I don't really have any great advice about this but I wanted to vent and rant and maybe you'll know where I am coming from.

We know that 2 out of 3 Americans are overweght. A lot of us are trying to diet. Some need to diet. These are the 200-300 pound people who have no knowledge about calories or food and they are going to DIE unless they lose some weight. Really, I shouldn't say "diet". What we should all be striving for is to eat healthier. In other words, change our diet. Diet used as a noun rather than a verb.

But there are always these people. These FOOD PUSHERS. You know the ones. They bring you a cookie and they can't take no for an answer.

These are some food situations I have been in and how I dealt with them:

*The holiday party : I bring my own food just in case there is not a healthy snack in sight. I pack some diet soda in case they think I'm some kind of sugar junkie. I bring some sugar free gum so that when I'm done eating I can chew on that and not absentmindedly snack on food. Some hosts do get weirded out if you bring your own food but MOST of them just go with the flow. I think of it as a BATTLE. If you go there unarmed, you will get hurt.

*The potluck : Yes, it is tempting to go with the crowd when everyone else in the office has listed such delights as "fried chicken" and "Doritos". But I usually come up with one or two healthy things and if they dont like it, I figure SCREW THEM. Again, this is a battle for the shape of your body and your personal health. YOU decide your destiny, not the clods you work with, no matter how good their fudge brownies are.

*The family dinner : for some reason, families seem like the MOST OPPRRESSIVE OFFENDERS. They LOVE to try and trip you up. Ice Cream, Turkey, holy crap even the GREEN BEANS have loads of butter in them. Again, employ the tactics above and maybe even a word or two about how they could be MORE supportive. Honestly, I don;'t understand why more family traditional meals arent leaning healthier anyway. All our parents are dying of heart attacks and we still treat thanksgiving,xmas, and new years like an excuse to pig out. A treat is okay. A feeding trough is not.

*The FOOD PUSHER friend: This is the one that brings the cookies on Thursdays or some chocolate "you'll just die for" on Monday mornings. SOmetimes it works to just say "no, I can't have one today" ---- often a great trick for me is to go "oh, can I take one for sunday, it's my treat day." and then as soon as the friend is out of eyesight throw that crap away. Who needs it? I don't know if you are like me but if you REALLY DO treat yourself on sundays and this is monday, that chocolate will never make it if I take it home. So I don't. But I make sure to tell the friend how delicious it was. Sometimes you can drop hints to your friends. "My run was GREAT this morning".

(I think with family and friends, the jealousy factor figures largely. Think about it. Almost everyone you know wants to lose weight or SHOULD want to lose weight. and here you are, MISS or MISTER PROACTIVE , doing something about it while they bake cookies. So that's already in their heads. PLUS if you start making progress they really get green. ahhhh lovely human nature.)

*The betty crocker - much like the food pusher but THIS person always has something they cooked themselves, adding to your guilt if you say no. I use the same "take one for later-throw it away" tactic. BUT sometimes a betty crocker can be WONDERFUL. If they are a really kind crockette, you could confide in them you are dieting and would LOVE to try their cooking if they could accept the challenge of making it low-fat,low-cal,low-carb whatever your diet plan is. A lot of chefs will take this challenge up with zeal.

*The Clueless Spouse - There is one fantastic diet tactic that has worked well for me and then --- well , okay my rule is I only buy healthy food. That;s it. I only cheat at restuarants and things like that. I do NOT keep junk food in the house. But sometimes your spouse will. For instance. My spouse buys cereal. I eat TOO MUCH cereal for it to be good for me, and I only try to eat FIBER ONE type cereal if I am going to eat it. So having a box of Honey Nut Cheerios sitting in the kitchen is torture for me. I don't know how to deal with this but I can tell you that more than once I have tossed out a half eaten bag of chips, fast food leftovers, etc... and she never missed it. Or if she did, she wasn't going to admit it, because she knows how hard it is for me to resist IF THE FOOD is in here and if I had to THROW IT AWAY it should not have been here. That looks kind of scary and controlling when I actually read it on screen, but it's not that bad. She thinks "ooops I should have known better than to have that can of pringles in there" and I make sure to buy her some ice cream next time we are OUT TO DINNER.

I am sure there are many more insidious food enemies I cannot think of right now. If you are sick of them like I am, it's time to fight back. Really, a simple "NO THANK YOU" should suffice and I should not HAVE to go into any details or even divulge that I am a health nut or anything about my personal life. These people should just BACK OFF. Next time a food pusher is giving me a hard time, I'm going to ask them if they have considered Amway.