When I returned to school at a lighter weight, I discovered other challenges I hadn’t previously thought of.
On a practical level, I always lamented that being bigger meant more alcohol was required to get me tipsy. I lamented the calories. In the beginning of college, I’d drink six beers, even eight beers in a night. But once I knew that the alcohol, as excessive as it was in our social lives, would reverse any weight I’d lost if I didn’t at least attempt to lighten what I sipped, I started experimenting. The girls and I took to mixing powdered sugar-free, calorie-free Crystal Light lemonade into a Nalgene bottle’s worth of three parts cold water to one part vodka. We called it disco lemonade. I’m not sure if it was the cutesy name or the fact that we’d invented our own “healthy” cocktail that made us love it so; it certainly wasn’t the taste.
Shortly after junior year started, my weight loss stalled. Or at least it seemed as though it had. My jeans weren’t any looser; I wasn’t noticing even the subtlest of changes in the bathroom mirror. I worried that I’d let two and a half months at school pass me by when I could have been working toward losing more weight. It was clear that I still had quite a long road ahead of me. I decided that I needed help to go on, so I joined Weight Watchers on the first day of November. Sabrina joined, too, wanting to lose a modest twenty pounds. Setting foot on the generic conference room carpeting of the meeting room, I thought back to the meeting I’d gone to with Kate’s mom in high school. While it hadn’t been a livable plan for me as a teenager, I wanted it to work this time.
Sabrina and I weighed in before making our way to the back to sit with the group. I steadied myself on the scale, anticipating failure. I feared I’d gained. And how could I not have, when I’d struggled so consistently to make the right choice in the face of temptation and nine times out of ten failed? When the woman recording my weight revealed it to me, I was shocked. I had lost ten pounds. I smiled at her, exhaling a sigh of relief, and I noticed the momentary look of confusion that flickered across her face. It took me a second before I understood her reaction. There were probably very few people that she weighed in who seemed happy to know that they weighed 228 pounds. But for me, 228 was progress. A 10-pound loss in two and a half months would have been nothing during the summer, when I’d maintained a rigorous workout regimen, but I knew full well how challenging the food and drinking scene at school had been. The fact that I’d lost 10 pounds sent a gentle ripple of pride through me. Simply the fact that I hadn’t gained was a small miracle.
This time around, I took instantly to the Weight Watchers plan. After the first meeting, my motivation and commitment had been restored. Meticulous by nature, I loved the structure, the planning, the goals. It felt comfortable. Counting points taught me the fundamentals of nutrition and portion size—essentials I’d never known: that I should inspect ingredient lists for calories, fat, protein, and fiber; that quantity matters, and quality, too. I liked being given a framework—a quota of points for the day based upon my weight and height and goal—it was up to me to spend them how I wanted. Because, though whole foods are wonderful and lovable and all manner of virtuous, sometimes I wanted to use my points on a brownie rather than anything more nutritiously sound. Many times, in fact. I liked that a cookie could fit into my plan. No food was off-limits. Yes, cake costs more in points, but I learned to respect it more in turn. I learned to enjoy the moment when I’d chosen to spend five precious points on a lemon square, because they were special, earned, and loved in their spending.
For the few months that I followed Weight Watchers, I followed the plan on my own. Sabrina continued on her own, as well, and when either of us felt like giving up, we’d find comfort and strength in the other. Apart from two group meetings, I just felt more comfortable flying solo with my Point Tracker. Having always struggled with consistency in dieting, I began journaling what and how much I ate. This single act changed the way I viewed and valued eating, teaching me accountability and an awareness of my own hunger and fullness. I noted which times of day I felt most in need of sweets, which times were easiest and hardest. There was a pleasurable quality in reporting to the journal, to myself, what I’d put into my body. A Tetris-like game was born. I found ways to fit healthy foods and treats perfectly side by side in the same day. Each night, I went to bed with a deep sense of satisfaction for the confidence that came with the completion of a successful day, a week on track. It bred empowerment. It made me aware of small victories, all the times when I might have once eaten a half-dozen cookies and now was able to stop at one. These were milestones. Between that November and the following January, I lost another 20 pounds.
