Flirting with Food

“Hello, can I have a tall soy pumpkin spice latte?” I asked, giving myself a pat on the back for ordering a tall instead of a grande.

“Sure thing,” the barista replied with a friendly grin “whipped cream?”

“ummm,” I hesitated calculating if the extra calories were worth it. Normally, I’d be having a plain coffee, but today I was treating myself to one of my favorite autumn drinks and I didn’t want to over-do it. “No, thanks.”

The barista, was working alone and I was his only customer. Somehow while he made my drink, we began chatting and I could sense a mild flirtation from his end.  He reached over to hand me my drink and to my surprise it was a grande cup. “oh– I ordered a tall,” I said, handing it back. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied with a wink.

A few months ago I was getting deli sliced meat from the grocery store near my house. I ordered half a pound of thin sliced turkey. The guy sliced way more than half a pound, but only charged me for a half. “The rest is on me,” he whispered so his manager wouldn’t hear.

Guys giving me large portions or freebies isn’t anything new. Its also not something that’s exclusive to me as a Plus Size Princess. But as I do my best to eat better and slim down, I find myself looking at how much food is integrated into the way I communicate with the opposite sex and it goes both ways, we grow up hearing that “the way to a man’s heart is through is stomach”. I think back to when Robert and I first started spending time together and it was all centered around food.

When we first started talking in the office, we would snag cupcakes for each other after an office meeting. It was cute, innocent and began when I wasn’t watching my weight like I am now. So when I began to get serious about weight loss, he would come by my desk with a sweet treat and a proud smile on his face, and although it was still adorable– I would almost wince thinking about the calories. Eventually, I had to ask him to not bring me so many sweets and instead, I’ll bring over sliced apples to his desk.

But Robert is someone I have a relationship with so those conversations are easy. There’s no way for me to tell the barista at Starbucks that his friendly/flirtatious gesture was throwing my diet off track. I also know myself and if I have a grande soy pumpkin spice latte… I am going to finish it!

Of course there are worse things in the world than getting free food from guys who think I’m pretty, but as I try to lose weight these things stand out more in my mind.

I guess I’ll just get 15 more minutes of cardio in, to balance it out!