Foodies, Food Costs and Body Shamers

Our St Patrick's Day buffet here at my independent living community was both traditional and amazingly good. I say that as someone who doesn't particularly like Irish food. It included stew, of course, corn beef, cabbage, soda bread, a chocolate concoction with Bailey's liqueur and doctored-up mashed potatoes that were so  good I wish I could have stuffed them in a pillow case and snacked on them through out the night. Unfortunately, during and after that meal I drank so much water that I literally made 14 trips to the bathroom between midnight and eight AM. 354 steps according to my fitness watch. Twenty-five steps per around trip. I did the math.

 My CCC gives us a $320 food allowance that we can spend any way we want between their fine dining room and their lunch cafe or snack case. We can even invite outsiders to eat with us and blow the whole amount in one for two sittings. The amount hasn't changed since they opened in October of '21 although the price of their meals has. For example their nightly specials are up to $14.70 (yes, 70 not 75) from $10.75. That only covers a meat and a starch and it's $5.00 extra if you want a vegetable, salad or other side order. Their meals not on special are around $17 for salads on steroids or salmon, $21 for a steak plus the sides are separate. Soup used to be $4.00 a cup at noontime but is now $5.00. Noon specials are $12.95 for mostly sandwiches and fries or chips. If you're careful---which I am---I can eat one meal a day six days a week, and make my allowance last the entire month…until there's a holiday buffet in the month which are $25 to $30 and always well worth it. Others here with families who take them out to eat often have money left over at the end of the month and since it doesn't roll over they look for friends to buy their meal for them. I have benefited from their generosity when a holiday buffet is in the month and I run short. No on wants to leave money on the table for the management.

The lunch special this week was waffles with strawberries and cream, which I lust after (but never order) every time it comes around. If I had ordered them I would have had to do in front of The Body Shamers. One in particular loves to point out how much sugar or white flour is in whatever I'm eating. I've rarely see her eat anything but giant salads or shrimp. Another woman I frequently have lunch with takes a more subtle approach, telling me that she couldn't eat that omelette or grilled cheese sandwich on my plate without gaining weight. 

I'm the second heaviest person living here and I know how they talk about the other fatty behind his back. "He takes too much bread." "He always orders extra sauce and gravy." "He struggles to walk but doesn't use the gym to help control his weight." "He cooks at home, too." "He gets lots of food delivered."

I never raid the table after everyone leaves to round up the bread left over in the baskets like Mister Fatty up above does. But I understand his obsession with doing so. Some of their breads are to-die for and half the women here don't eat carbs so it goes in the trash. I try never to sit next to him at the community farm table because all he talks about is his gourmet cooking which glazes my eyes over. There are two of us here who claim a life time of not having an interest in cooking so we joke about putting space between this guy and us. Grabbing a random seat at a table for 12 or 14 is an exercise in diplomacy. I don’t want to sit near The Body Shamer-in-Chief either or the woman who complains about everything she puts in her mouth. Don't get me wrong, I love the community tables because you can sit back and listen and they are a source of endless amusement with everyone's personal foibles on display and their past histories that get revealed. 

Just yesterday I learned that The Body Shamer-in-Chief used to be 80 pounds overweight before giving up sugar and white flour. Took her a year and a half and she claims that didn't involve any additional exercise. That fact put a whole new spin on her pointing out how much sugar and carbs I consume with my food choices. Maybe she's trying to help? Maybe she thinks a person in her eights doesn’t already know about the cause and effect of food choices? How I need more salads in my diet? When she's not eating salads she's drinking Champaign with a shrimp cocktail so I've taken to asking her if she knows that shrimp are bottom feeders who eat the poop of other sea creatures. It’s a childish tit-for-tat but her being a former principal of a grade school I'm sure she knows that. She's a take charge kind of woman who I really do like but someday I'd like to wrestle her to the floor and force-feed her donuts until she goes into a sugar coma.

Today I did something I haven't done since I was in my teens. I made waffles. A year ago one of the Skinny Minnie twins was selling brand new, Weight Watcher waffles makers for $5.00. I snapped one up for two reasons: 1) I love waffles and 2) I was/still am trying to grow a friendship with her. She, too, was a former fatty-fatty-two-by-four and has been going to Weight Watchers for over 40 years. The box of batter mix I bought back then I got the waffle maker was about to expire so I spent my Sunday morning mixing and baking and cleaning up and the waffles turned out perfect. It was a lot of work but I ended up with enough to freeze and pop in the toaster later. I have a half of box of mix left and will do it again when I can buy some fresh strawberries and cream to top off the waffles. Eating them at home without hearing a choir of comments about how sweet they are or how long someone would have to walk to burn off the calories will be my dirty little secret. 

Eating at community tables seems to bring out the food critics in all of us as we watch each other do things like pick all the onions, olives or candied nuts out of salads, or count the snap peas on our plates. Mr. Fatty is a pea counter and complains if he didn't get as many as someone else at which point someone will often share their peas with him. We all have our food foibles. I hate the rabbit-like eaters the most who leave half their meals behind while I am a member of the Clean Plate Club. I guess their moms never told them about all the starving children over seas. It's bad enough that I have to worry about my own guilt when children are starving and food is being thrown out. 

My teeny tiny next door neighbor is also in the Clean Plate Club but her dog helps her walk it off. Cause and effect. Yes, I do get it. I've gained and lost 50 pounds three times in my life but I just can't seem to find the motivation to go through that torture again. Being a one person assist in my future nursing home room, instead of a two person assist, is all I can come up with for motivation and so far I'm not altruistic enough to put saving their backs up against a year of always feeling deprived when I'm at a lunch or dinner table plus spending hours in the gym every day. My motivations before were: 1) finding a man, 2) keeping him once I found him, and 3) going into knee replacement surgery without a 30% chance of dying on the operating table. My lack of funds for a whole new wardrobe is also a deterrent and being so close under the noses of The Body Shamers who would surely notice if I start eating like a rabbit and that would only drive me back to closet eating. Been there, done that before. I don't take praises well when it comes from people who think they are helping when they point out good food choices. Makes me want to make bad decisions behind their backs just to prove something I don't entirely understand. But I know I'm not the only fatty-fatty-two-by-four who has done that. What's that all about? ©

Until next Wednesday.