Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories

The Anorexic's Cookbook: Part 2

Perhaps no animals are as bizarrely overrepresented on the walls of medical facilities than cats, which is strange when one considers their notorious indifference to the well-being of humans.  Cats don’t give a shit how you feel.  You could be moaning on the sofa after a brutal round of chemotherapy, and a cat will still walk over your face en route to destroy the houseplants..  Yet for some reason feline images are everywherein the world of healthcare, smirking as you submit to a root canal or reenact childhood molestation with finger puppets, urging you to “Hang In There” and “Keep On Truckin’!” 

            I stared at one now: a puckish Siamese inching dangerously close to a large, elaborately frosted slice of cake, training its implacable blue stare on the viewer as if to say: “That’s right, I’m about to park myself on your dessert and start licking my own asshole.  Hang with that, motherfucker.”  Encased in a layer of shiny laminate intended to shield it from the salivary assaults of unbalanced patients, it hung just above the bent head my doctor-appointed nutritionist, as she arranged the brightly colored plastic food in groups on the table. 

            “And…there!” she laughed delightedly, adding a plastic clump of peas to the plastic banana, the plastic apple, the plastic hamburger with its plastic lettuce, plastic cheese, plastic tomato and plastic bacon.

            I picked up a plastic drumstick and turned it over in my hands.  “My sister had a ton of this when we were kids.  She liked to play food bank in the basement.”

            She laughed, or rather she made the shape of laughter, tossing her head so that her silver-and-turquoise arrowhead earrings slapped against her neck, though no sound came out.  “Isn’t that a riot? How adorable!”

             There are numerous things a person can do to earn my mistrust.  Fake laughter and the wearing of Native American jewelry when one is not recognizably Native American are high up on the list, along with thumb rings, a fixation with college athletics, and the frequent invocation of God outside of a place of worship.  But also I hated her because she was trying to make me fat. 

            “These are to help us estimate serving sizes,” she said, briskly removing the drumstick from my hands and replacing on the table with the rest of the meat group.  “For optimum health, you need to eat a certain number of servings from each of the four food groups each day.  Now, a good rule of thumb” here she held up one of hers, adorned with a grotesquely thick band of silver, etched with tribal markings “is to think of your fist.”

            I shuddered.  “My fist?”

            “A single serving of fruit or vegetables, like an apple, a bunch of grapes, or a helping of cooked veggies, is about the size of your first.” 

            I made a fist.  It was reassuringly small. “What about people with really big fists?  Do they get to eat more food?”

            She ignored me.  “A serving of protein—like fish, steak, or chicken, is about the size of your palm.  Now, most of us eat more than that—

            “Not me!”

 “Most of us eat two or three servings at a time.  Now, the food group we want to eat the most of is breads and cereals, or the carbohydrate group.  You want to have 6-11 servings from that group per day.”

“Never.” I said.  “NEVER!”

“I understand that carbohydrates have gotten a bad name,” she went on calmly, “but that’s not really a lot.  For example, one serving is a single slice of bread.  If you eat a sandwich, that’s two servings right there.”

“I cannot,” I said with what I imagined to be great dignity, “remember the last time I ate a sandwich.”

Pursing her coral-painted lips slightly, she took in all ninety-eight pounds of me, the bony wrists, the protruding clavicle, the sallow face beginning to sprout soft, thin hairs.  “Would you like to eat a sandwich?”

I started to cry.

 “Listen to me.” She reached across the table, taking my hand, still balled in a single-serving fist, in hers.    One day, in the not-so-distant future, you are going to eat a sandwich.  I promise.”

                        Guilt-Free Sandwich a la Nan Kempner

Borrowed from the late, great, Nan Kempner, socialite and fashion doyenne extraordinaire, who famously said “I think most people in the world look so disgusting.  I loathe fat people.”  We’re with you, dahling.

Ingredients:

2 large lettuce leaves (10 calories)

1 slice fat-free American cheese (30 calories)

1 slice fat-free turkey (30 calories)

1 slice tomato (5 calories)

Place cheese, turkey and tomato between lettuce leaves, as though they were slices of bread—add mustard, Tabasco sauce, or vinegar as desired, and bon appetit!

Chapter 3: DINING A DEUX

            All sorts of unkind things are said about our kind of girls in today’s dating market.  We’re “afraid of our sexuality”.  We’re “damaged goods” or “high maintenance” and men “don’t want a stick figure.” That’s the biggest lie of all; mostly perpetuated by disgusting fat girls without boyfriends to make themselves feel better as they shovel down the Ben and Jerry’s on Saturday night.  That’s right, porky.  Men want someone with meat on her bones.  Now go watch Bridget Jones’s Diary for the seventy-third time and cry yourself to sleep.

            I’ll tell you what, ladies.  The next time you see George Clooney with a woman bigger than a size 4, go eat a sundae. 

Men might talk a good game when they’re being quoted, like in Cosmopolitan Magazine surveys, saying things like “I just want a woman who’s comfortable with her body and herself” or “if a woman eats like a pig, that really turns me on, because I know she’s going to be hot in the sack” but let’s remember, Cosmo has also recommended putting a doughnut on your boyfriend’s dick and eating it off.

If your boyfriend has a dick that can fit in the hole of a doughnut, it might be time to get another boyfriend.  

            As you lose weight and become more desirable, you are going to get more male attention than ever before.  Hot guys will be falling all over themselves to get to you.  But with guys come dates, and with dates come food.  However, there are a few foolproof ways to control the damage:

SHARE:Take Lady and the Tramp as your inspiration: nothing can be more romantic than gazing into each other’s eyes over a shared plate of pasta, and nothing is easier than keeping him from noticing how little of it is passing your lips.  Take one bit to his seven, and the food will be gone in no time—and  he won’t want to stick around for dessert!

COOK: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but you don’t have to fill yours. Rail passionately about the outrages committed against animals by the meat industry, then cook him a great big steak.  He’ll be genuinely touched by your hypocrisy, and won’t think twice about you sticking to salad. 

COME CLEAN: If there’s anything a man finds more appealing in a woman than extreme thinness, than it’s the inward manifestation of it: extreme vulnerability. Give up your power and he won’t be able to resist.  Confess it all to him: your issues with food, your emotional fragility and self-doubt.  Begin to cry, daintily at first, then with more conviction, and just as he takes you in his big, strong arms, suggest engaging in some comforting oral sex.  The food issue won’t come up again, but something else will!