Uncensored

Part 6

When I first moved to the U.S. I was concerned to gain weight. Everybody who goes to live in the U.S. gains weight. I had heard horror stories of people gaining ten to twenty pounds, indulging in all the new foods, served in huge portions. America thrives of sugary Frappuccino's, big, juicy burgers, and 1500-calorie deserts. Bigger is better and some of the foods are served in the most unhealthy ways possible. Like, who needs Ranch dressing (or really any dressing) on a chicken wing? And why do sandwiches you order for lunch have an entire pack of deli meat, 1.5 inches thick, on them? I amusement parks you can get fried cheesecake- just think about that. So, yes, I was concerned, because I already carried enough extra pounds to not want any more.

I was relieved that when I met my husband, he was not a fat American eating doughnuts all day. As a soldier, he worked out every day and though his diet wasn't perfect, he never ate to excess. As a matter of fact and to my horror, I could out-eat him easily. Soon he started taking me to the gym with him and his encouragement made this, for the first time in my life, enjoyable. I also watched m portions. I didn't diet per se, I just tried to eat a little bit less of everything.   Instead of gaining weight, I started losing a couple pounds, and I enjoyed getting stronger in the gym.

All in all, it took me a year to lose almost 35 pounds, which makes this a pretty healthy weight loss journey- I took my time, worked out and just ate healthier.

But then I was thin. And there is a lot of things nobody tells you about losing weight and being thin.

People started complimenting me, and people actually looked at my body (which was completely foreign to me).
People in Germany, who hadn't seen me in a year, were shocked because they hadn't watched me become thin, they just knew me before and after, thus they suddenly saw a huge difference.
People become jealous when you lose a significant amount of weight and start to sabotage you. Suddenly all the thin friends you have feel threatened by you and while nobody ever tells a naturally thin person to please eat some more, I was told all the time.

Something else that happened was that I became utterly terrified I would gain any weight back. I had been chubby most of my life, and it felt so good to not be that person anymore, that I was scared of ever going back there. I was afraid that if I even just gained one or two pounds, I couldn't stop re-gaining weight until I was fat again.

This fear would come to rule me for years to come.

As a consequence of my fear of weight gain, I became increasingly strict with my diet. I started to eat even less, became more obsessive about my exercise, and started counting calories compulsively. I got used to my husband admiring and cherishing my body, which only fueled my fears. The more he told me how much he loved my body, the more I believed he wouldn't love me as much if I gained weighed. Even more troubling, I thought the thinner I was, the more loveable I would be.

When I was a teenager, my concerned father, who always stressed the supposed health risks of my increasing weight, and who was always very "concerned" as well as judgmental, said to me that if I didn't lose weight, no man would ever love me.

In his defense, I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it sounded. In some twisted way, he thought this would motivate me. In his mind, he was just expressing his concern. What I heard was that I wasn't loveable the way I was; something that I carry buried so deep inside that it's inseparable now from who I have become. The stubborn believer-in-love that I was, I proved my father wrong. I did find love. But when I got thin, I realized how differently I was treated because of that, I became addicted to the feeling of control and superiority, and I also thought that maybe my father had been right after all. I had been loveable before, but clearly I was more loveable now, and if I regained the weight, I would be less loveable again. This is how an eating-disordered person thinks.

My entire life it had seemed completely impossible to me that I would ever be 1) skinny, and 2) called an athlete. And I became both. As my eating became more and more compulsive and regulated, I lost more weight. It's not that weight loss came easy to me, I had to work hard for it. And I didn't really enjoy it that much either, because I absolutely love food, but then I didn't allow myself hardly any of the foods I loved anymore. But I couldn't stop because my fear was too strong, and the feeling of accomplishment from losing yet another pound was all I had. Although I was a successful student and had everything I needed, nothing made me feel as strong and self-confident as not eating the foods I actually loved and wanted to eat.

When I became too thin, my parents became concerned. Increasingly, friends and family told me that I had lost enough weight and that I could actually use a couple extra pounds. For my eating-disordered self that was heaven- I had always wanted to be that girl, the girl who was told: "Please eat some more, go on and have that ridiculously indulgent, high-calorie treat, because you're so skinny that you can use it." Except now that I was that person, I just couldn't, of course I could not, because then I wouldn't be skinny anymore!

Eventually, my body started to resist me. I wasn't a full-blown anorexic; for that I didn't restrict enough and still ate too much, and I was still considered normal weight (although I was at the lower point of the healthy weight range). But I loved food, so all the deprivation started to backfire. I dreamed about the foods I wasn't allowed to eat, until something inside me snapped and I went to the store and bought a jar of Nutella and a loaf of bread. I told myself that I shouldn't have to wait to eat this, I was skinny now, so I deserved to eat this. And then I ate the entire loaf and the jar of Nutella.

That was my first binge. And that's when the trouble really started.