw this same client again. I could tell she was aggravated from the instant I saw her. Before the two of us could sit down she started spewing details from her week. After a two-second intro she said, “and there’s this evil bitch in my office who bakes” I nodded. “And she doesn’t even eat what she bakes, she actually bakes things she dislikes.” This is actually fairly common but my client wasn’t finished and I could tell there needed to be gushing before guidance. “I come to Foodtrainers, another guy has his nutritionist, my boss is attempting paleo and the person next to me is gluten-fucking-free for real, like celiac. None of us want to eat this.”  For the record, gluten fucking free is a direct quote.

The candy bowl person mentioned generally doesn’t eat the candy but Candy Bowl and Cookie Push are a little bit different. The candy bowl person generally enjoys people congregating near them, they exchange Werthers or Starbursts for office Intel. I realize you may feel I’m being cynical, couldn’t it be Cookie Push has pure intentions and my trying to walk the healthy walk client is misinterpreting things?

If I’m betting…no. I do not know Cookie Push personally. However, it’s very common in eating disorders to constantly bake (for some reason it’s baking more than cooking) for others. Cookie Push likely enjoys the feeling of control in resisting the cookies while others indulge. This is very different form someone sending a popcorn tin for the holidays or putting a sweet in the break room once in a while.

What to do? You can unionize, rather than making things personal, ban together with the other office mates and thank Cookie Push for the goodies but say something to the effect of “it’s January and we’re trying to be healthy and we don’t have the resolve you have” wink, wink. Or, suggest “if you want to bring something in maybe something that’s not edible like office flowers or if it is food possibly something healthy.” Cookie Push will get the message. Or, you can do what my client did and fight flour with flour, the ginormo Reeses were for Cookie Push.

Do you agree with my assessment of Cooking Push? What would you do? Do you have a Candy Bowl or Cookie Push at work?

 *I received permission from my client to blog about this 

When healthy eating is no longer healthy

Perhaps you’ve heard of Jordan Younger, she’s a blogger known as “The Balanced Blonde” (formerly known as the Blonde Vegan). Jordan built a massive following when she turned vegan and detailed her vegan creations on her blog. She made national headlines when she made the decision to shift from veganism (zero animal products) to incorporate fish and eggs in her diet. If you are puzzled why that’s national news, it wasn’t because the vegan community berated her for defecting (she claims to have received death threats). Rather, Jordan’s story brought an eating disorder called orthorexia into the spotlight.

Orthorexia, and this is my definition not any official one, is when the focus on healthy eating becomes obsessive. This obsession can have deleterious health consequences.  We’re hearing more about orthorexia, a client sent this Refinery29 story to me. The author writes:

Health was an easy way to hide my eating disorder because it was so culturally on-trend. Weight obsession seemed vain, but my addiction to green juice, superfoods and all things gluten-free made me feel like a member at an exclusive club.

 A question, posed on Foodtrainers' Facebook page, asked where the line is when healthy eating becomes disordered?  I would say it’s when healthy eating dominates your thoughts and begins to affect relationships, work or other responsibilities, and your health. Are you fearful of social gatherings or plans that involve food? Does this make you turn them down? Are you constantly tired? Missing periods?  And as much as orthorexia is defined as a disordered focus on health, let’s be clear there is almost always a weight component.

I purchased Jordan’s book Breaking Vegan. It’s certainly a cautionary tale that explicitly depicts the progression of an eating disorder. It’s brave to tell this story in such detail. However, in the same chapters where Jordan writes of having no color in her face, purging and “starvation methods” she was selling cleanses and advising others how to cleanse. I was horrified as I read this. If we give Jordan the benefit of the doubt, one could say she didn’t know the depths of her disorder at the time. How about her recently released book? I can’t comprehend how someone with such a tenuous relationship with food can highlight “eating plan and recipes” on her book cover.  I’m not sure she should be in the healthy food business in the same way a gambling addict probably shouldn’t work in a casino.

