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There it is again. The little voice in my head, “You’re fat. Ugly, fat, no good, fat. Useless. Cow. Fat.” It always starts and ends with ‘fat’. Whatever else it says is really just variations of the theme.
It knows, you see, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I were thin, slender, svelte – whichever you prefer – I could not possibly be ugly or no good or a useless cow. I would shine. Pirouette into a room. My laughter, a bubbling brook. I would be nothing less than magnificent.
But as it stands, I am not exactly thin. Oh I have been. Too thin. Much, much too thin. At the time I thought I was that magnificent creature I had longed to be during my chubby teenage years.
Unfortunately, I was suffering from that much talked about little ailment called anorexia. I didn’t know it at the time, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared.
Sadly, I still don’t. In fact, that little voice keeps reminding me of the time when I’d had such incredible self-control, keeps berating me for not being able to avoid food for weeks at a time.
“Honestly,” it says, “What’s become of you? Anti-loser!” And then it sulks.
Eating disorders are, I think, much more subtle and insidious than anyone who doesn’t have psychological weight issues may imagine.
I recently complained to a friend that I was hungry and how I hate being hungry. She was shocked. “How can you hate being hungry?” she asked. “Saying that is like saying ‘I hate breathing.’” She didn’t get it.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work out the why of it. Where did this love/hate relationship with food begin? I could blame the media. (We do so love to blame them folks.) The kilojoule count on every item of food I buy. The slim ranges available everywhere. The ubiquitous diet pills, plans, supplements and magic potions on supermarket shelves.
I could also blame my mother. I could. I really could. But that’s unfair. Her food issues were passed down to her from her mother, who had them passed down to her, from hers: my extremely beautiful great grandmother told all who would listen that “Fat women never found husbands”. This was a big deal in the forties (my grandmother’s era) and the sixties (my mother’s), and so eating disorders became something of a tradition in our family.
My little voice and I, we go back a long way. I first went on diet when I was 13.
It was preventative. You know, just in case. So, while my dad and brother where served all manner of seeming deliciousness, my mother and I ate steamed chicken breasts and lettuce leaves. Hold the dressing please.
And that, sadly, is when I began putting on weight. Being rebellious by nature, I started to binge eat at night when the family were asleep. I’d sneak into the kitchen and eat my way through everything I could lay my hands on.
Being a teenager is tough enough, but being a chubby one is even harder. So I spent much of my teenage years locked in my room secretly eating.
When I was out of my room I was generally being weighed, measured, prodded and pinched by various ultra-skinny ladies at Weigh-Less or Weight Watchers (or any other place my desperate mom could find). These paragons of boney virtue were quick to inform us that they too had once been overweight, so they understood how we felt.
Then, they very loudly announced to everyone in the room that you had put on a whole kilogram – illustrating this by whipping out two bricks of melty, gooey butter. Like hell they knew how we felt.
This all changed when I discovered diet pills. Took your appetite away completely: you could lose half a kay a day. And they were (back then) readily available over the counter. At 17 I began to lose weight. At 20 I fit into the clothes I wore at 12. But that wasn’t good enough. I began buying clothes that were smaller and smaller. I’d hang the item up in my room and diet until I fitted into it.
I began a secret competition with my friends, both of whom where thin and beautiful, and still are. I won the competition if I could widen the gap between their weight and mine, and the greater the gap, the greater the winner I was. I was doing pretty well too until I fainted in front of my live-in boyfriend.
He began an investigation into when I had eaten last. I lied, but eventually it was discovered that I hadn’t eaten for over a week. The awful thing is, I was so proud of myself and horrified that he couldn’t see what I had achieved. All he saw was the puddle of bones on the floor. Really? But I was magnificent.
Even though I had been caught, it took years before I actually ate properly again. It was my 24th birthday. I remember clearly. My friends and I went to a champagne breakfast at the Elangeni in Durban. A real treat in those days. And I ate. No guilt. No voice. No regrets.
But by then the damage had been done. After taking up to three diet pills a day for almost seven years, my metabolism had all but gone into retirement. And so I steadily began to put on weight. My little voice was always there, but the magical switch that I had found that could turn off my appetite was no longer so easy to locate.
It’s been years of yo-yo dieting now. I am in fact a poster child for yo-yo dieting. All I need to do is find that switch and I can lose 20kg in three months. No problem. Of course it doesn’t stay gone long. And the magnificent me soon becomes the uncomfortable, unattractive, undesirable me again.
As I finish writing this, the flight attendant offers me a choice of carbonara or veggie curry. I decline both. The little voice in my head pipes up, “Well done.” Then rather snidely, “I wonder how long you’ll keep it up this time?” And I know for sure, my little voice and I, we’ll be together for a long time yet.
