Image found on Red Lobsters websiteA Descriptive EssayFor the past year I have been surviving in a dry desert of food. My tongue has been sanded by rice cakes that taste like old, dusty pieces of cardboard. My gums were damaged by the countless amounts of raw carrots I ate every morning. My stomach constantly felt like a blimp filled with gas because I ate handfuls of dry roasted peanuts to numb my hunger. When I did eat, what normal people call normal meals, I grinded dry Honey Bunches of Oats cereal in my mouth until my jaw hurt. Food is my enemy. Many times just thinking about food makes me physically ill. Watching people fill their plates with high mountains of food, dumping salt on the top, because it tastes better when the food is overloaded with sodium, and shoveling it in their mouth like a father shovels snow after a snow storm disgusts me. I first saw many foods as extremely unhealthy so I omitted them. After I saw the difference in my body, I began to omit more things until my dry desert of food no longer was a health trend. My choice of food and losing weight turned into an obsession not because I thought I was fat and wanted to lose weight, but because I wanted complete control. I lived strictly in a dry desert until I reintroduced myself to a moist dessert.
The dessert hugged me before the waitress even placed the warm plate on the table cloth in front of me. I was salivating uncontrollably like a large animal with bad table manners. The picture of the dessert looked so tempting to eat that I was surprised there wasn’t already a bite out of it. The familiar smell of chocolate was so strong it reminded me of Vicks Vapor Rub right underneath my nose. The advertisement compared the desert to a volcano with chocolate lava. I’m not a fan of natural disasters, but I was ready for Mother Nature to take its toll.
I felt like I was waiting a decade but finally I saw the waitress carrying an exact replica of the advertisement on her round tray. She slowly lowered the plate onto the place mat in front of me. All the clattering, banging, and chattering noises of the restaurant disappeared as though someone had a big controller and pressed the mute button. My spoon growled with desire. Without even thinking about the amount of calories laying on this dish I clenched the cold spoon and dove the utensil into the freshly baked chocolate chip cookie not missing the chilled, vanilla ice cream resting perfectly on the top. I shoved the spoonful in my mouth. The hot and cold temperatures were a perfect combination. The cookie melted on my tongue as the ice cream chilled my mouth afterwards. The scar I created with my spoon was oozing with chocolate. I dove into my second bite with no time to breathe in between.
I forgot all the values I established in the past year. I forgot just how unhealthy this treat was. I forgot my attitude toward food that it isn’t for pleasure, it is for energy. I forgot to worry about the 100 calories I was consuming with each bite and the lack of nutritional value it had. The only thing I thought of was how delicious each bite tasted. How the dripping chocolate soothed me. How good the hot cookie felt pressed into my teeth. The dessert controlled me. I didn’t think of discontinuing my spoon diving. I didn’t think of sharing it with my mother. I didn’t think of how fast I was consuming it. I didn’t think of anything else but how good it was and how beautiful it tasted.
I scraped every last drop of chocolate off the dessert plate. I scooped every last possible bite of ice cream up with my exhausted spoon. If I wasn’t in a public place I would have picked the plate up and licked every crevice and groove until it sparkled clean. When I was done, I sat my spoon down onto the table and pushed my empty plate away from me. My placemat was now bare and I could no longer smell chocolate. I could no longer feel the hot temperature radiating off the plate. I consumed the dessert in under a minute. My stomach hurt. My stomach turned. I consumed 1000 calories in less than 60 seconds. I felt sick from the massive dessert but I felt even worse because of what I just did. I felt like I should be sentenced to a life term in a cold dark prison cell.
I felt like what I just did was wrong. I felt guilty. I felt horrible. I felt like the dessert was in my body transforming all its sugar and strategically storing the fats around my stomach into the shape of a tire. My jeans began to feel tighter like I could no longer breathe if I didn’t unbutton them. I felt like my belly was bulging out over my jeans like a muffin. I felt my chin start to duplicate. I felt dehydrated like an overweight woman who just walked up a flight of stairs. I sat in the restaurant waiting for my mother to make the first move to get up out of the booth. I was scared I was stuck and wouldn’t be able to get out. I began squeezing my butt cheeks together in hopes to burn some calories.
The regretful indulgence of satisfaction hangs over me. I have visualized the warm, moist, cookie underneath the perfectly shaped vanilla ice cream scoop for the past 3 weeks now. It hangs over me like a weight that cannot be lifted by the strongest man alive. The seductive desert was a disguise. It was a thief and robbed me. I allowed myself to become an easy target. Like a traveler looking at his map in New York City. I thought that the dessert would give my desert a little bit of the rain it needed. However, it drained me of all the energy I had and condensed me into a dry powder. Now, I feel like a weak woman who no longer has control of her diet and no hope to ever be in control of her life.
By: Stephanie Lauren
For more information on Eating Disorders go to:
The National Eating Disorders Association Website
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