Happy Friday! Wow this week has flown by!
This morning I was so excited to try out my new Booty Camp Fitness DVD.
I started with the Cardio Quickie which was 19 mins plus a 5 min warm up and 5 min cool down. Then I did the BOOTY BOOSTER afterwards. I didn’t know this, but the DVD is actually two DVD’s for a total of 262 minutes. Yowza!
It KICKED MY BOOTAY!!!! Oh my gosh, I was panting up a storm doing the cardio portion and the Booty Booster was honestly the best booty workout I have ever done. I was cursing in my head and out loud!!!
It gave me a nice post-booty glow afterwards! :mrgreen:
Lunch took two minutes to prepare and it was a good thing because I was Hangry!
2 Minute Pumpkin Quinoa
Ingredients:
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze (unsweetened)
- Sea salt and pepper to taste
- Shredded coconut to garnish
Directions: Mix together and add more salt if necessary. Heat and serve! I think this was the quickest lunch I have ever made!!!
Serves 1.
This is my favourite spoon. It is from Mexico where Eric and I got engaged!
What is that, an elephant??
I can’t stop.
Two delicious kiwis to keep the tropical theme going! A hefty dose of Vit C to keep those colds at bay.
Do You Feel Pressure From Your Job To Be Thin: Take 2
It is amazing how many women feel pressure to maintain or achieve a low body weight because of one’s JOB (see original post here). It is a bit scary actually when you think about how many hours a day we spend at work or in school.
A few themes in the comments stuck out for me:
Please note, I am not saying this is true in every workplace, I am just summarizing what some of the comments were in the original post.
1) Appearance focused jobs come with a lot of pressure to be thin. For example, jobs like fashion design, acting, retail, sales, health and fitness, etc. However, office jobs too can have a lot of pressure depending on the environment.
2) Women often feel pressure from other women, not men, to lose weight.
3) There is a lot of unhealthy diet/weight talk that goes on among women at work.
4) Healthy women are often singled out and made fun of because of their ‘weird’ eating or exercise habits.
5) Women often feel the need to reduce their attractiveness or increase it, depending on their environment. Many of you said you tried to downplay your attractiveness to be taken more seriously, or you used it to your advantage.
6) Many college environments have a ton of pressure to be thin and to ‘keep up with the Jones’
I often hear the saying that women are skinny for other women, not men. Do you think that is true? There tends to be this unspoken pressure that many women feel when they are in groups with other women. This pressure can escalate when women feel that things are at stake like a promotion at work or a higher grade in a class.
One reader put it very well when she asked, ‘Why do we do this to ourselves?’ I think it is so hard to get away from the negative situation, especially if others are constantly talking about dieting all day at work. How do you get away from your coworkers whom you have to talk to all day long?
At my old job, I had one coworker who would make fun of me every single day. He would often say, ‘All you eat is lettuce.’ in front of my boss and my coworkers. It was humiliating and not true, in fact, I never even used to bring salads for lunch (not that there is anything wrong with a salad, anyways!). Other days, he would tease me for eating TOO much. We all know that when you eat healthy (especially vegetarian or vegan) you need a lot of food to sustain your energy. I would pack large lunches because if I didn’t I would be starving all day long! My coworker often said things like, ‘Wow you are going to eat all that?’ and ‘Geeze are you still eating?’. It was a very negative situation day in and day out, even though I tried just to ignore it the best I could.
I eventually realized that no one can bring me down without my permission.
Here I was letting this guy get to me each day, when I knew that I was doing nothing wrong. I finally decided to stop allowing him to affect my mood. I just had to say to myself, ‘No more’, and each time it happened, I tuned it out and told myself something positive about myself inside my head such as, ‘You treat yourself amazing and you respect your health.’ I also realized that he probably said these things to me because he was insecure about himself. He ate fast food for lunch everyday and he probably felt bad about his own choices.
I think it is important for women everywhere to live for yourself, first. Don’t live for your coworkers who expect you to eat a diet yogurt for lunch with them everyday. Don’t live for your male boss who expects you to look a certain way.
Decide to live for YOU and you only. Make yourself happy. Treat yourself kindly. The better you treat yourself, the happier you will be, and the easier it will be for you to ignore the pressure. I found the worse I treated myself, the more I perceived the pressure to be around me. If I bought into the pressure, it was hard to escape. If I told myself that I was in control of how I perceived my environment, then it made it easier.
We can help ourselves a lot if we change our perception and surround ourselves with positive people, or even just positive thoughts.
What do you think? Are women thin for other women, or for men? Is it possible to escape the pressure that many of us feel?
thank you as always for your thoughtful insight & inspiring words! <3
I’m so thankful that I don’t have this difficulty at work. No one cares what I eat, or even pays attention to it. I go for a long walk every day at lunchtime and the most anyone ever says about it is “good for you.” I took my workplace for granted until reading these posts – thanks!
