Hungry by Sheila Himmel Page B

pounds too heavy.
    “I was once my ideal weight—130,” Elaine says, sighing. “It was for one year, between twenty-five and twenty-six. Then I got pregnant. In the past twenty years I’ve weighed between 160 and 209.” Elaine’s Weight Watchers range is 135 to 155, but her goal is 150.
    How much mental energy this takes! Like people with diagnosed eating disorders, Elaine keeps track of numbers the way baseball fans know batting averages. And she has a system. “I weigh myself at home every day, always at the same time and in the same way: with no clothes on, when I get up in the morning. If I weigh less, I don’t have to worry about what I eat that day. If I weigh more, then I worry.”
    In fact, she worries either way. If not initially about what to eat that day, then remorse later about all she ate. But the system continues:
    “I take a diuretic for my blood pressure. I’ll take an extra dose if I’m going to the doctor or to Weight Watchers, so I’ll weigh a pound or a pound and a half less.”
    I get this. I take my shoes off when getting weighed in the doctor’s office. But Elaine’s excessive use of diuretics makes her dizzy and probably contributed to a very scary accident that left her in pain for years. She was touring an aircraft carrier and fell while climbing stairs, requiring a rescue by helicopter that made the evening news in San Diego. Despite a fractured skull, the total loss of hearing in one ear, and excruciating back problems, she still takes the diuretic. As if she’d read some pro-eating disorders guidebook, Elaine puts her health at risk to save a few pounds.
     
     
     
    When not on a specific diet, Elaine picks at food all day long, although she claims, “I don’t binge, really. I just nibble all the time.” Don’t we all.
    Rather than relaxing entertainment, restaurants are often torture for Elaine. She would never go to a restaurant by herself, even to sit at the counter. She thinks people would notice and judge.
    Instead, Elaine would eat in the car. However, she says, “When I go out with friends, I order food they’ll think is a good choice for a fat person.” This reminds me of a college roommate who was slightly round and similarly self-conscious. In the cavernous dormitory cafeteria, she would ask me to fetch dessert for her. She’d still have to eat it there, but according to her system it was okay to eat ice cream in public, just not to be seen carrying it across the room. People with eating disorders are exquisitely conscious of eating in public, sure that all eyes are disapprovingly on them.
    Elaine’s friends talk a lot about eating and not eating. She says, “Most of what we talk about is weight and diets. In the teachers’ lounge, there are always treats. We say, ‘I shouldn’t be eating this, but . . .’ People check out each other’s lunches. I am known for baking, and being the dessert person.” When Elaine goes to national conferences, the teachers and administrators who know her say, “Okay, Elaine. Where are we going for dessert?” Of course she keeps a candy dish in her office. Everybody knows it’s there and expects it. When it runs out, people ask, “Where’s the candy?”
    Elaine has been a mentor teacher and Teacher of the Year in the gigantic San Diego Unified School District. When pressed, she’ll acknowledge that she had a very rewarding career. She knows she is a good teacher, mother, and friend. But fifteen pounds drown all that out. “Why can’t I control my weight? Nothing else I could ever do could ever make up for it. When people say, ‘You look good,’ I always feel that what they don’t say is, ‘But you’re fat.’ I always wished I could have anorexia or bulimia, until Lisa. Then I realized it wasn’t something to wish for.”
     
    lisa: I’m honestly shocked to come to know that my Aunt Elaine would ever have desired the very disorders that have caused me so much torment. I guess I can see the glory gained by