Excerpts from my diaries:
October 27, 2000: Swimming party ni Marianne tom… I don’t know if I should go… WHY? A= bathing suit! Lots of strangers!
November 4, 2000: I wanna be slim and I mean real slim. Like 80 pounds. I’m gonna start on Monday. Here’s the plan, it’s the 6 o’clock diet. It’ll be all sandwiches, no soft drinks. Well… maybe just a little. BUT NOT AFTER 6 P.M. When you’re hungry, just drink Nestea. If ever I fall asleep and can’t make sandwiches, eat small dinner. WALK! RUN! JOG! SWIM! SCOOTER! BIKE! TV!
November 15, 2003: I can’t fit into my new pair of jogging pants!
Rules:
1. Drink water
2. No rice
3. No oil food
4. No soft drinks/heavenly drinks
5. Exercise every day
6. Be nice
December 4, 2003: Confession: As I was getting chocolate mousse for Papa downstairs, I cut one small slice for myself.
April 18, 2005: If I am very determined and make all the right decisions, then I will be able to lose all that unwanted weight! So a while ago on Oprah it was all about losing weight with Bob Greene.
March 17, 2009: I would really like a glass of Coke. Also, I would really like that slice of cake.
It’s funny, looking back, how neurotic I was about my weight. I was pretty conscious about it at 11 years old. I would invent my own diets, promise to starve myself, watch Oprah and heed her weight loss advice (she seemed like the perfect example), and even list down the things I had eaten for certain days.
I think I’ve gone through all the fads: three-day diet, the Atkin’s diet, Grapefruit diet, GM diet — of course all sort of tweaked and tailor fit to my liking. Then there were classes I signed up for at the gym — πilates, Bikram Yoga, Hip-Hop Abs. God, the list is so long, but the results are so futile.
My little girl obsession is a good example of what happens when you’re lazy: you complain about it in a diary, and then look for the next, instantly gratifying diet. You lose weight, and then get comfortable, gain it all back, and the cycle repeats itself over again. I probably shouldn’t have listened to Oprah.
It’s an important realization when you think about teenage girls and their obsession with being model-figure thin. When eating disorders became big news, I was wondering if my neurosis could be classified just the same.
How do you snap out of it? For me, I grew up. You learn about your self-worth and what’s good for the body. And the line between the health concerns of weight become clearer and more differentiated from your more vain concerns. Ideally, it’s for both. It’s not a sin to want to look good. But it isn’t a crime either if you aren’t cookie-cutter sexy. You just learn to become more comfortable with your body and with yourself. (Thank you, Lena Dunham!)
But really, when you’re 11 years old and have a diary, and have no other concerns in the world. Being fat feels like the most tragic thing of your life. I realize now, it wasn’t.