What I learned in those six months had less to do with food and more to do with myself. It taught me about the nature of struggle and the feeling of strength that’s born from it. I look back now and know that the beginning of weight loss—the time just after the first two weeks, when the diet began to feel like a lifestyle—was easier than when the losing slowed. At the start, I was enthusiastic. Like anything that challenges me, I wanted badly to win. To win at weight loss as fiercely as I might want to win, say, a game of Jeopardy with Daniel.
I squinted to see a 140-pound finish line far off in the distance, and I took off in a mad dash without considering whether I’d run out of fuel halfway or whether the finish line was even as close as it appeared. Thankfully, the first leg of the journey involved weeks of losing double digits since I’d been so big to start with. This experience was something akin to fun but not actually enjoyable, describable only in long, relieved, and accomplished sighs. I felt energetic, then. Inspired.
But then, after I’d been at it for about six months, and was down nearly 60 pounds since my start at 268, I started to slow. In progress, in patience. The vigilance, the exercise—they wore on me. The thrill of newness evaporated, and I began to feel bored with the whole process. I shuddered when reality reminded me, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but … you’re going to have to keep at this for another ten months—give or take forever—if you want to get and keep all that weight off.
It felt as though I’d been bowling on bumper lanes for a month—knocking pins down, considering myself a boss at the whole game—when all of a sudden the bumpers retreated, and I was left with the real deal, deep, foreboding gutters and all. This isn’t nearly as fun, I’d think. I’m not knocking ’em down the way I did before.
What I thought next—just after I silently called myself a quitter, a loser, all manner of bad names—was simple enough: Oh, it’s just going to suck for a while.
A heady dose of reality, it was a revelation. Because for once, I realized that weight loss wouldn’t be like taking up jogging as a new hobby, with a map or course directions in hand. It would be like running a marathon, where miles ten through twenty-six just purely, uncompromisingly suck.
Once I said this to myself, much of the journey seemed clearer. I recognized the distance, the real strength that I’d have to maintain. I recognized that I probably wouldn’t like it at the beginning. But I knew that, as with many arduous journeys, they often end well.
But there were times, dozens upon dozens, when I seriously wanted a whole box of glazed doughnuts. When I wanted to sit in my bed and eat and eat and eat to my favorite TV shows. When I wanted to attempt eating a whole cake, whether or not my stomach wanted to do it with me. When I didn’t want anything to do with willpower or her cousin, moderation. When I didn’t want one scoop of ice cream when I knew that Ben & Jerry’s offered pints.
There is simply no denying the hard parts. The afternoons when I was midway between lunch and dinner and knew no amount of fruit would ever satisfy like a cupcake. The mornings when I found myself setting the pace on the treadmill and my legs felt leaden, my whole body a heavy mess. Looking at my empty dinner plate after finishing a complete meal and wanting another full one to replace it. The times just before bed when I couldn’t sleep because my mind was running the aisles of a supermarket grabbing Oreos and Lucky Charms in a fever.
The times in the coffee shop that I smelled a just-baked blueberry muffin and I sighed, realizing I couldn’t let myself eat three, hot, and with butter. The times when a sheet cake was splayed in front of me and I knew that “just a sliver” wouldn’t cut it.
Those were the trying times. Those were the minutes, the hours, when I needed to brace myself and ride it out. They are the ones that make up character. Because, really, how we act when times are just peachy is nothing compared to how we act when times are rotten. The peachy times don’t say as much, anyway, about strength or determination. Moments when I felt my weakest, when I was absolutely certain that I’d rather give up than keep going—that was when I learned what I’m made of.
I developed an arsenal of ways to distract myself, if only to narrowly escape a binge. I wrote in a journal each time I felt myself flagging, in need of support. I called Kate or Sabrina and talked about things other than food and weight and losing. Those conversations let me step outside of my own bubble, to immerse myself in someone else’s life. I went to the movies, a place where I had finally learned to be content without snacks, and immersed myself in fantasy worlds. I spent time outside in nature—the surest, quickest way to feel connected to something greater, and a way for me to realize that the world still spun on its axis whether or not I hated my body.
