Last week I was having a rough day at work… it was one of those days where I brought my lunch back to my desk instead of taking lunch with Robert like I usually do.

I hate eating at my desk.

Eating at my desk puts me and my food choices on display for the entire office and it just makes me uncomfortable. If I eat at my desk and have something that isn’t a salad, all the women in my office walk by and say “oh my gawd, that smells soooo good!” then they look at my food longingly and announce that they’re off to get a salad.

*sigh*

I even had one coworker ask me once where I got my yummy looking non-salad lunch, ask me directions on how to get there and what exactly I ordered and then when she came back… she had a salad! “Oh, I just decided to be ‘good’ today…” she said.

So anyway, last week I was rushing to get lunch and bring it back to my desk. I had skipped breakfast too so when I got a craving for a turkey burger, I decided to follow through and order one. I ordered the turkey  burger, no bun with french fries and headed back to my desk to work and eat.

I was about halfway through my meal, when a female coworker passed by my desk, her eyes landed on my lunch and she stopped, “I guess you tossed your diet out the window today, huh?” she said with a laugh.

I felt my face get warm with embarrassment, “I didn’t eat breakfast today… and I’m going to the gym later” I said. She nodded in approval and kept walking. Even though my food explanation was enough for her, I hated myself for giving it. I don’t owe her a reason why I’m eating a bun-less turkey burger and fries just like she had no right to be all up in my lunch plate like that. But I’m noticing more and more that as women we feel like we have to explain everything we eat to each other.

Accountability is one thing, but I’m noticing that we go beyond that sometimes…

Like when you sit down to dinner and your girlfriend orders a “big meal” and then when the waitress walks away, she says “I didn’t eat lunch today,” to explain why she didn’t just order a salad… why do we do that? I do it too– when I eat with certain friends, I will order what I want and then give a full food explanation of everything I had to eat that day so they know I’m not eating too much or that I’ve “earned” my meal.

Whyyy do we do that??

Last week I was on Huffington Post talking about body policing and how its not okay to judge people based on size or assume you know how healthy they are based on what they weigh. A spin-off of body policing is food policing; we are obsessed with what other people do or don’t eat. I sometimes become obsessed with being “good” around my friends so that they don’t judge what’s on my plate. But if I know that I’m on track with what I’m eating, why does it matter?

Next week, we’re starting the Plus Size Princess Fitness Challenge– part of that will be putting pics of our meals on Instagram for inspiration and accountability (My IG name is PlusSizePrincess, btw). But if I slip up and eat “badly” I’m going to put myself on blast and post that too because that’s real life for me.

Do you sometimes feel guilty eating around friends/coworkers?

We’ll be talking about this during the #CurvyConvo twitter chat @ 2pm today (Thursday) follow @thebiggirlblog to join the Curvy Convo