The Hungry Mirror
Page 29
Mathew was happily onto his third beer and waiting for a cheeseburger and chips and I could sense he wasn’t really following me, but I cancelled the baked potato anyway, thinking he was thinking I was eating way too much.
I ate all my salad and then went back to the salad bar for fruit. My stomach was painfully sore but had yet to be satisfied. The waitress approached our table. “Would you like some dessert or have you had plenty?” she asked.
“No, we have had plenty,” I told her. Then I asked Mathew if he thought the waitress was telling us that we had eaten enough, no, more than enough? He shrugged, not caring.
Suddenly all I wanted to do was get back home and consult my charts and books and try to figure out exactly how bad the damage was. I hurried Mathew along and when we got home I worked it all out and to my horror the potato salad, even a small tablespoon had 6.5 grams of fat.
I was disconsolate. I tried to remember how big of a tablespoon it had been.
The weekend had been taxing. I had done Mathew proud at the Awards. The event started at 6:00 pm and ended at 1:00 am. It’s true I had to resort to a Meg-style washroom visit but I was the hostess with the mostest at the stylish black and white table and Mathew was very happy. When the awards ended, Mathew went to gamble until 5:00 am while I took the flower arrangment, the candlestick holders, and the cute little place settings as mementoes and went up to the hotel room to reflect on my sorrows. I had a huge bubble bath in the gold and cream super deluxe luxurious bathroom and tried not to look at my many bodies that stared lumpily back at me from the over-mirrored walls.
On Sunday I did a fruit cleanse and consulted Clarissa and it was all going semi-okay until the movie, the hunger, the waitress’s comment, and the tablespoon of potato salad and hence my comment to Meg.
I have tried to keep my distance from Meg ever since she started coming to work with Jon-inflicted bruises on her face and arms. I guess he still isn’t taking well to the marriage thing. It isn’t that I am judging her for accepting the abuse; it is just that I don’t know what to say, or, if I should say anything at all. But I need her today. Brit is off sick and not around to hear the disloyalty of my seeking help from the other thinner side but she herself has done it, right?
With Brit I pretend it is only about being healthy but with Meg I can be honest and tell her I am terrified of getting fat, pure and simple.
I just hope that when Brit gets back, Meg won’t make any kind of slips or reference to anything I have said but I don’t think she will. I doubt she’ll even remember.
It is important I keep a handle on who I can say what to, and that reminds me, I must, with immediate effect, look more casual and in control around Mathew. I have slipped badly over the past couple of days when talking to him. There is nothing less attractive than a neurotic woman obsessed with hating her body, prodding it for faults, and calling attention to its flaws.
Mathew and I had had a conversation about women and food, one that stemmed from an article written by an editor we knew, the same editor who liked to buy his women friends Janet Reger underwear, the one who never wore suits off the peg, lucky sot. The editor’s comment was that there is nothing less sexy than going out to dinner with a woman who pushes her food around her plate and pretends to eat, that food in all likelihood being lettuce.
He wrote that eating a good meal with gusto is symbolic of the good, lusty sex that would follow and he said he was incapable of being turned on after sitting and eating in front of a woman who did nothing more than pick at a few leaves. I told Mathew that this spoke more to the editor’s lack of self-confidence in being able to eat whatever he liked, not to mention his subsequent inability to get it up because he was a fat glutton. I added that I would put my head on the block that the editor had been a roly-poly schoolboy bullied by boys, ignored by girls.
Then I said that no woman could have good, lusty sex after a huge meal, that all they would be thinking about was fat grams, calories, and mountainous thighs.
I said the very fact that women didn’t eat around the editor reflected that they did in fact like him and want to have sex with him. If they had eaten with gusto, then it was a sure sign they had no interest in the sex side of things at all, and they’d decided they may as well get a good meal out of the evening, even if it meant having to starve the next day.
However, I added, some women will try to look normal and will eat a fair bit so as not to raise any suspicions, because men hate women who are food conscious, which is why so many women pretend they are casual around food.
“I did that with you,” I told Mathew. “I saved all my calories for our dinners so I could eat normally and you wouldn’t think I was odd or anything. I bet you wish I was still that way but the reality is the daily struggle to keep the weight down.”
“Most men do want their women thin,” Mathew agreed. He looked at me. “But they don’t really want to see how it’s done, it makes them uncomfortable,” and he said that in quite a pointed way I thought.
I looked down. “I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed, admonished.
So I have to stop talking to him about it. He is right; it is weak and unattractive.
I wondered if I am addicted to food and dieting. How do you know if you are addicted to something?
Well, it’s up to me to get a grip. Even if I am an addict, I must strive to be less of an obvious one. I used to be much better at hiding my issues but I feel like they are ravenous Gollum-type creatures, trying to claw their way out of the darkness.
I will work out a plan in secret and go back to looking casual about it all, like I did when Mathew and I met. That’s what I have to do, no matter what it takes.
Natural born glutton
“YOU WERE BORN TO BE FAT,” announces the cover line of a world famous magazine. “But we have the answers and research to help you take control!”
