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 

What to Do When You're Married to Mr Bagel

 

It was October 29^th, the day of the weirdly early snowstorm in NYC, my Blackberry buzzed indicating an email. The email was from a client but not just any client; this client was supremely driven to look fierce at her upcoming birthday bash. Our whittling work started months ago and momentum has been steadily building toward the 11-11-11 party date. We’ll nickname her B (for birthday). B has been mentally filed in my unstoppable category.  The email read, “I ended my run on 59th Street which just so happens to be the site of my husband's office.  Since he's slammed with work, I bought some coffee and surprised him.  While there, he offered me half a bagel."

My heart skipped a beat but it turns out that B resisted the bagel and reminded her man of her birthday plan. I congratulated B on her snowy run and bagel resistance. I then asked, “what are we going to do about Mr. Bagel?” She replied:

Mr. Bagel is 6'1" and has weighed within the same 5 lb. range for at least 20 years. What do you do when you're married to a handsome, rail thin man with the metabolism of a 25 year old who can eat whatever he wants?  It's like I'm married to the male version of Heidi Klum.  (And isn't it nice that I think of him that way?) To be fair to Mr. Bagel, he does do many things right.  He just can indulge when he wants without consequence.  Me, not so much.

I told B I could relate. My husband’s version of being good is skipping the second beer or the kids’ cookies. A few days of this sham stringency and I have to listen to “I feel really good.” Most men are metabolically superior to women and somehow our lack of noticeable nose hair or gender-based chance at a couple of extra years doesn’t seem like a fair trade. My advice:

• Remind Mr. Bagel  (all “misters” are forgetful) that love isn’t expressed in carbs but with green juice, salmon and calorie free jewelry. I have learned, the hard way, that men sometimes need the ground rules spelled out.

• Another tactic that works is to appeal to aesthetics. “Eating bagels may work for you but giving me a bagel is essentially giving me a muffin top.” It’s then his choice of a fierce of flabby wife. 

• For some men, a scientific explanation can be effective. Men like knowing how things work. “A bagel is equivalent to 6 pieces of white bread which breaks down to sugar which in high amounts predisposes you to diabetes and heart disease.” A little exaggeration never hurts. We’re women after all, right?

• And while I’m not suggesting this before Friday, sometimes it’s good to keep Mr. Bagel sated and surprised (and I’m not talking about that) so in rare circumstances I do suggest having the crappy bagel. It’s all about trade offs and in my experience that buys you about five healthy fish and vegetable meals.

B, I would be happy your Mr. Bagel is the male Heidi Klum and that “you feel that way”.  Other Mr. Bagel’s look this this.

Have a happy birthday and a great party.  You’ve worked hard and it shows and you can probably guess what I’m getting you for your birthday…

Do you have a Mr. Bagel in your life? It can be a friend, family member or coworker. How do you silence a saboteur? How do you manage food or metabolic differences in your relationship? Ever run in a snowstorm?