I'm tellin' y'all it's SABOTAGE!

Do you have Beastie Boys in your head now? GOOD.

Today I'm full of thoughts about sabotage. Self-sabotage, others-sabotage, and the power of stubborn-ness.

Let me preface.

So, I work in a teeny tiny office. There are four of us, all women (minus the boss-man who is rarely in the office, because he's a surgeon busy doing surgery). Two of us (myself included) are on the clearly unhealthy side of the weight spectrum (let's call her A), one is technically obese, but I'd say she's an average kind of plump (let's call her B), and one is-- in my opinion-- skinny , but like most women would like to lose 15-20 pounds (let's call her C). A month ago, I had a come-to-Jesus with myself and decided it was time to make a change for the better, starting with food. I knew that I would need my office to be all-in with me because we all had a bad habit of ordering out for lunch and we have a lot of reps and businesses who bring treats to our office in order to bribe us to send clients their way. Last week we received a package of Oreo's, a box of chocolate cupcakes, breakfast muffins, and chocolate covered almonds. COME ON.

I spoke to the girls. Look, I said, we all complain about wanting to lose weight, so let's do it. For real. All in. And everyone was on board. To be fair, B (average co-worker) was already half-dieting at home, and slacking off at work, so I expected she would be on board. I was mistaken. She did not want to play.

The other co-workers (A & C) agreed to give it a go. I bought a blender and offered to make office breakfast smoothies every day. You didn't know this about me, but I am an expert low-cal high-fiber high-protein green-smoothie maker. AND they're delicious. Each week we all chip in and Monday mornings I grab our fresh produce, some frozen fruit, greek yogurt, protein powder, PB2 (um, powdered peanut butter is the best thing science ever did for food, btw-- go find some if it's not a part of  your life yet), flax, whatever we need. This has been great for us, because we don't have the leisure to make bad choices. The girls feel too guilty to pick something up because their breakfast is waiting for them when they get to work, and I feel obligated to make them because I'm feeding three people. Win-win. Co-worker B says they hurt her tummy and she chooses to fast for breakfast.

We take the stairs (down) at the end of the day. I don't know how they get to the 4th floor where we work in the mornings, and I am not up to 4 flights of stairs yet (at least, not without EMS waiting at the top), and it doesn't matter. Co-worker B prefers not to because she has weak ankles.

We drink lots of water and check-in with one another. "How many litres have you had today? That's awesome!" Etc. Co-worker B states that she gets her water from her iced tea, and she drinks a gallon of it a day. Ahem.

We all got Lose It! accounts so we could hold each other accountable and get ideas for home meal plans and share the smoothie recipe nutritional info. Except co-worker B, who states that she keeps a running log in her head so she doesn't need to waste her time with that app.

Co-worker A and I have been friend-peting gym times, and sending texts and funny pictures to ask for or send encouragement. Co-workers C and B say they are too busy/don't want to.

I think you see where I'm going with this.

A and C have, somewhat dropped out of the diet game. A is hit and miss, C is pretty thin already and can't be bothered. And I'm fine with that.

But B. B is still sorta-gung-ho. She's also an expert at life and can generally tell you why everything you're doing is wrong if she does it differently.

I'm not pushy, and she's an adult, so it's totally on her whether she wants to play our office diet-obsession game, OR NOT. I have enough to worry about taking care of myself, and reminding myself that I'm not a toddler at meal times, so I normall don't really notice what co-worker B is eating, or drinking, or doing in her office, etc.

But then we became Frenemies.

It began last week. Co-worker B mentioned she had lost 18 lbs, in 2 months. That is AWESOME!, I said. Good for you, I said. How much have you lost? she asked.

(Um. None of your business, right?) But I answered. Almost 20 pounds, too. I said. (Let me note that I have more to lose than she does, and have been working harder-- in my opinion-- than she is, and have had results that show that. 20 lbs in a little less than a month is GREAT for me, and I'm super proud, but I also know that losing too fast tends to cause rebound gains and blah blah blah. I read, I research, I'm fine.)

Next thing I know, we're in a competition. A dirty, bad sportsman-like competition. She started leaving treats on my desk. Telling me it was FIIIIIIIIIIINE to eat the amazing lemon poppyseed muffin with butter she left me-- just eat half. Offering to grab my favorite office lunch (Spring rolls, OMG spring rolls how I miss thee!), her treat! And so on.

I've been strong. I've avoided all the treats and temptations. I've eaten my tuna and apples lunches, my hummus and broccoli snacks, my spinach and mystery smoothies. I'm basically Superman.

And then I got mad.

Hey! Why am I being sabotaged? Why would you do that to someone who is obviously putting a lot of effort into making positive, healthy changes for themself? Maybe it's a girl thing, maybe it's a personality type thing, I don't know. But two can play at that game.

For her birthday this week, I brought in a personal-sized mini-cake (which, despite it's description is not a cupcake, if you are wondering why I did not just call it a cupcake, hater) and her self-proclaimed weakness-- Little Debbie brownies. This is a double sabotage-win for me, becuase I think those brownies are disgusting and a personal cake is just that-- a personal cake. No sharing.

On one hand, I feel terribly guilty and kind of ashamed for stooping to that level and joining in on this mean, mean thing happening in our office. On the other hand, I am SUPER STUBBORN, so it's kind of working for me. If I don't want to work out, I can think "but co-worker B isn't working out, and tomorrow I'll feel smug that I went", so I go. If I reeally reeeeally want to eat a giant bagel with all of the cream cheese currently in production (this is a real thought I had this morning... and this afternoon... and right now...), I just think about how my co-worker is slowing her metabolism by not eating and I am having three serving of veggies and delicious protein, and how I can feel smug about that all day as well. Oh, man, and if I don't like you and you tell me to do something, you can be pretty confident that I'm going to DIG IN MY HEELS AND HOLD MY BREATH AND NOT DO ANYTHING YOU WANT ME TO BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! STRAGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER! (I'm very mature.)
Post Script: My daughter is just like me, so I have a long, hard road ahead of me.

I guess that this blog comes to two main points. One, I feel some guilt about feeling diet-superior over my co-worker, because people shouldn't have to base success on the failures of others. Two, she has no idea how helpful her sabotage attempts have ended up being for me, so I'm winning again.

** Disclaimer - I promise I'm not actually a terrible person.

Do you have any diet saboteurs in your life? Or are you in competition with anyone? Or are YOU the saboteur? Do tell.