My coffee creamer made me fat
“Twenty calories in your coffee creamer?? That’s too much. It all adds up!”
~ A bariatric/obesity doctor, to my face, recently.
But wait, what was a nutritionist doing in a bariatric clinic you say? Ahh yes, the back story…
As a nutritionist, I have a pretty solid understanding of weight and wellness and the connection to what we put in our bodies. While we don’t typically use the words “bad” or “good” in relation to foods anymore, I am well aware of what ones are more apt to add pounds or make me feel gross. I know I should eat more fresh produce than fast food. However, I also know (because I am human) that sometimes knowing doesn’t always equal doing.
So, when I found my (increasingly fatter) ass in the seat of a bariatric/obesity doctor’s office a few months ago, it wasn’t due to my lack of nutrition knowledge. I believe that now, more than any other time in our lives, we are all struggling mentally. It’s been a bit traumatic on multiple levels, hasn’t it? I am one of those people who like to eat my feelings. Happy, sad, bored, excited….let’s eat! And I don’t mean broccoli. I mean cheesecake….Mexican food….fried foods…fruity pebbles. Something to make me (albeit briefly) forget that I even have feelings at all. A healthy coping mechanism, it is not. But, it’s the one I have continually turned to for several years regardless.
Now, I am older and hormones be hormonin’, so my body is also not reacting quite the same way that it used to to diet and exercise. So, yes, the weight packed on and I panicked. The list of things I have been trying is long, but today I want to focus on this one specific appointment with said bariatric/obesity doc.
This was my 3rd visit with her. My first appointment where she sent me away with a “eat 1200 calories a day and come back in 4 weeks” plan, should have been warning enough, but, panicking equals desperation sometimes. Needless to say, I couldn’t follow the 1200 calorie recommendation. I mean, hello, if I could do that, do you think I would have even needed an appointment with her in the first place?? So, as she looked over my diet journal in this third appointment, the conversation went like this:
DOC: “Oh, I see here that you have 20 calories in your coffee creamer.”
ME: “Well, yes. It’s 5 calories per tablespoon.”
DOC: “But it says 20 calories.”
ME: “Correct. I put 4 tablespoons in it.”
DOC: “Ahh, well this is the kind of thing you need to watch out for. It all adds up.”
I damn near fell out of my chair.
Was I really hearing this correctly?? Was this OBESITY doctor. This DOCTOR who regularly sees patients well past the 300 pound mark….was focused on TWENTY CALORIES….in my coffee??? My literal favorite thing? The one thing that got me out of bed most days??? And not to mention that USED TO BE 150 calories or more?!! I was actually DAMN PROUD that it was ONLY 20 calories, and here I was being scolded for it.
Ma’am. Ma’am….. what is happening here? Because there is no way you’re trying to say that I am *obese* because of this frickin creamer.
She then proceeds to try to tell me what a vegetable was and this is when I snapped. I mean, she had to have heard my literal brain go BOIIINNNGGGG because lady, no. Nope. This is not the way. So, I stopped her and I said, “Listen. I am not trying to be a pain. But I am a nutritionist and I know what a vegetable is. And, I definitely did not get this fat because I had broccoli cauliflower tots instead of *ReAl BrOcCoLi*.
Long story short, she prescribed a medicine and told me to eat 1200 calories a day and sent me on my way.
And I found a better solution: Never going back to her.
