Terrible Tips to Tame Hunger and Tip the Scales at 100 lbs Maximum

Okay I’m not a fan of eating disorders.  I swear.  In fact I don’t have one and this isn’t admirable at all. I don’t have the guts (pun) to purge when I eat.  I hate vomiting. I like the after effect in clearing out a nauseous stomach when I’m sick, but it’s the getting there that I loathe. I hate that heaving and hurling and I cannot stand seeing my own bile.  I don’t champion eating disorders for so many reasons, but if memory doesn’t fail, I believe I have blogged about the pitiful mental state that leads one into anorexia,  bulimia, or a host or other illnesses. Oh, about that. Bulimia rarely results in long-term weight loss. Most bulimics’ weight fluctuates. Bulimia is also about control over the body as a means of controlling the environment around you, rather than weight loss or the influence of the media.

Having said that, I came across some of the weirdest tips imaginable if you are determined to pursue bulimia nervosa as your eating disorder of choice. Naturally, I am inclined to share them with you. Listen, this blog is entitled “faulty wiring” not “politically correct.” You don’t like? Don’t read. Move on.

1. Don’t try to throw up heavy, doughy food such as bagels, untoasted bread, pancakes, perogies, and tortillas. Avoid peanut butter, cheese, chocolate candy, dried fruit or nuts, and pastries. These are difficult to get out of the digestive tract.  All that effort for no reason.  Use your common sense would ya? Try ice cream, small, overcooked pasta, soup, frozen waffles (not pancakes), milkshakes, cereal and milk, scrambled eggs, Kraft Dinner and Hamburger Helper. Gross.
2. Begin your purging with a marker food – something bright and colorful so you know you have puked it all out.
3. Water – Heavy, dense foods of any sort, including meat and dried fruit, are tough to clean out of one’s digestive tract, so the ideal way to know if you’ve succeeded is to drink plenty of water. When all that’s coming out anymore is clear liquid, you know it’s all outta there. n.b.  This one is especially dangerous. Practice with caution.
4. Watch For the Love of Nancy – it worked for a ninth-grader. – blogger Jessica (happens to be my daughter’s name, but no, she isn’t my daughter)

Here’s a Jessica quote about the Nancy movie:

Around me, in the semi-darkness of the classroom all of the girls watched, rapt, as she demonstrated how important it was for her to be skinny and to feel in control of her weight. When the movie showed people reacting in horror to Tracy’s thin frame we surreptitiously poked at our own stomachs and were for the first time disturbed by what we found there.

On the one hand, I can comprehend the girls’ perspectives. Nancy becomes thinner and in her mind more victorious. It’s people around her who are critical and worried about her health. When the support group counselor asks Nancy what recovery means to her she blurts, “fat!” Ouch. On the other hand, this movie was so entirely heart-wrenching and darkly disturbing, I couldn’t in the slightest comprehend the girls’ perspectives. Bulimia and anorexia are such complicated illnesses.

On with the litany of gross ways to disappear into yourself:

1.      Wear baggy clothes so no one can see how thin you are and thereby railroad your attempt at weight loss.

2.       Exercise compulsively. Go, girl (to the point of exhaustion).

3.       Avoid social activities that include food.

4.       Learn tricky ways to appear as though you are eating in front of others when you aren’t: push your food around on your plate; when someone is watching, scoop food onto your fork, bring it to your mouth, then put it down again when the nosy observer is distracted.

5.        Insist you’ve just eaten and are full when people try to feed you. Always have a menu in your head to be able to rattle off
when they demand “oh yeah? What did you eat?”Make sure the menu has an appetizer, an entrée, a side dish, and a dessert.

6.        Talk a lot while pretending to eat with others. Spend a lot of time rapidly cutting up all of your food, including weird stuff like french fries and cookies.

7.        Always carry a toothbrush in your purse in case you give into temptation and eat something.

8.        Eat lightly before every purge if you can….bulimics this advice isn’t for you. The idea with bulimia is to stuff yourself to the brim and then puke. Good times. n.b. triggering: (Watch the preceding video link and mute the sound).

9.        Take it from Matthew McConaughey as he starved himself for his most recent movie role: the first two weeks of starvation are the hardest. Then it gets easier. You can’t buy memories like that.

10.      Join the cult of the Breatharians. Those whack-jobs claim they neither eat nor drink for years on end yet they live healthy, long lives. If you consider 2 weeks to be a long life, then sure. Go for it.

Alright those are some general and hopefully helpful tips as you starve or puke yourself to death.  I would be remiss if i didn’t include some of the more severe consequences of any current, designer eating disorder.

1.      Your dental work will cost a fortune if you are a puker.  Your tooth enamel will erode. You will develop wicked chancres too and they will hurt.  Don’t forget gum disease.

2.       Have a friend who knows CPR on hand when you vomit in case your heart stops. No kidding. You get an electrolyte imbalance in your stomach from all the vomiting. It’s been known to happen.

3.       Invest in extensions or a wig. Your hair will eventually fall out in wads.

4.       Prepare for gastric anguish. Vomiting on a regular basis is somewhat hard on the stomach lining. All organs involved in the digestion of food will be damaged by your vomit.

5.       Prepare for major heartburn in the esophagus. Same reason as number 4. Your skin may also be damaged by acid in your vomit. Your face will also bloat. Pretty.

6.       You will become anxious, irritable and in general be a bi-atch. You will lose friends. Meh. Who needs em’? Prepare to become very depressed and experience mood swings. This isn’t that fun, you know. If you’re truly into it, you will become suicidal.

7.        Your grades will drop severely. Forget about applying for that scholarship.

8.        Learn to  habitually lie, cheat and sneak. Especially with people you love.

9.        Develop a lifelong guilt complex every time you put food in your mouth.

10.     Draft a living will in the event that you die. You probably will (pun). Don’t say I didn’t warn you in my caring, sarcastic way.

If you think I am trying to guilt trip you about your ED, you are right. I am trying to guilt trip you into getting help. Now. You’re worth it.

God bless and be well.