# 37 - The Social Eating Challenge

At the Efrat Women's Health Center, we have received advice, instruction and help toward a healthy life in every way possible - from exercise to visualization to arts and crafts projects. :)
And I have been a very good girl. I have listened to just about everything I've been told. I go to sleep around midnight (instead of 2 or 3 AM, which was my previous habit). I don't eat at night. I reach for a fruit or vegetable instead of a cookie. I get up earlier than I once did and then walk on my treadmill. I've given up cake. I try to have only one Ice Coffee Lite a week. Etc. etc.
As Eliza Doolittle would have said, "I'm a good girl, I am."
Yet, even with all the above, I still have a very big weakness: social eating.
I'm a social person. I love my friends. I love to be surrounded by great people. I love to participate in groups and I love increasing my circle of friends.
When I'm in a social situation - dinner out with loved ones, a kiddush in shul, company at my own house - I eat more than I should and more than I would have if I had been alone.
Now...I try to stay away from the kiddush table at a simcha, because it's almost impossible for me not to eat the Yerushalmi kugel. I try not to wash when I go with friends for lunch, so that I won't munch on four bread rolls. But when I'm eating dinner with the family and we're sitting around, I'll continue eating as long as we're sitting. If we sit together for 15 minutes, I'll eat for 15 minutes. If we sit together for an hour, I'll eat for an hour. Food and friendship go together, and that speaks to me.
Unfortunately it also influences me in a bad way. I have to figure out a way to have my friends without eating along with them. Hm, sounds like a new challenge to me.