Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 15: It's Working

It must have been another two or three weeks in. I got much better at handling the pain. "Just hold on a little longer and soon you won't feel the hunger anymore. Later, you'll thank yourself remember..." When the headaches got too bad, I would lie down for a while, count the minutes to the next few calories. When my hands were too shaky to handle the plate of food, I would have to drink some water first, calm down.

"Your jeans are getting baggy," someone pointed out. I looked down and noticed my jeans were much looser. I stepped on the scale. Two kilograms down.

I began to look forward to every morning when I could step on the scale again and see how many more grams I had lost. And every time that number went down, the joy and satisfaction I felt seemed to come from the very core of my soul. On a good day, like when I managed to skip the 300 calories for lunch, and capped it only at 700 calories, there would be an even bigger leap on the scale. And I would feel even happier. "You're doing so well."