Friday, October 18, 2013
Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: The BREAK-UP DIET
Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: The BREAK-UP DIET: I was at a casting yesterday when I overheard two actresses greeting each other. A tall brunette asks a slightly shorter blonde: "What ...
The BREAK-UP DIET
I was at a casting yesterday when I overheard two actresses greeting each other. A tall brunette asks a slightly shorter blonde: "What have you been doing? You look amazing!"
The blonde replies: "Oh, I just went through a terrible break-up and I stopped eating."
The brunette:"Gosh, you're so lucky. You look great!"
There is envy in her voice. To be rail thin at any cost is worth the price!
I stare. Not discreetly. The blonde does indeed look great. Emaciated, just the way the camera loves it. She is a walking skeleton and her dress hangs perfectly. Not a bulge in sight. Not around her lower abdomen, no butt, zero percent body fat. She looks AMAZING!
I am transported back to 2003. The year of my own involuntary "BREAK-UP DIET"! This type of meal plan involves NOT having any meals. Coffee and cigarettes become your best friends because your friends have grown tired of your fast paced descent into the bowels of hell. Couples get nervous about having you around. Break-ups are contagious it seems. Your esophagus also shuts down. You basically live off of liquids (coffee, alcoholic beverages, water- if you can remember to drink any) air and your own salty tears. Cells from your hypothalamus, that part of your brain that sends the hunger signal to your stomach, cease to function all together. But you will look GREAT!
I looked AMAZING too! I was swimming in my size 0 pants and had to go down to a 00. (yes, there is such a size). I felt light, empty and ungrounded.
I needed help. But before seeking help, I thought I simply needed to start eating again. One afternoon, determined to beat this "non-eating addiction", I forced fed myself. Armed with one peach, a knife and a glass of water, I sat at my dining room table and proceeded to cut the peach into the tiniest morsels possible. Problem was, I had forgotten how to chew. So I decided to chase each morsel with a gulp of water. Tricking my brain into believing I was just having "liquid". This process took over two hours. My journal entry that night was just one line: Recovery phase- Day 1- Ate an entire peach!
Day 2, I go to see a Medical Doctor. I weighed 92 lbs. I tell him that something is terribly wrong. My normal weight is normally 102 lbs. At my heaviest I weigh 105. But 92 lbs, is giving me pause for concern. Apparently, medical school was plan B for this doctor, had he his way, he would have been a failed stand-up comic. His punch-line? "Come on! You could never be too thin in Hollywood". I walk out feeling the need to stay skeleton thin- for my career, of course. After all, a medical doctor condoned my involuntary diet. We had just wasted each others time with my petty concern. Too thin? What was I thinking?
A few weeks later, I return to the acting studio of which I am a member and a dear "elder" pulls me aside. This very loving woman proceeds to berate me.
"I know what you're doing!", she said "My daughter is a dancer and she's lost many friends over the years who have your problem".
"What problem is that?" I ask shockingly.
(my subtext at this point went something like this: I look AMAZING! I feel empty, I am floating, I am ungrounded)
"Anorexia!" she exclaims.
"Me? no! I am not making myself throw up. I simply can not eat anymore. My esophagus stopped working."
We went back and forth for a bit. She was angry with me.
I was indignant! After all, according to the medical community in Hollywood, there is no such thing as being "too thin!" She should know, at the height of her popularity in a beloved TV serial from the 70's she was rail thin herself!
I walk away in a huff, adjusting my size 00, yes double zero, denim skirt. The darn skirt prohibited me from a graceful exit. It was clearly a malfunction from the designer's end. Not my body! Everything looks great on a body that is as flat as a pancake. I will just have to take the skirt to get altered.
I empathize with the Blonde, for I know that this involuntary diet comes at a great cost. Her self-esteem must be shot. I look closer and notice how puffy her eyes look. I could see that the white of her eyes have a pink hue. She probably cried on her way to the audition and will cry once she gets in her car and again before bed, if she can fall asleep sober. I imagine that her world as she knew it or hoped it would be, will never be the same. She probably woke up that morning with the taste of blood in her throat from her broken heart.