In my moments of deepest despair, when I could no longer avoid the unease building inside me, I would turn to Daniel. He was the only person with whom I was comfortable enough to really address what I was feeling. He’d listen to me cry, always offering a sympathetic ear and a bit of practical, encouraging advice. It brought us closer. As honest as I was with my friends, I couldn’t muster the courage to talk as openly with them about how badly I missed the food I once abused; it would seem silly to anyone—strange, even—that I mourned it like I did. Or at least I thought it would. But that shame didn’t exist with Daniel, because he, too, struggled with binge eating. He, too, had a lifelong strained relationship to food. He, too, was struggling to lose weight and get healthier. Selfishly, I was grateful for that.
Not every day breezed by. Not every day did my hunger and fullness remain consistent, reliable. Not every day did something stress me out so much that I fought myself to avoid reaching for fudge to fix it. Still, there were those times. And I find it helpful, now, to know this. I find it helpful to know the risks, the challenges that might come up along the way. Because then I know to steel my resolve. I know that we all fight through such moments. That it’s just part of the journey.
Just as I began to acknowledge this, just as I began to accept it, I left the country.
MOVING TO ITALY WAS PRECARIOUS. Less because of the cultural differences and more because of the expectations involved in spending a semester abroad. “You’ll have the best time of your life,” everyone assured me. “Enjoy every second,” they pressed. And what if I don’t? I wondered. What if I find that studying Italian cinema for five months isn’t all I’ve ever wanted and needed in an adventure? Will I be able to sustain my love for a boyfriend who is four thousand miles away? What if I’m not one of those who finds herself while far away on some exotic journey? What will that say about me?
I feared how the buildup would match its unfolding. And at first I was fine. The first three weeks of the semester were spent in Florence as an orientation period where we would get our feet wet in Italian culture and prepare for the rest of our stay—four months in Rome. There, in Florence, I nearly lost myself in culture lust. It was new and charming and the kind of thing I—or anyone, really—dreamed it would be.
By the time I stepped onto Italian soil, my weight had dropped to 210 pounds. I felt more confident wearing the new clothes I’d packed—a knee-length caramel-colored peacoat, dark-wash trouser jeans in size sixteen, and fitted, crisp white button-down shirts. I continued to count points, flexible yet loyal to Weight Watchers. My aim was to taste everything, at least a bite or two of every last thing. I stuck to small, sensible portions, knowing that most of the food was rich. A handful of pillowy gnocchi, each no bigger than the tip of my thumb; six strands of tender homemade pappardelle pasta in rich Bolognese sauce; grilled eggplant brushed with fruity olive oil; whole branzino with bones to be removed tableside. Dinners out were a sampling of the best Italian fare. It seemed that everyone who ate with us—from teachers to tour guides—was wildly passionate about the food. A meal wasn’t complete without at least one person bringing up the special care with which it had been prepared, the freshness of the ingredients. It was infectious, this reverence. And even eating all these things, I still felt on track. I didn’t have a scale to help me check in—I didn’t even know if Italy housed such a thing—but I could tell that I was doing well despite the decadence.
At the end of the first three weeks in Florence, it was time to move to Rome. Forty of us—all students from various colleges in the United States—filled one bus. In fours, we scattered about the city into our own apartments—everywhere from Trastevere to the less savory area surrounding Termini train station. My loft apartment, to be shared with three girls so wonderful I couldn’t have hand-selected them better myself, was in the heart of Campo de’ Fiori. Literally “field of flowers,” it is a gorgeous square where vendors set up dozens of carts every day to sell fresh fruit, vegetables, and flowers. The space is cobblestoned and quaint, alive with street culture. Old World and unpretentious, beautiful without being styled. Everywhere I’d turn, I would catch mingling aromas of red-sauced pizzette and bitter espresso cutting through the sweet scent of pastries and tarts being pulled from the ovens of caffès. Gray-haired signoras wanting nothing more than to feed you, and on every corner Italian men standing with both hands pressed together in front of their chests as if in prayer, shaking them up and down as they barter. At night, Campo turns down its streetlamps and ups the volume of its music to become a party scene for Italians and tourists alike.