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It knows, you see, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I were thin, slender, svelte – whichever you prefer – I could not possibly be ugly or no good or a useless cow. I would shine. Pirouette into a room. My laughter, a bubbling brook. I would be nothing less than magnificent.
But as it stands, I am not exactly thin. Oh I have been. Too thin. Much, much too thin. At the time I thought I was that magnificent creature I had longed to be during my chubby teenage years.
Unfortunately, I was suffering from that much talked about little ailment called anorexia. I didn’t know it at the time, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared.
Sadly, I still don’t. In fact, that little voice keeps reminding me of the time when I’d had such incredible self-control, keeps berating me for not being able to avoid food for weeks at a time.
“Honestly,” it says, “What’s become of you? Anti-loser!” And then it sulks.
Eating disorders are, I think, much more subtle and insidious than anyone who doesn’t have psychological weight issues may imagine.
I recently complained to a friend that I was hungry and how I hate being hungry. She was shocked. “How can you hate being hungry?” she asked. “Saying that is like saying ‘I hate breathing.’” She didn’t get it.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work out the why of it. Where did this love/hate relationship with food begin? I could blame the media. (We do so love to blame them folks.) The kilojoule count on every item of food I buy. The slim ranges available everywhere. The ubiquitous diet pills, plans, supplements and magic potions on supermarket shelves.
I could also blame my mother. I could. I really could. But that’s unfair. Her food issues were passed down to her from her mother, who had them passed down to her, from hers: my extremely beautiful great grandmother told all who would listen that “Fat women never found husbands”. This was a big deal in the forties (my grandmother’s era) and the sixties (my mother’s), and so eating disorders became something of a tradition in our family.
My little voice and I, we go back a long way. I first went on diet when I was 13.
It was preventative. You know, just in case. So, while my dad and brother where served all manner of seeming deliciousness, my mother and I ate steamed chicken breasts and lettuce leaves. Hold the dressing please.
And that, sadly, is when I began putting on weight. Being rebellious by nature, I started to binge eat at night when the family were asleep. I’d sneak into the kitchen and eat my way through everything I could lay my hands on.
Being a teenager is tough enough, but being a chubby one is even harder. So I spent much of my teenage years locked in my room secretly eating.
When I was out of my room I was generally being weighed, measured, prodded and pinched by various ultra-skinny ladies at Weigh-Less or Weight Watchers (or any other place my desperate mom could find). These paragons of boney virtue were quick to inform us that they too had once been overweight, so they understood how we felt.
Then, they very loudly announced to everyone in the room that you had put on a whole kilogram – illustrating this by whipping out two bricks of melty, gooey butter. Like hell they knew how we felt.
This all changed when I discovered diet pills. Took your appetite away completely: you could lose half a kay a day. And they were (back then) readily available over the counter. At 17 I began to lose weight. At 20 I fit into the clothes I wore at 12. But that wasn’t good enough. I began buying clothes that were smaller and smaller. I’d hang the item up in my room and diet until I fitted into it.
I began a secret competition with my friends, both of whom where thin and beautiful, and still are. I won the competition if I could widen the gap between their weight and mine, and the greater the gap, the greater the winner I was. I was doing pretty well too until I fainted in front of my live-in boyfriend.
He began an investigation into when I had eaten last. I lied, but eventually it was discovered that I hadn’t eaten for over a week. The awful thing is, I was so proud of myself and horrified that he couldn’t see what I had achieved. All he saw was the puddle of bones on the floor. Really? But I was magnificent.
Even though I had been caught, it took years before I actually ate properly again. It was my 24th birthday. I remember clearly. My friends and I went to a champagne breakfast at the Elangeni in Durban. A real treat in those days. And I ate. No guilt. No voice. No regrets.
But by then the damage had been done. After taking up to three diet pills a day for almost seven years, my metabolism had all but gone into retirement. And so I steadily began to put on weight. My little voice was always there, but the magical switch that I had found that could turn off my appetite was no longer so easy to locate.
It’s been years of yo-yo dieting now. I am in fact a poster child for yo-yo dieting. All I need to do is find that switch and I can lose 20kg in three months. No problem. Of course it doesn’t stay gone long. And the magnificent me soon becomes the uncomfortable, unattractive, undesirable me again.
As I finish writing this, the flight attendant offers me a choice of carbonara or veggie curry. I decline both. The little voice in my head pipes up, “Well done.” Then rather snidely, “I wonder how long you’ll keep it up this time?” And I know for sure, my little voice and I, we’ll be together for a long time yet.
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