Bye Bye Shumai

Sticking to my goals was especially difficult with today’s school lunch. As I’ve mentioned before, elementary school students are made to eat their entire lunches, so at those schools I try to set a good example and eat everything even if it breaks my rules. But at my junior high school I eat in the office with some of the school staff, so we have the freedom to choose what and how much we eat. Everyone receives the same lunch, but it is acceptable to throw away anything you don’t want.

First of all, throwing away food is really hard for me to come to terms with. It’s such a waste, trashing perfectly good food, I’m sure there’s someone out there who would love to eat it! But that’s the thing, someone… out there… The best option is to not buy or make more than you can eat, but since school lunch is a pre-made set of food, I just have to learn to throw some away.

What made today particularly difficult, though, was that I really wanted to eat it! Not eating bread is fine, I don’t like bread that much anyway. But today we got two fried shumai (Chinese dumplings), and they looked so good! However, I believe the wrapper is made with egg and wheat flour. They were so small though, small enough that I could maybe reason to myself that it’s not enough to matter. But if I start making little allowances too often, pretty soon I’m completely screwed.

The other reason I wanted to eat them rather than throw them away was because I wanted to avoid the curiosity of the office staff. It’s normal to toss some of your rice or bread or even other dishes because you were full. But to eat everything except specifically the two little shumai, well, clearly it’s not because I just got full.

Two sad little shumai left all alone on the lunch tray.

Conversations about what I’m eating or not eating and why make me feel uncomfortable and defensive. The assumption often is that if someone chooses not to eat something they either hate it or are dieting for weight loss. And if they think I’m dieting for weight loss, the immediate response is, “But you look great! You don’t need to diet!” Here’s a thought, maybe I look great BECAUSE I eat well? Plus, it’s not just about weight, but also digestive health, energy levels, headaches, and many many other things that can be affected by what you put in your body.

All of this, though, is hard to explain in a quick conversation, especially while people are trying to tell me not to worry, or to make an exception this time because of A or B. I know they mean well, but it’s actually stressful. So even when people aren’t reacting like that, I still feel stressed, imagining that they will. This is a big reason why I didn’t want to throw away my delicious shumai. I’m really motivated to stick to my rules, though, especially since I started this blog. So, bye bye shumai! And thankfully, nobody said anything. Even better, I’m proud of myself for resisting! Today gets gold stars for food and exercise! Now I’ll drift off to sleep imagining how good those shumai would have tasted…