The first bit is hardly good news for the eating disordered population of the world. I can tell you this much, my fat destiny certainly makes me feel a lot better – not. I am in my doctor’s waiting room. My wet boots are neatly stowed according to the instructions on the receptionist’s counter and I am wearing those stupid ill-fitting blue plastic booties which slide around on my feet. I am scheduled to have my annual checkup. I know my weight is okay according to my terms so I am not stressed. I am actually looking forward to being weighed, looking forward to frightening my doctor a little. Maybe she’ll ask me what is wrong. But what will I tell her? Nothing is wrong, everything is perfectly perfect, at least it had been, until one of the world’s most highly regarded newsmagazines tells me it is my destiny to be fat.
I glance around the waiting room. I am alone. The magazine is an old one, so there is no way I will be able to get my own copy and I have to read it. “We’re predisposed to crave the wrong things – but new research will rewire those faulty circuits.”
I have to have the magazine, of course I do, because then I will be able to fix my erroneous hardwiring. I will be able to stop craving the wrong things. I will be healed and whole.
I can’t read it while I wait; doctors have a knack of coming to get you just when you are enjoying an article or a moment of peace. Nor can I ask my doctor if I can have it; that would be terribly selfish of me and very pointed too. I mean, why would I want that particular issue?
I fold the magazine up tightly and shove it into the bottom of my bag.
As soon as my appointment is over (and yes, my doctor is alarmed), I rush out to a nearby coffee shop, order a green tea, and sit down to read. I am in no hurry to get back to the office but I am in a tearing rush to find out why we are predisposed to crave the wrong things (I have known all along it isn’t my fault) and now I can discover where to point the finger of blame (yay, sayonara eating disorder).
The article is written in a convoluted intellectual kind of way that makes it hard to figure out exactly what it is saying but basically there’s a sugar-fix synapse lurking somewhere in my brain, a synapse so small I wouldn
’t be able to see it, not even if I knew where to look. Exactly how this synapse works is not clear but the mighty heft of its power is undisputed.
Apparently, I didn’t emerge at birth with a raging sugar addiction but the die was cast pretty soon thereafter. There I was, a hapless baby gurgling when Mum put some kind of sugary hydrogenated fatty treat into my hot little hands and all kinds of chemical fireworks exploded in my brain and it was all over after that. Hello sugar, my favourite addiction. Sugar as the new heroin? I have always suspected as much.
The article then refers back to the days of the cavemen when food was consumed for no purpose other than survival. Unlike many of the involuntary activities that keep our bodies alive, like breathing, we control our eating. And Mother Nature, doing her bit to keep the species going, lent a helping hand by heightening our desire for food.
Huh? So nature and instinct are responsible for eating disorders? Momentarily confused, I read on and am soon informed. The trouble, reads the article, is that with regard to food, our heightened desires have led to problems since Mother Nature never figured there’d be this much of it available to us. She got us all fired up to eat as much as we could whenever we could because at one time there wasn’t an unlimited amount to be had. As the great Janis might have sung, perhaps not in this context, it definitely was a case of get it while you can, man.
I sidetrack into thinking about Janis Joplin, who, if I recall correctly and I am certain I do, had her own issues with weight. I had read a biography of her that included letters written home in which she reassured her parents she had not gained any weight.
Et tu Janis? I had thought at the time, but the book went on to say that although Janis had wanted to be thin, she had avoided falling into the trap of an eating disorder.
I was stymied when I read that. Did that mean one could strive to be thin and not develop an eating disorder? Maybe that explained my preoccupations? Maybe I don’t have an eating disorder at all, I’d thought. I just want to be thin. I recall being encouraged by the implications of this possibility when I read it. But right now I feel too tired to think about my situation with any kind of objectivity and go back to the article and the western world’s problem of excess food.
Our lack of encouragement, by instinct or training, to put on the brakes, has resulted in a North American super-highway filled with hurtling overloaded Mac trucks. No one knows how to slow down or stop. Natural instinct, now no more than a perplexed bystander, watches paralyzed; she is as surprised by this turn of events as we are.
Okay, I get it. We were born to be gluttons in order to survive. And it was like winning a game show when we eventually happened upon sugar, and all the treats it subsequently produced. Lights flashed and bells rang. Chow down baby! Don’t stop until it’s all gone! Nowadays however, it’s never all gone. Our ancestors would have thought we never had it so good.
I put the magazine down for a moment. Oh. Great. Nature wants me to overeat like there’s no tomorrow. See, it is all beyond my control.
I keep reading but it only gets worse. The article blithely proceeds to comment that the excess of one tiny potato chip a day will send me into fatness. Yes, just one little chip. Such is the delicacy of the balance between intake and energy expenditure.
Eleven calories more a day can kick one overboard into a sea of fat? Incredulous and horrified, I reread carefully. Yes, the article claims that a tiny extra eleven calories a day will result in an increased pound or more per year. I sigh. As I have already suspected, I need to be ever more vigilant.
The article also says that ghrelin, a hormone whose levels increase as mealtimes approach and which accounts for the sensation of hunger, is chronically high in self-starvers who then discipline themselves to ignore this chemical alarm bell.
