Enemy in My Own House

My roommate is trying to sabotage me. Not intentionally, of course, but over the past week of Thanksgiving she's whipped up a full holiday spread and three pies. Not one bit of it was health conscious! Butter and fat drippings and sugar and so on and so forth.

This isn't the first time I've mentioned to her that her ways are bad for me. When she brings chips or sweets into the house, I scoff, "Great, just what we need".

Yesterday when we were hungry at 4:30pm, but had dinner plans for 6pm, I suggested an apple or handful of nuts. But she declined and said it was okay. I warned about letting the hunger get too extreme and then we'd overeat, but she said it wasn't a big deal. So we met our friend at 6pm for dinner, split an appetizer and cleaned our plates. Normally we skip the appetizer and just eat about 3/4 of the meal saving the rest as leftovers.

Now my roommate is not on a "get healthy kick". She has about the same amount of weight to lose as I do, but she's declined every offer of mine to include her. Honestly, I'm not even trying to help her out; I'm being selfish and trying to help myself out. It would be a tremendous help if she'd be my gym buddy or start cooking better foods or take a walk with me in the evenings. But she says the $10/mo for the gym membership is just too much to handle right now and her fatty meals are still better than eating out because there aren't preservatives and she's just too tired to walk after work or school.

We were grocery shopping and I was looking at the NuVal scores to make some of my decisions. I never knew how bad my cereal choices were and I try to avoid what I think are the super sugary ones, but I was seriously misinformed. And when it came time for bread my usual wheat selection turned out to be rated really low, but I found another whole wheat that rated a 43 (the best score on the whole shelf!). I discussed all this with her so she knew why I was picking different items. The following day she went out to purchase a loaf of white bread (with a NuVal of 4!) because she "grew up with white bread sandwiches".

I know I probably sound petty bitching about this stuff, but it isn't just the bread. It's the ice cream in the freezer, the Pop Tarts in the cupboard, the cookies, crackers, and chips on top of the fridge, and the chocolate peanut butter on the counter. Don't even get me started on the bacon, egg, sausage, and cheese breakfasts!

I don't need this. I need support! My whole idea is to make small changes that start adding up then medium changes that result in some real progress. But I'm finding small changes difficult to do without someone saying, "You're right. Let's do it this way for a change and see how we feel."