To Eat or Not to Eat?

I am smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest work weeks of the year. We are getting ready for a large convention and for about two solid weeks it means lots of late nights and lunches at my desk.

Since every one I work with is so busy we haven't had many organized lunches, not even in our little break room. But when I was heating up some lunch to take back to my desk the other day I realized something odd. I hadn't seen most of the women I work with eating lunch at all over the last week. Not even something quick at their desk. A few conversations with them confirmed that, yes, they have been skipping lunch for about a week and a half now and eating nothing.

Now, you may think that we really are just to busy to stop and eat, but I can tell you that's not true. We have one or two local cafes bring carts of food for purchase over every single day. There are at least a handful of places that will deliver with a very low minimum delivery order. And we have a full size refrigerator and freezer to store food brought from home. I haven't had very long lunches lately, 15 minutes tops, but it's still something.

So I got to listening to the women who weren't eating. They talk about it constantly. It seems like to them it's a badge, like they were able to make it throughout the whole day without food and feel proud of it. They also mention about how it's good for weight loss.

Now, I absolutely hate being the "fatty" in the office who wont skip a meal. But I know that we all work better with fuel in our bodies. How can these women actually think this is good for them? If this were happening once or twice I wouldn't think anything of it, but most of them are saying they haven't had lunch all week long.

It makes me realize (again) that just because someone has a thin body doesn't mean they are healthy. And it sure as hell doesn't mean they have a healthy relationship with food. Our bodies need fuel. Think of it as a car. There are many different kinds of gas you can put in a car, some better than others. Some cars can only operate on a certain kind of gas, while most others can take any kind. But no kind of car can run on no gas. Well, maybe the electric ones, but we're not going to get into that until you can show me a human who can run on electricity instead of food.

I have to switch my brain over to rational thinking when things like this happen because it's very easy to get emotional. It's easy to think that they will see me as a fat person who, of course, isn't going to skip a meal. But when it comes down to it I'm eating normal size lunches, with respectable calorie counts and I don't have a crash at 3:00 in the afternoon. And I don't feel ravenous when I get home for dinner either.

Ask any nutritionist out there, skipping meals is not really the way to go. And it certainly isn't some great new diet that you've found, either. It will catch up to you and you probably wont like the results. Eat, girls, eat! Your body wants you to!