It’s interesting to me how fascinated people are with what I eat. They just cannot help themselves from making comments. For example, if I decide that I am going to eat something clean, whether I’m at a party or at a restaurant, I often get comments encouraging me to “live a little” or about how one meal won’t kill me. On the flipside, should I decide to indulge, it is then made into a big thing that I am actually eating unhealthy food. Luckily, I am extremely secure with my food choices and neither of these situations really bother me. I am going to eat whatever food I decide to eat in the moment and I refuse to let someone else’s opinions bear any weight on that choice. When people say things to me, it says a whole lot more about them than it does about me.
Here is a perfect example showing this. A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a family friend. This friend knows how much I love health and fitness, and how I typically eat well. That day, I decided that I was going to get a panini for lunch. It sounded delicious on the menu- buffalo chicken, so much cheese. It was going to hit the spot that day. I was also going to get it with a side of fries. My friend shared that she was going to get a salad and then asked what I was getting. “A panini, “ I replied. Well, you would have thought I shared that I was getting divorced with the way she reacted. Leaning over the table, incredulously commenting, “You’re being bad?!” I sighed and said that I don’t call it that, and that I was just ordering what I wanted to eat. She then changed her order to a sandwich & fries and proceeded to make comments throughout the meal about how I was putting extra salt on my fries and about how I had eaten my entire meal (fun fact: I ate a huge portion of Brian’s fries too 😂).
Although it was definitely annoying to have someone closely watching me eat, it didn’t leave me feeling insecure about my food choices. I still enjoyed every single bit of my meal. What stuck with me about this outing was how insecure this family friend obviously was about her own eating, and how messed up her thinking was on food in general.
A main problem here has to do with categorizing food as either “good” or “bad”. This is a very common thing that people do. Over time, doing this can result in a very unhealthy relationship with food. Each time you choose to eat “bad”, you end up subconsciously feeling guilty about it. Your brain has been trained to see this food choice as wrong. You are making a mistake by eating it and should, therefore, feel bad about it. This results in insecure comments about how you don’t normally eat like this and about how you know you shouldn’t be choosing this. It also results in you not even fully enjoying the food because you’re so caught up in how you “shouldn’t” be eating it. Over time, you end up like my family friend- constantly thinking about and talking about good foods versus bad foods. Constantly noticing and pointing out others’ food choices.
After deciding to order a sandwich, here’s what I did NOT do- I didn’t go on about how I was “cheating”. I didn’t make a big deal about how I don’t normally eat like this. I didn’t lament about how I should get a salad but instead am getting a panini. I didn’t draw a single ounce of attention to this. Food is meant to be enjoyed. Now, do I eat sandwiches and fries on a daily basis? No, I do not. But when I do, I certainly don’t chastise myself throughout the meal. I enjoy it and I move on with my day. At this point in my life, I did not care what anyone else at that table thought about what I was ordering. I did not feel the need to let them know that this was out of the norm for me. In fact, let them think that. Let them think that I eat like this ALL of the time. Their thoughts and opinions about what I eat do not matter. I know myself and I am secure with my choices.
This leads me to the other problem I noticed that day. My family friend was being a chameleon- changing herself based on those around her. In this situation, choosing her lunch based on me. Too many times in life we let other people dictate our decisions. It is time to start letting that go. And the way to do it is to seize every small opportunity that presents itself to us. A situation as seemingly meaningless as what we order at lunch could be a huge step in the right direction. Be you. Not the you that is determined by the crowd you’re surrounded by. What eventually happens is your brain lets go of a lot of clutter. Our fear of other people's opinion is just that: clutter. Learning to let that go frees up space to focus more on all of the great things in our lives. Take a step in the right direction today and have confidence in your decisions. Start letting that clutter go, one small, confident decision at a time.