The pumpkin quinoa looks amazing – I love the shredded coconut on top!
I love the line ‘decide to live for you and you only.’ That has been HUGE for me. I am such a people pleaser. I am slowly learning that one step at a time.
I get teased for eating a lot from colleagues, but it is very good natured (even my husband calls me the eating monster. . .). I don’t mind that at all. ;)
There are so few women around me, that I don’t really have anyone to compete with. BUT, I generally do think that pressure comes from competition between/among women. I mean, let’s face it. Having a male colleague the age of my father joke that I better eat lunch before a meeting to keep from getting grouchy is VERY different from having a younger female colleague make the same comment.
I love that spoon!!
The “Woman stay skinny for other women, not men” is a really interesting (and true!) assertion.
When I was at an unhealthy BMI (due to health issues) girls would as me for my “diet plan” and tell me they wanted to look like me. All I could thing was “Are you crazy? I work every day to GAIN weight!”
Now that I’ve gained, girls never say anything to me but guys complement it. Haha one girl was eating rice cakes the other day and told me “I want to be thin like you USED to be”
I was shocked because 1. I’m still on the thin side! and 2. Can people really say those things??
In general I’ve noticed guys like curves and girls are just mean and evil (for the most part! ;-))
Whoa! I can’t believe someone said that to you.
I really get uncomfortable when girls start saying things like, “I want to be thin like her” or “I have this fat roll” and I’m like… I’ve never noticed. And plus what would you say to that?
I think the competition/pressure definitely comes from other women in most cases. There is just that unspoken tension, the sizing one another up, that can be detrimental if you let it run wild. Isn’t it crazy? Even if we don’t realize it, we all have probably affected another woman in this way.
1. Lunch looks amazing and I cannot wait to try that recipe soon.
2. I completely and utterly agree… and I think the reason that we feel pressure from other women is because we aware that we ourselves notice when a peer or coworker has gained/lost weight, toned up, developed cellulite, wrinkles, etc. We can be very harsh judges on ourselves and each other. Perhaps it’s just me but I’d say it’s because of the pressure put on women (in a male-dominated society) to look great, be happy, and while being a superwoman at home and in the work place.
Great topic :)
A lot of times it does come from other women. I have gotten that “you eat weird stuff” a lot in my office, because mostly people just get pizza or sandwiches for lunch. I just let it roll off my back and keep eating my veggies or drinking my Kombucha or whatever :-)
“No one can bring me down without my permission”– love it. So true…and yet, so hard to remember at times, right?
Love that spoon, too :-) You make me want to start a spoon collection…but I already have a juice glass connection, so I think my hub might rebel :-)
“Connection?” Collection!!! Thank goodness it’s Friday :-)
Every day when I go to eat lunch in my grad student office, someone makes a comment like “what IS that?” or “is that all you’re eating?” (NO! I have like 5 snacks in my bag, give me a minute!). It made me self-conscious for awhile but like you said, eventually I just stopped letting it get to me. My office is all male (engineering grad school woo) and I never feel weight pressure, they just think eating tons of veggies and no meat is “weird.” In undergrad, I felt way more pressure to be a certain size because all the girls seemed pretty and tiny. Still, at the gym, I always feel like other women are sizing me up way more than men!
I think it’s true that women want to be healthy for other women–or themselves. I’ve heard so many men say that they like a girl with meat on her bones. But if a man were to ask you to gain weight, would you? It’s funny how that works.
I also get teased for eating so much. I’m a painfully slow eater, and I eat a lot of smaller foods to fill me up, so my colleagues always tease me for eating nonstop throughout the day. What can you do? Eating a healthy lunch takes longer than scarfing down a Big Mac!
I think a lot of the pressure we as women put on ourselves is definitely caused by other women. I know personally there are evenings when we have to go out with certain groups of our friends and I struggle to get ready because I have a hard time deciding the “perfect” outfit. My husband often thinks it is nuts that I am more concerned about pleasing other women instead of him, and when I think about it, IT IS! Yeah it is unfortunate that we put so much pressure on ourselves!
You are totally right about the man who made comments on your meals. I bet that your habits made him feel insecure about his own. I strogly believe that no one has the right to comment on others’ portion sizes. We all have different energy levels and needs. I eat huge salads but I need them because I am a vegetarian. I also ate a lot when I was training for a marathon but I was unabashed about I because I knew I needed the fuel. Funny how scathing women can be to other women. I think we need all the empowerment and support we can get, and we should tirmthr negative energy into positive energy.
it’s totally “for” other women (which, by the way, is so weird to actually think about). We all have our perceived idea of perfection, and our instinct to be the best expands to all areas of life. i know that when I put pressure on myself it’s in almost a competitive way, as in being thinner will be make me better. i know this isn’t true, but it’s almost automatic the way it pops into my head!
i love that you said that quote, “no one can bring me down without my permission.” it’s something i need to remember more so that I realize what’s happening when these horrible thoughts creep up!
