Even some of the men are that way. On a lunch date I said I grilled my own steaks and maybe I'd grill one for him sometime. The guy said, "I don't eat red meat." Then I mentioned a great glass of wine I'd had the other day. He said, "I don't drink," and began an hour-long whine about his software company. I mentally crossed this pantywaist off my list and ordered a plate of carpaccio and a beer and let him pay for it.
I think peer pressure has a lot to do with eating rabbit food in public and everything else in private, and you know we do, because we're always dieting. I too used to put on a show of being health conscious and weight conscious and avoided hearty meals and then, 90 minutes after my 340-calorie Healthy Choice lunch, I was at the vending machine for a 400-calorie two-pack of PopTarts I hid in my jacket on the way back to my cubicle. One evening after a workout I felt dizzy and unwell. I stopped at the firehouse and let the firemen ambulance me to the hospital. I told the doctor I'd been exercising and felt faint but he found nothing wrong. He asked me, What did you do at the gym? I said, Elliptical, weights, and treadmill. He said, "What did you have for lunch?" I said, "A spinach salad."
He said, "You thought you could work all afternoon and then work out at the gym on a spinach salad?"
So here you see my healthy single-woman lunch: four ounces of grilled flat iron steak and homegrown tomatoes, and I didn't feel hungry again until dinnertime. Avoid between-meal snacking, women and men. Eat a little meat!
