Fat Werewolf

The world we live in is weird. Fat people are worried they're too fat, people who aren't fat are worried they're fat, and people who are skinny are worried they're not skinny enough. It's messy and it's complicated. This article isn't going to be for everyone. But I hope it helps to cheer some of you up.

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During my last summer after high-school and the first semester of university, my grandma called me fat (I wasn't, she was just old and Chinese). So I dieted. Then, I wanted to make sure that she didn't call me fat again, so I dieted some more. And then, just to be sure that I had no chance of being called fat by anyone, I kept on dieting. My career was dieting. My hobby was dieting. My whole life was dieting. Until I couldn't take it anymore. The sheer boredom of counting calories and eating half a bagel at at time got to me. Every cell in my body was desperate to be filled. They wanted cake. They wanted chicken. They wanted french fries.

The first bite of junk-food after dieting was absolute heaven. From then on, there was no stopping me. I easily devoured an entire pizza, two hamburgers from the university cafeteria, and a box of large fries. Then I'd wait until my stomach was a little less than full capacity, which took about 10 minutes, and gobble up a jumbo sized Klondike ice-cream sandwich.

My friend looked at me with a look of both concern and disgust. “Are you okay? Is it normal for a girl to eat this much?” He said. “Sure it is.” I responded in between bites, “You just haven't hung out with enough girls to know this is how they eat.”

The money on my university meal card was disappearing fast. But I didn't care. I wanted it all. I was so ravenous I almost ate the wrappers. I was worried about gaining all the weight back, yes. But that worry was easily smothered at the mere sight of food. It was as if I was taken over by a force of nature. Any time I thought about holding back, a drill sergeant went off in my head:

“What. You're worried you'll get fat? You're worried you're not gonna fit into your precious little pants? Let me tell you something, fool: You don't have a period! You can't do a single sit up without getting vertigo! You're at the risk of losing your bones! If you keep starving yourself, you'll be DEAD by 20! And you're worried about no longer being a size 2? WHO CARES WHAT SIZE YOU ARE! This is your life we're talking about here! This is nature! Now go and eat that cupcake, you Goddamn pussy!”

I was bursting out of the tiny H&M shirt that I so proudly fit into thanks to the dieting, which now seemed like a million years away. All the buttons on that flimsy thing were threatening to fly off at once. But I proceeded to eat with abandon. It was as if I was turning into a Werewolf. A Werewolf who had just come out of a 10 year famine and is now eating whatever he could get his paws on. I had no pride left. I was no longer a teenage girl, I was a beast capable of swallowing up Diary Queens and Burger Kings.

And I absolutely refused to acknowledge that I'd put on weight. I'd wear the same shirt from H&M, not button it, and then cover it with a sweater. Under that, I had on size 2 pants. That's right, I'm still a size 2. I chose not to button the button, or zip the fly. Just because things like buttons and flies exist doesn't mean they need to be done up at all times. What are we, in a business meeting? And for your information, nobody could see my underwear because I'd pulled a skirt over it. I'm not an exhibitionist.

“You guys think you see me. You have no idea.” I snickered to myself whenever a fellow human being walked by.

My weight gain coincided with a drastic drop in grade point average.

“This is your report card. It says you got a D in biology, a C- in chemistry, a D- in physics, and a D in math. You passed, but they're warning you that you'll be transferred to the 3 year program if you do even worse.” Said my friend, with the same expression of concern and disgust that he had when he saw me hoover entire ice-cream sandwiches.

“You mean, you can barely pass all your classes and STILL graduate? SWEET!” I took this as a sign to keep skipping classes in favour of doughnut runs at the campus Tim Hortons. I wasn't good at any of these fields and had no passion for them. The future? Who cares about the future! I'm 18 and I starved myself. I want cake. I want chicken. And after that, I want freaking french fries.

My university friends were shocked to see me change. They didn't know I was actually a normal sized girl because I was so skinny the first time they met me. I couldn't blame them, how could they have known? I had deceived them into thinking that I was a science-loving beanpole this entire time. Not that there was any connection between science-loving and being a beanpole. I just happened to pretend to be both at the same time.