stress of maintaining a special diet

Just had a very insightful comment on a prior post, that I would like to share here to make sure people see it, and offer my own thoughts in response.

The comment:
I often find that following diet-related strategies creates problems in social situations. I have known for years that avoiding sugar controls my tendency toward acne. People who are in my life regularly can see evidence for this themselves, but some of them still tend to pressure me to have some "just for this special occasion" or because it is "just a little" or etc. Some try to be supportive and prepare things that they think are okay for me, but often I know there is hidden sugar in an ingredient. Sometimes I’ve had situations such as the one you mentioned with your mother and the microwaving in plastic. Now I’m trying to follow a “fibroid diet” that is even more restrictive. I find doing this in social situations to be EXTREMELY stressful. One morning at breakfast in a restaurant soon after my diagnosis when I was still very upset about having a tumor of any kind I just couldn’t keep myself from crying because of a comment someone made. So following the diet I think is healthier for me leads to more stress or more isolated lifestyle, unhealthy consequences.

I could not agree more. This is probably why I have more items for diet than for any other topic category on this blog. This is a huge issue, for several reasons.

• First of all, it's really hard to be the "wierd one" -- it would be just so much easier to fit in.
• Second, social situations in particular tend to be full of "party food" that is particularly bad for the anti-fibroid diet -- alcohol, cheese, fried foods, chocolate, pizza, cookies, meat and poultry of unknown origin, etc. That may be the only food to eat, or you may be tempted. Personally, I find it hard not to feel sorry for myself if I am munching on carrot sticks when everyone else is digging into the cheese and crackers, or whatever else yummy and verboten that is being served.
• Third, fibroids are something one doesn't want to talk about with everyone, so it's difficult to explain to people why you have to have such a restricted diet unless you spill the beans. Particularly in business situations obviously it is not appropriate to talk about such a personal problem. So I pray that when I'm at a work dinner I can find SOMETHING on the menu that I can eat, and really it's not always easy. (If I have to make some compromise, it's usually on the wheat, and I get some pasta hold the cheese). It can be even harder in social situations, where there is a limited selection of food and you risk hurting the feelings of the person who prepared it. One strategy for dinners at other people's homes, I always volunteer to bring something, and I make it something that fits my diet, like a salad. That way I know that if worse comes to worse, there is always at least one thing I can have. Some considerate hostesses will even ask about food restrictions since so many people have them now. For example, recently I went to a holiday dinner at a friend's and she asked if there's anything I can't eat. Rather than reciting the whole list, I decided to hone in on a key item so I told her "My doctor has strongly advised me not to eat meat containing hormones. So please let me know if what you are having is hormone-free or not, but don't feel like you need to get anything special on my account." Now, I was able to do this since I live in Northern California and people are pretty health conscious here, this obviously wouldn't work in many parts of the U.S. where it's hard to even get hormone-free meats and awareness of this issue is low. Turns out her reply was that she normally tries to get hormone-free meats anyways, and will make sure she does so this time. So I could enjoy chicken with everyone else, as a special treat!
• Fourth, it's hard to be the "picky eater." Either you feel awkward, demanding, or like you are drawing undue attention to yourself. People (like the example of my mom and the microwaved plastic) may think you are being sanctimonious or judging them. They also may try to justify their own food decisions (like eating a brownie) by trying to get you to join them, and making you feel guilty if you don't.
• Fifth, I'm not sure what to call this, I'll try "lack of food security." Feeling like you always have to worry about what you are going to eat when you are out and about. Not being to walk into a restaruant and find things you can eat. Hard to pick up things from a store to snack on, since most snack foods are bad and fibroid fighters are not supposed to eat cold foods directly from the refrigerator. As mentioned in a prior post, most energy bars don't really cut it either. It's just one other thing to worry about. And after a while I get sick of the goji berries. Food is just one of those basic needs, and always worrying about whether you can get something that will nourish you is more stress. I havn't cried at a restaurant, but a couple of times I have thrown a kind of temper tantrum and/or just gotten the heck out of the restaurant once I realize they can't feed me.

One of the big issues for me in starting the fibroid-fighting diet was getting my then-boyfriend now-fiancee to buy into it. He is one of those people with a high metabolism, and at 41 weighs the same as he did in college, even though he has a prodigious appetite. He loves eating out and he loves cocktails, fine wines, and port. As a result of him constantly taking me out to dinner and cooking for me, I gained ten pounds in the first few months after dating him. And I'm sure all the glasses of wine, red meat, cheese and chocolate that he, in all good loving attention, proffered to me were not exactly helping my fibroids.

To be honest, I think it would have been very difficult to make a radical change in my diet if I had not discovered that my fibroids had grown and were in the way of TTC, and I needed to make a big change if I wanted to get healthy again and having a chance of conceiving. I think I needed something that big in order to get full cooperation from my boyfriend. And even so, frankly it was very difficult for him to accept that I was now so restricted -- that we would have to search for restaurants that serve hormone-free meat, that I was supposed to cut way back on my alcohol, and that wine and cheese and crackers no longer constituted a good dinner, etc. At some level he seemed to feel that my not being able to, for example, share a dessert with him was a rejection of one way he likes to take care of me -- by feeding me.

Because he's an analytical engineering type, I ended up making a spreadsheet, with each row being a type of food and each column being a different book or other source concerning fibroids. I used it to show how for each thing I wanted to do -- either eat or avoid that particular food -- multiple sources said it was important, and I included the scientific reason why. This was helpful in convincing him. I also had a big talk with him and told him that I expected him to be supportive and to not thwart my efforts. He grumbled a lot but he seems to have gotten used to it.

On the other hand, I honestly think it would have been difficult for me to follow this regimen if I were not dating someone. It helps a lot to have one person who knows the whole story and can be supportive. As I mentioned in my first post, for years my life looked similar to that of one of the gals from Sex and the City, except with less sex. That meant lots of cosmopolitans, lots of parties, lots of blind dates -- in other words, lots of occasions where I was socially self-conscious and wanting to fit in, as well as didn't have very much control over my food. Not to mention, often when I was at a cocktail party and was depressed by the poor selection of men there, or felt nervous, I would reach for a glass of wine.

The basic problem here is that the Standard American Diet (I have seen it referred to as SAD) is extremely unhealthy! And most people have no idea, so once you become more enlightened you will tend to stand out, and also others may find it strange or even threatening. It seems that recently more people are aware of what a healthy diet truly is, but that's still a limited number of people.

One thing I haven't done is try to seek out others with similar eating habits. This would make sense especially if one lives in an area where this type of eating is particularly not mainstream. Like finding a local vegetarian or vegan club. Or seeing if there is a vegetarian or vegan meetup near you on meetup.com. I typed "dating site vegetarians" and a whole slew of sites popped up -- if you are single perhaps that could be a good way to meet a supportive partner!