I just finished reading Leslie Goldman’s Locker Room Diaries. It was interesting and made me vow to quit being so shy when changing clothes in the locker room. I’ll never be comfortable with walking around undressed, as some women are (more power to them), but at least I can try to become less self-conscious.
In any case, having just read Leslie’s book, which devotes a lot of discussion to "scale behavior," I was aware of the woman who hopped on the scale last Friday. She and I had begun and ended our workouts about the same time. She was probably about my age and had obviously come from work to do her workout.
She stepped on the scale, and I looked away, knowing that a lot of people feel self-conscious on the scale.
A couple of seconds later, she let out a minor whoop and said to me (there was nobody else around), "I’ve lost eight and a half pounds in a month!"
I said I thought that was fabulous and told her that I’d lost about 30 pounds a little more than a year ago. Then we had a little chat about how much harder it is to lose fat when you’re 40- or 50-something.
She said she’d been completely ignoring the doughnuts and junk food people bring to work, and then we got to talking about why people bring in such lousy food as "treats." Anybody of normal intelligence knows that cookies, doughnuts, enormous muffins, and so on are special-occasion food—not the sort of fare anybody needs on a regular basis. But how many people bring bananas, fresh strawberries, homemade low-fat muffins, or fresh vegetables?
I know, some of you probably work at enlightened companies where that’s the norm. But in my case, I bring (my own) food from home every single day–and almost every single day make a decision not to eat the chips, cookies, Krispy Kremes, and other junky offerings that magically appear in our kitchen.
Here’s a challenge: If we do have occasion to bring food for everyone, let’s make it something that actually does our co-workers good.
And here’s a horrible (apparently true) story: The successful loser of eight and a half pounds said that one of her co-workers brings Krispy Kreme doughnuts to work almost every day. She commented to the KK-bringer that it must be expensive buying doughnuts so often.
The colleague replied that she had a family member who worked at Krispy Kreme, so she got a discount–and then she added that perhaps by eating lots of doughnuts some of the older workers would vacate their jobs more quickly and create promotional opportunities for the younger ones.
I said, "I hope she was kidding." My locker-room companion said, "Knowing her, I don’t think she was."
Yikes: Career sabotage via Krispy Kremes!
