Hungry by Sheila Himmel

Author:Sheila Himmel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

I thought about food constantly. It was affecting my schoolwork; it was affecting my life. My friends would say, “Try to focus on something other than food. Just don’t think about it.”

But there were no safe havens. If I went for a drive, I’d pass countless billboards plastered with food advertisements. Restaurants and coffee shops lined busy streets and the social avenues of every downtown. Everything I did and everywhere I went somehow involved food—or rather the daunting task of trying to avoid food—especially in my own house, which displays more cookbooks and culinary magazines than family pictures. I spent a lot of time in my room, but I wasn’t safe there, either.

If I tried to read a book I’d get no further than five pages without getting fidgety in reaction to my stomach growling. I’d say to myself, “It wouldn’t be so bad if I had an apple. I kind of want an apple . . . no, you can’t have an apple yet, you need to read, just don’t think about food!” And I would go back to my reading for a few minutes until my mind wandered back to the apple.

I felt weak for thinking about food and more so for wanting it, even a measly apple. And yet, the more I tried to avoid wanting the apple, the sharper the desire became. Sometimes I would make contracts with myself, like: “You can have this apple if you go for a walk.” When I was exercising every day, I’d say, “Because you had this Pria bar, you can’t have any more carbohydrates today and you have to add ten minutes to your cardio.”

Exercise and food restriction had become more than an obsession. I focused all my time and energy on counting calories and burning off whatever I took in times two or even three. If I had allowed what I considered to be an extra serving of carbohydrates or an extra fruit, I burned it off. I purposefully flaked out on friends’ invitations, making excuses of illness or too much homework and instead spent hours at the gym. On a soccer trip in Phoenix, I grew frustrated because of my limited playing time and broke down in the car. I felt I was being treated unfairly and was just as good as any of my teammates and that I should be playing more. My friend’s mom tried to assure me that I was a vital member of the team and would probably play in the final. In truth, my frustration came from my fear that I wasn’t getting as much exercise as everyone else, and I didn’t have access to a gym. Even during regular soccer practices I never felt satisfied with two hours of training, because most of the time was spent listening rather than running. I made up for that lost exercise by either running three or four miles or going to the gym after practice.

Each day I took in maybe seven hundred calories at most and burned off about nine hundred.

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