I’m so glad Eric loves Quinoa! My guy just recently started loving it too.
Women really do put pressure on other women — way more than men do. In fact, if I really think about it, I’m only trying to lose weight for my wedding so that all of my friends I haven’t seen in so long won’t say, WOW she’s gotten chunky! And myself of course, I’m the most critical of myself. The man who matters is already on board!
The quinoa looks great! I just bought some today, I wish I’d gotten pumpkin as well!
My brother actually makes a lot of comments regarding the way I eat, and it’s started to bring me down because even though I know it’s his job as an older brother to tease me, he is my brother and I value his opinions. He’s a fast food king, so I think a lot of what you said applies to him, but it still hurts and no matter how many times I talk to him it doesn’t change :(
I personally feel a TON of pressure, not just in the workplace even, about my eating habits and my lifestyle choices. Often, someone in the family, particularly my mother, will lecture me for long periods of time about being a vegetarian, and she doesn’t think I am eating enough, and that I have an “unhealthy obsession” with exercising.
What I have also noticed along with these comments from her, is that she will usually start them off with, “Wow, Rebecca, you’ve lost a lot of weight. You look thin.” And, affirmatively, I will hear others around me tell me that I look like I am glowing, or that my body is looking so much better. I have learned that I am never going to change my mothers habits, and likewise, she is never going to change mine, so why bother entertaining that energy that has no where to flow?
I really feel like we who exercise daily also get a bad reputation. I have been told I have an “obsession,” and that I might be addicted to the “high” of running, from people. All of these people do not exercise, and eat food that is not whole for our body. They feel a sense of guilt or that they do not want to “own” their unhealthy habits, which is why they feel the need to point out mine. I’ve realized that they are correct, I do get a high from exercising (running especially), but it is a positive, healthy high. One that is helping me work towards longevity, keeping my panic disorder at bay, and making me feel more confident every single day from everything to getting dressed, to feeling sexy in front of my husband.
Bottom line: Do not entertain energy that has no where to go. I exercise daily and am a vegetarian for no one else but for myself. I do not do it to fit in, to please someone else, or to come off as “superior” (which is often another one I hear from people). I do this because it is where I find inner peace when I lay my head down on my pillow at night.
Rebecca,
Sorry about the mixed up reply. But I wanted to tell you that I found alot of peace in your words that you are a vegetarian and a runner for you. Not any one else. I often think about the gallons of diet coke I used to consume and countless chicken breasts I would broil to watch my ‘carbs’ and stay thin. No more. I now eat with a conscious thought of the healthiness of my food. Life is so much better when you stop trying to please (and interpret) other people’s perceptions of you.
Are women thin for other women, or for men?
I think it’s true that women are thin for (and feel the most pressure from) other women. Most men I know prefer some curviness on a woman.
As I said in the other post, I had comments and snickers about what I ate when I worked at the hospital from the other RDs. A few of them were appalled that I used butter on my baked potato instead of the fat-free cottage cheese that they used.
When I worked with men (I was a personal assistant to the head football coach in college) I never felt that pressure. I did have a couple of comments on my curves, but they were positive and complimentary.
I don’t know why women feel so competitive with other women. I wish we could be more of a supportive sisterhood.
Angela, really, thank you for these posts. Most of my life I was “the skinny girl” (I still am I guess) but I’e recently developed unhealthy obsessions with my body and my weight and have become increasingly aware of myself and others as well. There are plenty of pressures in my life, and your posts are soooo relevant to my present state of being. It’s really helping me to read what everyone has to say. That said, I’ve never felt external pressure to be thin because I already am thin. What pressure I’m feeling now is that, because I am already thin, I don’t know how to explain to people that I feel like I am having a problem with my body image and with my food intake. Generally, I get scoffed at, “What do you have to worry sbout, you’re already skinny?” I’m finding it’s really difficult to come clean about my problem because I feel like everyone around me sees me in a certain way and for some reason I am afraid to destroy that image.
My lunch looked almost like yours, except pink instead of orange. I recently have an INSANE love of beets+quinoa, so on the weekend when I have time I roast up a bunch of beets and slice them and prepare some quinoa so I have it in the fridge all week. And kiwi for dessert too! I like to cut them in half and eat them with a grapefruit spoon.