To diet for

When I was in high school I basically got out of any misdemeanor because I looked like a wafer. A character that would have inspired Judy Blume and V.C. Andrews; a skeletal sliver of a girl who looked like she had just survived a war hiding in her toy chest. Anyhoo, aside from getting out of trouble because I looked so pitiful, the toothpick look didn’t get me far in other aspects of life. I prayed every night for boobs, and instead I just got zits. Even the advent of the “heroin chic” look headed by Kate Moss gave little comfort for the cold hard truth: boys liked the Cindys.

I was so thin that I couldn’t even wear sleeveless shirts unless I was begging for Angelina Jolie to adopt me. I ate and ate and the results came in the form of a food baby, as Juno would call it. I came to the point of surrender and hoped for a boy who would like me for my personality.

Then something happened. Sometime in my 20s everything I swallowed made itself apparent in my face, arms, legs, butt and especially belly. I was like a sack. This is when the diet frenzy kicked in. Like any garden-variety diet nut I started counting calories and even brought little food scales to restaurants (even on dates). Math wasn’t my best subject so the measuring and adding got to me. Then Atkins came along.

This was a very dark period in my life. Dinners were spent scraping pizza toppings off pizza crusts and eating dizzying amounts of protein. I forgot what bread tasted like and my friend, sugared spaghetti, was exiled. I remember just sleeping all day and panting as I put on my skinny jeans.

My epiphany happened when I saw a photo of myself in a gala event looking like Allegra Beck’s arm. A vein literally snaked its way along my forehead in the most prominent manner.

I was scared. Was this what I wanted? To look like the very spaghetti that I had exiled to pantry hell? I starved myself to look like the girl that I was in high school. It was ironic.

I took control then and had a grilled cheese sandwich. My eyes rolled to my hairline as I ate bread again for the first time in years. There are just some things in life that are not worth giving up. Bread and sanity, to name two.