My love for food and my eagerness to lose weight were both contradictory. I wished I would continue eating as well as losing weight. My brain was grappling with ideas that would allow both and one fine day it devised a plan. The plan was eat as much as you want and then vomit it out. I happily adhered to this idea and worked my way eating and vomiting. I also started losing weight; I would binge on a kilo of chocolates and pounds of cake and candies and it would have no affect on my weight. My parents suspected something was wrong as I was losing extra ordinary amounts of weight despite overeating all the time. Therefore, to reassure them I gradually started cutting down on my diet and there came a time when I almost stopped eating. My eye balls popped out and my teeth were on the verge of falling. I looked funny and my sister started calling me an “emaciated pig” and that was it. Now, I have started eating and I hope to look like a full framed pig soon.

Ironically this is the first time in my life when I am determined to put on some weight and am feeling rather happy about it. I have left behind my perfectionist approach to life and want to indulge in random activities that make me happier. I was never obese or fat, I have always been skeletal, but it was a slight bulge at the waist that made me feed my dinner to my dog most nights. If I was unable to do that I would take laxatives or enema. In the worst cases when I would binge I would make myself vomit. From 120 pounds my weight plummeted down to 90 pounds and I often suffered from constipation and ulcers, but never gave up because losing weight gave me a sense of pride and also of superiority. It was when my menstruation stopped and I was hospitalized, that my sense of pride was overtaken by a feeling of inferiority and disgust. Today I just got back home from the hospital and I’m gorging down all my favorite food.

The fantasy of teenage love sometimes makes you take extreme measures. I was 15 and had just discovered the pleasure of attracting the attention of boys, but how would I do that with my obesity? To top it, one day my dad mockingly told me that I will not get a date if I didn’t shed some extra kilos I had. His words pierced through me and created a deep hollow inside me. I decided to get rid of my obesity. I took my own words serious enough that I started shedding off pounds rapidly and reached a stage where my menstrual period came to a halt. I developed eating rituals for myself and I would weight my food in the kitchen and put them in containers and line them up. Alongside I also started a routine of rigorous exercising. My condition deteriorated and I was hospitalized. Even this could not deter me and I continued my exercise routine in the hospital bathroom. I was subsequently hospitalized several times and nothing would work. One day when I came back home from the hospital and my mother said to me with tearful eyes “you are my life too, don’t play with it” and that was the moment of reckoning.

I was 16 and weighed 110 lbs and lived a happy life. It was during the winter fall that we had a dance party at school and my classmate teased me that no one was asking me out because I was fat and ugly. His teasing struck me like a hammer and then onwards I started counting the calories I would consume. Initially I started skipping lunch and later breakfast too. There came a time when my calorie intake had plummeted down to just 300 calories a day. I weighed 92 pounds and my hands, feet and knees started swelling uncomfortably. My finger nails broke and my hair lost its entire luster. On day I fainted and fell off the school bus and cut my forehead and was taken to the hospital where I was admitted, that was the time I realized my mistake and was determined to overcome it.

It was New Year’s Eve and my resolution was to go on a diet. I was 14 then and obese. I went to a school in my village with three other boys and the pressure of being the only girl was becoming my enemy. At the same time my parents were preparing the grounds for a divorce at home and so there was not a place, where I’d find peace. I assumed that thin people have happy lives and that my main enemy was obesity. I began restricting my diet, cutting down all carbohydrates and fats and supplementing them with rice cakes and apples. I started losing weight and suddenly life became worth living. I wanted to lose more weight and started cycling 24 km everyday and eventually lost weight enough to collapse while riding from a minor heart attack. I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and that is when I realized the gravity of my problem. I did this for a happy life and realized it lead me miles away, therefore I decided to get back on track and fight it.