The Unkindest Cut

Once upon a time, when I was 21 and very overweight and somewhat adrift the summer after I graduated from college, I started a diet.

Starting a diet, of course, was nothing new. But this diet was different because I stuck to it. And because I whittled it down. I don't remember how, exactly – all I remember is thinking that I wanted more results faster, and if some was good, more (or in the case of the diet, less) was better. And somehow I whittled and whittled until I was down to three peaches a day.

I'm not exaggerating: Three peaches. Sometimes, if I were really, really starving, I might allow myself a soft pretzel. I had a huge fountain diet Coke cup and I would go and refill it at a place down the street until the cup nearly disintegrated. And then I would buy another one and drink more.

I don't remember how long this lasted, only that it didn't: Eventually, of course, I began bingeing and could not stop – bingeing my way up rapidly to my old size. I can barely remember this time, but my body does not forget. I think whenever I get really hungry, it is that feeling of constant, extreme hunger – I also was running an hour a day at the time – that my body thinks is coming, even 16 years later.

I'm embarrassed by the story for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I never got thin enough to look like someone who ate that way. Over the years, I have wished – with varying degrees of ardor -- that I could summon that sort of willpower again.  

I never have.

And nor should I.

But I need to remember that I have this ability to restrict severely – and although it may work for a while, eventually it leads nowhere very good.

Why do I bring this up now? Because my extremely limited ability to move makes me want to severely cut back on my food. Even though I have experimented with trying to cut so much as a snack, right now I need to recognize that I can't.

Today, for example, I had lunch at a restaurant I frequent, and I decided just to leave off the side I usually order. 

You know, just to see.

I thought I was OK. But within an hour I was hungry, as I have been almost since then, despite my having an extra-large snack and a generous dinner.

Maybe it's psychological – sometimes there are days when I eat my usual lunch and am just hungry afterwards. 

But today it felt like panic hunger – the kind that makes me feel like I will never ever be full again.

The kind that makes bingeing feel not just like an urge, but like a necessity.

Day 32.