when i read about "food addictions," the mental image i'd get was of morbidly obese people stuffing themselves sick with candy. now that i'm starting to pay more attention to people's diets, i realize that the grossly overweight are probably more the exception than the rule. the slightly out-of-shape defend their food fixes just as rabidly.

the way people react when i tell them to clean up their diets, you'd think i told them they were going to be sent to guantanamo bay. they usually react quite violently.

"what? no softdrinks? pwede naman iced tea????"
"i only have a venti caramel macchiato in the morning and eat very little all day!"
"ok lang naman yung nagaraya a, zero trans fats naman a!!!" (never mind that one bag has 600+ calories.)

the worst was probably my boyfriend, who was upset at weighing 200 lbs, yet even more upset when i told him that the two rich, creamy, sugary egg tarts he'd just wolfed down for merienda wasn't going to help him any.

me: "you're going to have to stop eating crap like that if you want to lose weight."
him: "but i didn't eat that much today! i just had a cup of rice, mongo bread, 3 macaroons, and 2 egg tarts! and you don't weigh as much as me, so i need to eat more than you!!!"

and he actually left in a huff, like i'd told him i was screwing hayden kho behind his back instead of just telling him to make better food choices and lessen his sugary carb intake. so there he was, making sure to keep his distance ahead of me in the middle of the mall of asia, sulking about me trying to get between him and the oh-so-glorious taste of fat and sugar.

it made me think: is this really worth it? everytime i try to tell someone close to me -- a friend, a relative, my boyfriend -- about their diets, i'm met with resistance. they think i'm trying to condemn them to a life of boiled chicken breasts and veggies when in fact, i'm just asking them to make tiny, incremental changes. in fact, the only person i had no trouble with was a friend of a friend, who actually sought me out to ask for a training and nutrition program. so you know what? fuck it. fuck my good intentions to make the people close to me lead better, happier, healthier lives. you want to shovel that whole bag of chips down your throat? be my guest. just don't give me some stupid justification about how "there was nothing else to eat, you want me to starve?" afterwards. don't blame circumstances when you've set yourself up for failure.

a lot of people become so defensive about their eating habits that i wonder what they'd think if they could hear themselves. the excuses range from typical ("i don't have time to prepare my food") to bizaare ("it's ok, the fat gets separated because i soak the fried food in vinegar first.") what the hell, people. if your diets were as defensible as you make them out to be, why are you still fat? and why are you so unwilling to change what made you fat in the first place?