Oh, I am well-disciplined all right. But does that also mean that I am more sensitive to feeling hungry than other people? That because of my chronic amounts of ghrelin, I am an extra hungry individual, in addition to which I force myself to starve more than your average Joe? If you ask me, that means I suffer a double whammy.
I feel more tired than ever.
But wait, I think, they said something about new research fixing this, finding the cure. Time to get to the cure part, time for the good news.
The solution part focuses on how researchers are hard at work trying to find a pill that will fix our unruly brains and get eating disorders under control. If they can only find the right pill, then our eating, our moods, our sex lives, our entire happiness, and the meaning of life will be worked out and balanced. Because it all comes down to money and marketing, and one way or another they want to get us addicted to things we’ll have to keep paying for. No one really wants us to be well, because that will hardly keep the revenue ball rolling.
Whereas obesity, diets, depression, anxiety, how you look, what you eat, what you wear, and what you weigh – well, there is more return on these investments than all the oil wells of the world combined. You can’t turn a corner without bumping head-on into a marketing ploy of some kind. And now they want to find another magic pill? Of course they do.
And, does this esteemed mag have any suggestions to help us cope while we wait for the chemists to whip up their potions? The article has one: brush your teeth. Take a break from that ice cream binge to brush, and the flavour change will help you resist eating further. Or, the article recommends eating a nice, big filling salad as opposed to a small, non-filling brownie.
I sigh. They are clearly no wiser than I. Then I read a sidebar about one of the winners of The Biggest Loser who gained 32 pounds in just five days when he started drinking water again. He had been off all fluid – water weighs a lot you know. Drinking water, or any fluids for that matter, can have disastrous consequences when it comes to being weighed. Dehydrated equals a lighter mass. Every time I have a drink, even a treasured green tea, I see the needle of my old fashioned scale bob up a notch. And while I know water is not fat per se, weight is weight and numbers are numbers. I bet The Biggest Loser had been on some power diuretics too.
I am filled with fury. I mean, isn’t this magazine supposed to stand for something real? Isn’t it supposed to be an icon of respected journalism? This is more like reading a trashy gossip tabloid.
I turn the page to an additional research piece by a reporter who survived for forty-eight hours on nothing but a hot beverage of lemon juice, chili pepper, and honey. I immediately feel guilty for not doing the same thing right then and there. Why am I not existing on chili powder and a teaspoon of honey in hot water? I push myself out of the way and carry on reading.
The reporter talks about how lightheaded and cold he felt, but these symptoms quickly paled in comparison to his feelings of superiority. He writes that seeing people eat made them look weak. And, bonus, not eating gave him more time to focus on his work. Too, he was interested to observe how he felt more naturally drawn to salads than fries. Wow. I am impressed. All this in forty-eight hours? Maybe this reporter is the kind of guy who can do the five stages of grieving in a day too. He goes on about how nothing tempted him – breakfast cereals were akin to concrete, smoothies were suffocating. Oh, how easily our anorexic selves are turned on, how quickly we learn to love the “high” that comes with starving. Having completed his forty-eight hours, the reporter then ate, noting that he quickly reached an uncomfortable level of fullness. Satiated, he sat back, rubbed his leaden stomach and commented that he liked the feeling of starving more.
Oh, well done once-respected magazine! Anorexics of the world unite!
The entire article has been a terrible disappointment. Here I am, thinking help is at hand when the entire thing is just a glib, puff-pastry piece on the various pills being developed, and, in the meantime, y’all carry on eating like the born gluttons you are! You’re making our Neanderthal ancestors proud! Sit back and relax! Brush your teeth for some light relief! And don’t worry, science and research will come along soon to fix you. You won’t have to do a thing.
I am filled with fury by everything I’ve just read. I throw the magazine down, then pick it up again. I want to share my anger, but with whom? Who will understand my rage at this latest insult, this glossing over of the torment?
“Irresponsible reporting,” I mutter. But then I think about all the media out there – the ads, the mags, the billboards. This magazine is hardly unique. Currently, the TV commercial I love to hate is for Thin Shots, which are neat little plastic thimbles filled with natural wheat and castor oil. They look like those sealed plastic mini-milk cones that come with takeout coffee.
“Thin Shots,” says the robotic Shopping Channel voice, “are non-addictive appetite suppressants, conveniently suitable for vegetarians and vegans, with no embarrassing side effects.” One hardly likes to imagine what the embarrassing side effects might be.
“Say goodbye to cravings! Say goodbye to midnight snacking! Both are a thing of the past thanks to Thin Shots.”
“Be an inspiration to your colleagues, friends, family and kids who are also trying to lose weight and just imagine how much more of a success you will be if you ate one third less, yes, 33.3% less, the magic number, three-three-point-three; three winning numbers that will change your life.”
I think about it and ask myself what I could achieve if I ate 33.3% less? What does my 33.3% less future look like? Am I more successful or important? Am I, say, changing the world as a doctor or civil-rights lawyer? Or, am I finally at peace in my own skin, able to be home alone with a box of instant oatmeal and a wedge of cheese? Because right now I can’t do that. I can’t spend a day alone by myself with a box of breakfast cereal, never mind change the world.