I envy her skeleton-like new figure though. I envy it so much, that, for a brief moment I toy with getting back on the "BREAK-UP diet" meal plan. Problem is, that level of pain associated with a break-up will never exist to that same degree again. Once the veil has been lifted, you know beyond a shadow of doubt that it will definitely pass. And if you happen to skip a few meals in the process, you will look AMAZING!
The blonde replies: "Oh, I just went through a terrible break-up and I stopped eating."
The brunette:"Gosh, you're so lucky. You look great!"
There is envy in her voice. To be rail thin at any cost is worth the price!
I stare. Not discreetly. The blonde does indeed look great. Emaciated, just the way the camera loves it. She is a walking skeleton and her dress hangs perfectly. Not a bulge in sight. Not around her lower abdomen, no butt, zero percent body fat. She looks AMAZING!
I am transported back to 2003. The year of my own involuntary "BREAK-UP DIET"! This type of meal plan involves NOT having any meals. Coffee and cigarettes become your best friends because your friends have grown tired of your fast paced descent into the bowels of hell. Couples get nervous about having you around. Break-ups are contagious it seems. Your esophagus also shuts down. You basically live off of liquids (coffee, alcoholic beverages, water- if you can remember to drink any) air and your own salty tears. Cells from your hypothalamus, that part of your brain that sends the hunger signal to your stomach, cease to function all together. But you will look GREAT!
I looked AMAZING too! I was swimming in my size 0 pants and had to go down to a 00. (yes, there is such a size). I felt light, empty and ungrounded.
I needed help. But before seeking help, I thought I simply needed to start eating again. One afternoon, determined to beat this "non-eating addiction", I forced fed myself. Armed with one peach, a knife and a glass of water, I sat at my dining room table and proceeded to cut the peach into the tiniest morsels possible. Problem was, I had forgotten how to chew. So I decided to chase each morsel with a gulp of water. Tricking my brain into believing I was just having "liquid". This process took over two hours. My journal entry that night was just one line: Recovery phase- Day 1- Ate an entire peach!
Day 2, I go to see a Medical Doctor. I weighed 92 lbs. I tell him that something is terribly wrong. My normal weight is normally 102 lbs. At my heaviest I weigh 105. But 92 lbs, is giving me pause for concern. Apparently, medical school was plan B for this doctor, had he his way, he would have been a failed stand-up comic. His punch-line? "Come on! You could never be too thin in Hollywood". I walk out feeling the need to stay skeleton thin- for my career, of course. After all, a medical doctor condoned my involuntary diet. We had just wasted each others time with my petty concern. Too thin? What was I thinking?
A few weeks later, I return to the acting studio of which I am a member and a dear "elder" pulls me aside. This very loving woman proceeds to berate me.
"I know what you're doing!", she said "My daughter is a dancer and she's lost many friends over the years who have your problem".
"What problem is that?" I ask shockingly.
(my subtext at this point went something like this: I look AMAZING! I feel empty, I am floating, I am ungrounded)
"Anorexia!" she exclaims.
"Me? no! I am not making myself throw up. I simply can not eat anymore. My esophagus stopped working."
We went back and forth for a bit. She was angry with me.
I was indignant! After all, according to the medical community in Hollywood, there is no such thing as being "too thin!" She should know, at the height of her popularity in a beloved TV serial from the 70's she was rail thin herself!
I walk away in a huff, adjusting my size 00, yes double zero, denim skirt. The darn skirt prohibited me from a graceful exit. It was clearly a malfunction from the designer's end. Not my body! Everything looks great on a body that is as flat as a pancake. I will just have to take the skirt to get altered.
I empathize with the Blonde, for I know that this involuntary diet comes at a great cost. Her self-esteem must be shot. I look closer and notice how puffy her eyes look. I could see that the white of her eyes have a pink hue. She probably cried on her way to the audition and will cry once she gets in her car and again before bed, if she can fall asleep sober. I imagine that her world as she knew it or hoped it would be, will never be the same. She probably woke up that morning with the taste of blood in her throat from her broken heart.
I envy her skeleton-like new figure though. I envy it so much, that, for a brief moment I toy with getting back on the "BREAK-UP diet" meal plan. Problem is, that level of pain associated with a break-up will never exist to that same degree again. Once the veil has been lifted, you know beyond a shadow of doubt that it will definitely pass. And if you happen to skip a few meals in the process, you will look AMAZING!
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