A Work in Progress
By: Safa Imran
I feel like such a phony sometimes. I can feel myself reek of phoniness as the words slither out all sugar-coated in the fake body positive mantras that I would never buy into myself to other women who beg me to tell them what magic potion I took to revert my college sophomore self back to my 8th grade weight.
I can’t help you. I can tell you I did HIIT and body exercises and cardio at the gym, but I won’t tell you that it would often take up 2 hours of my day and some days I’d skip classes to just gym because nothing felt more important than losing my mounds of flesh. I can show you Instagrammable pictures of my nutritious scrambled egg and toast breakfast all garnished up with a dash of spring onions, but I won’t tell you the amount of micro-measuring and researching it took for me to create a dish that would be one of my two meals, totaling up to a grand total of 700 calories a day. I have the calorie thing down to a T, by the way. Other people are talented musicians, renowned academics, brilliant orators – I’m an expert as visually guesstimating the calorific values of food with a 90% accuracy rate.
What’s sad is that I don’t think I’ve ever met any woman who has lost a significant amount of weight without feeling what I’ve felt. Or maybe it’s just me. Tell me it’s all a charade we like to partake in. We can all pretend how empowering it feels to be proactive with our bodies when really we’re just addicted to the adrenaline rush of watching the numbers trickle down on the sleek electric scale that never lies and seeing the first hints of a visible collar bone (finally!!!).
I feel like such a phony sometimes. Not only do I lie to other women, I also don’t look the role of a girl with an eating disorder. My BMI is still within the healthy range, and I still have rolls of softness over my tummy and inner thighs. Back when I’d spend several times a day for years kneeled over the toilet with my finger down my throat, I was straight up chunky. Maybe that’s why mama told me to stop wasting her time with made-up life problems when I asked for therapy with tears in my eyes. My excessive calorie counting and restrictions left me with thin, but not thin enough. Thin enough to fit into the smallest size at Mango now, but not thin enough to be noticed or have my disorder legitimized. But I’m getting there. Mama is beginning to worry about my pale skin and kamzoori and my hair that has started falling out in clumps, so I’m on a regimen of iron pills now. 5 more pounds down the drain and people will be concerned and I’ll relish it. 10 more pounds, my boyfriend would probably cry and I’d secretly feel good about it. 15, and I may finally become the poster child, the star of the show.
I am a phony. I call myself a feminist but I am the antithesis of everything feminism stands for. This was a ranting, self-indulgent piece. I feel bad about not having anything to give. No hope, no positivity, no story of recovery and success and the ability to eat a slice of chocolate cake without mentally berating myself at each bite. I’m not fixed. But it’s my truth. The least I owe to other women and to feminism is the truth. I can’t live with myself knowing that there are people who view me as a healthy and inspiring example of fitness. I can say with sincerity, however, that I am a work in progress and I am recognizing that I could be doing so much better. I’ll try. I really will. And I hope that there is someone out there, someone who is as sick as me with stories of beautiful recovery rather than being stuck in limbo, who reads this and finally feels like they are not alone. If you are here and you are reading this and it’s hitting you like a train – this is the sign that you’ve been waiting for. Let’s get some help.
