Girl Pressure

I had lunch with a girlfriend today and I have to say that girlfriend peer pressure is so subversive, but awesome when you're on a diet. It's basically like every girl at the table is trying to eat less than every other girl. There is some sort of psychology that says if we eat more than the girl eating with us than we are the fattest person at the table. Just so we're clear this doesn't make any sense.

I was having sushi with a friend of mine that's 5'2'' and pretty skinny, not stick figure, but healthy. Of course I should be eating more than she is. I have half a foot on her. In the girly mind however, I can't eat more than her or she'll think I'm fat. Well I'm over 200lbs so I think that ship has sailed. Why do we do this? Why can't we just eat until we're full?

This same phenomenon is seen when girls share food. Whoever takes the last bite is the fatty. We will keep whittling away at a single piece of food for an eternity until someone is forced to take that last microscopic sliver or leave it on the plate and forever be labeled. Why does this make a difference? I don't have the answer to this question, but I do know the phenomenon is basically universal.

The upside to this is now that I'm on a diet, peer pressure to eat less when I'm going out is a great thing!Instead of eating and eating I am more conscious about what I put in my body because I perceive myself as being judged by the person eating across from me. Do I think she's really judging what I eat? Of course not, she's an awesome person who loves food as much as I do! However, because I believe that she's judging me, I am more careful about what I put in my system. This is the one upside I can find to this type of harmful female psychology.

I wish that we weren't so judgmental to one another, the world would probably be a happier place, but for today it has worked for my advantage. I got through lunch and I now have 177 calories left for today...great. I'll probably go to bed hungry, but I'm already thinking about green beans for dinner. I still need to work on not reaching for the deep-fried, cream cheese filled roll, but hey, because of girl pressure I only had one of those! Baby steps!

Update: Well baby steps turned into a marathon in the wrong direction. I met a friend at Sonic to hand off a package and I was only going to get a Diet Limeade...but then I got a burger. Epic fail. The scale is going to suck tomorrow.