As you read the book (I read ¾ of it), you see that Jordan’s unraveling was complicated. Part of her spiral had to do with the eating disorder and the other part was substituting virtual attention and relationships for real ones. As Jordan’s health slipped she was boosted by online attention and praise. I’m so happy her relationship with food and health has improved. Anyone who turns his or her life around deserves praise. But, as nutrition professional, I do worry where we get our food advice. I also worry that Internet fame and all its trappings might be the next disorder.

Had you heard about this story? Do you think many people have “orthorexic” tendencies? Do you think someone in the depths of an eating disorder should dole out dietary advice? 

Should you think about food all the time?

Last week a client came in for her first follow-up session. She recapped her week and said, “I feel like I’m thinking about food all the time, should I be?” I have to say I hear this a lot. I dug a little and a lot of this client’s food thoughts were of the planning variety. She also had a little insecurity over whether she was doing all of this right. I reassured this client. “You’re learning a new language and it’s not second nature yet. Of course it’s taking up mind time.” And then the follow up “not to worry, over time I don’t want you thinking about food 24/7 but some degree of forethought is always good.”

Not all food thoughts are created equal.

I was sent this link about a disorder called Orthorexia. This article questions this diagnosis as being anti healthy, conscious eating. I feel differently. It’s one thing to vet the foods you put into your body. It’s another if situations where you cannot control food choices are completely avoided or if food concerns outweigh food pleasure. It’s a fine line. Even some of the criteria for orthorexia sound a lot like things I recommend…planning your food day etc. My advice is that the more on top of healthy eating you are, the less you should be thinking about food. I tend to think the most destructive food thoughts are when food is off.  I’d take deliberation over guilt any day. Only you know if your food thoughts are bringing you sanity or stress.

Would you say you think about food a lot? Are these thoughts generally positive or negative? What’s your feeling on the disorder orthorexia?

Lady Gaga's Weight Gain, More to it Than Lasagna

Photo via Radar Online

Lady Gaga has gained some weight. In a recent radio interview she estimated it was about 25 pounds. She didn’t have to comment on it but she did. She said her parents recently opened a restaurant and her father wants her to eat there. Gaga went on to say she loves pizza and pasta and every time she goes there she gains 5 pounds (what a plug for “Joanne Trattoria” which happens to be on the Upper West Side).  She has no issue with her fuller figure saying “I really don’t feel bad about it, not even for a second”. Sounds good right? She loves to eat, supports her parent’s business and isn’t bothered by putting on a few, or twenty-something, pounds.

Is this the same person who tweeted about doing back-to-back spin classes with hashtag #popsingersdonteat? In the radio segment she mentioned that she  constantly has to be on such a strict diet  and she’s trying to find some sort of balance. Let’s be clear, this isn’t the case of a celebrity gaining 3 pounds and media blowing it out of proportion. This weight gain seems to have happened in a couple of months (for the record Joanne’s has been opened for over a year), so it’s been quick, and strikes me as sad coming from the “born this way” singer whose lyrics advise us “just love yourself and you’re set.”

Gaga has been open about her love for booze and recently lit a joint on stage at a show in Amsterdam. She also has a history of bulimia. At a conference in California she opened up about this “I threw up all the time in high school. I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night. I used to come home and say, ‘Dad, why do you always give us this food? I need to be thin.” So this struggle is not new.

Lady Gaga has started an anti-bullying foundation and my guess is that she wants to put a brave face forward about this. So although when I asked a friend about the food at Joanne’s and she said, “it’s not Foodtrainers-friendly” I wouldn’t chalk all of this up to calamari. I am a lady gaga fan, it’s ironic to think that someone who seemed the epitome of marching to the beat of her own drum (or piano) is a little beaten down by expectations when it comes to weight.

When celebrities open up about their weight does it invite more commentary? Do you buy Gaga's explanation about her father's restaurant? Do you think it strange that both as a child and adult she blames her dad for her weight?