The whole place seemed almost like a storybook world.
But that first night in Rome, a sprawling metropolis, uprooted from the village that I knew Florence to be, I felt homesick. Transition within transition, I was emotionally taxed. It made me sad and, worse, lonely. I tried to call Daniel with the international calling card I’d picked up at the airport, but when I was met by his voice mail, the loneliness ached deeper.
After setting my belongings down in my new apartment, I hit the corner market to buy necessities for a yet-to-be-filled fridge: eggs (unrefrigerated, mind you), greens for salad, fruit, milk (also unrefrigerated), cereal. I browsed the aisles, comparing home and here, trying my best to read labels in a language I’d only studied for a semester. Nutrition facts, euros, ingredient laundry lists—all a foreign affair in my effort to stay the healthy course abroad. I pushed my cart to the front to pay and paused. At the register, American candy bars smiled at me, sweet and familiar. Kit Kat, there you are. I sighed, relieved to see a piece of home. Chocolate-covered and cooing at me. I picked up the package, a bag of Kit Kat Pop ’Em Bites. I imagine it served five in a reasonable world, but one in mine. My heartbeat quickened. Close to a choice I should not be making, I felt excited and anxious, on the ledge of jumping into food oblivion. The decision made itself. Into the cart the Kit Kats went. That was it, I realized; I had decided to binge. Too late to turn back now, I swiveled that clunky cart back to face the aisles. There was that one section, I thought as I headed to it. Before me, parallel shelves stood proud to show their full stock of cookies and crunchies and all manner of sweet-meets-sweeter. Paranoid, I looked to my left and right, wanting to be sure that no one had caught me almost cheating on health with floozy snacks containing more calories than a mug of heavy cream, straight up. Want. Need. Crave and love and long and lust. I salivated. I felt manic and depressive. Don’t. Do. Don’t. Do. Don’t. Do. Do Not. Do.
I snatched the vanilla creme wafers—the family pack—swiftly and surely and tucked them into the corner of my cart. The cashier won’t think anything of two sweet treats, will she? I made sure to stag
ger the contents within the cart—vegetable, Kit Kat, fruit, milk, sugar wafers, eggs—all in an effort to not look like a two-hundred-something-pound girl on the verge of a desperate binge.
Once you’ve decided on a binge, it’s almost impossible to stop. Turning back is driving all the way to Florida from Massachusetts, straight through the night, and arriving bleary-eyed and exhausted, only to decide it would be better to turn around and head back up north rather than nap in the sun on the beach for a bit. It’s starving for days, only to enter a buffet line with no plate, no fork, no knife, no spoon. You consider using your hands, no matter how barbaric, how publicly embarrassing. It hardly feels doable to go back on what you’ve just decided will be a swan dive into pleasure.
As I handed a fistful of euros to the cashier, I realized I already felt better. Something about having the Kit Kats, the sugar wafers in my possession soothed me. I breathed easier, knowing sweet relief would come after only a short walk back to my apartment.
There was hardly enough space in that little fridge to fit four girls’ worth of groceries. I left the kitchen with the chocolate and cookies and returned to my new bedroom, closing the door behind me. My roommate, Melissa, was there unzipping her suitcase. Her eyes showed homesickness, the same strain as mine. I set my suitcase atop my twin bed, ripped open its top, and did the same with the Kit Kat package. I showed her the snacks by splaying them out before her as an offering. She had seen me eat healthfully during the previous three weeks, so this splurge was unexpected. When she made mention of the indulgence, I felt backed into a corner with nothing to say but the truth. I told her how much I was struggling—with a new city, a new body. I told her how much weight I’d lost, how hard and rewarding the last six months had been, and how badly I wanted to take a break from it all and eat chocolate. She gave me a sympathetic nod, pulling a handful of Kit Kat bites from the bag on my bed and popping two into her mouth. “Well, these would have been my choice, too.” She smiled as she chewed. “And I think you’ll be okay.”
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