I’ve always been an early riser. When I was a kid, I would wake up before everyone else, blinking into the dark, and creep out of pitch-black rooms to my back porch, where I could read my book until everyone else woke up. That doesn’t help me now, however, when I wake up at 8 a.m. and have to figure out what I’m going to do with myself for a couple more hours, before I can actually get out of bed. Because if I get out of bed now, my mom will want me to eat breakfast, and when I say I’m not hungry, she’ll get suspicious, and I just don’t want to deal with that right now. So I lay there, and I scroll through Instagram, and I read fan fiction, and eventually an hour and a half has passed and I decide if I get out of bed at 9:30 a.m. I can probably take enough time in the shower and doing my hair to get to lunch. When I go to the bathroom to start to get ready, the first thing I do is step on the scale and ingrain the number at the top into my brain. It will never be small enough.
Calories: 0
Once I finish getting ready for the day, it’s around 11 a.m., the sweet spot to start making lunch. I’ve made sure my parents and brother aren’t going to be anywhere near the kitchen for the next hour, having already grabbed lunch for later, or scared aware by my claim over the space. Maybe I’ll turn something on to entertain me as I cook. That doesn’t matter.
What does matter is what vegetables I want in my ramen today. It tends to be a pretty standard bunch that my mom consistently has stocked, so I’m not expecting much change. Baby carrots are a staple, as is celery. I’m starting to come around on onion, especially if I add it to the broth before the rest of the vegetables. It adds a flavor that can’t quite be replicated by anything else, serving as a strong base to the tap water I always fill the pot with. (Only about a quarter of the way full, though. Any more and there would be an excess of broth in the final product, and my focus is on the noodles and vegetables. I don’t want soup.) We also have olives right now, thank god, one of my favorite additions whenever she remembers to buy them.
First, I add all the appropriate spices and sauces to the water, letting them marinate for a while. I chop up the parsley and basil from my dad’s plants, then go crazy with the curry powder and hot sauce. The soy sauce I’m more exact with, eyeing the eight calories in each tablespoon. Those can add up! I set the burner on low and let it simmer while I begin to dice up the vegetables. The onion is first, because I want to give them the longest time to sit, but the carrots have to be next, since they need the most time to cook. If while I’m cutting up the celery and olives the water boils off enough, I may even get a nice char on the carrots, which always adds such great flavor. Once I’m done cutting the celery, I put in the ramen noodles. I want the noodles to start cooking, but I also want to give the carrots and onions enough time on their own, before adding the other vegetables. Maybe I have to add more water at this point, but that’s not too bad, because I’ll want to add more spice and hot sauce anyway, to seep into the noodles. I throw away the packaging, empty except for the spices that came along with the ramen. If you don’t include that packet and just add your own spices, it cuts the calorie count of a single ramen packet almost in half!
Once all the vegetables have been added in, I get out a wooden spoon to start stirring it, breaking up the noodles. I mostly just let it sit, though, using this time to put the rest of the ingredients away, wash any dirty dishes I may have created, and open Samsung Health. When tracking my homemade ramen in the app, I have to split it up by individual foods to make it as exact as possible. I wouldn’t want to underestimate it, after all, and believe I had eaten better than I actually had.
Once everything looks ready, I turn the burner off and pour my noodles into a bowl. I set it out on the table to cool, then wash out the pot methodically, making sure to clean out every little bit until it’s cleaner than it was before I got it out of the cupboard. Afterward, I allow myself to sit down and face my creation. It tastes good, but being able to resist the banana bread staring at me on the counter makes it taste even better.
Calories: 450
The next two or three hours go by, my head cloudy. I don’t have much to do anyway. Who knows when we’ll go back to school at this point, the initial closing of only two weeks extending further and further. Corona virus seems to be a much bigger deal than anyone is letting on. With no type of structure, my mind wanders through each and every ingredient again and again. Should I have added less soy sauce? Maybe I should’ve just had a vegetable stir-fry, not even adding the noodles. My flesh feels bloated around me, and I can’t help but glance in my mirror every two seconds, sizing up if my double chin is showing, or how big my thighs look in these jeans. I remember the stories my mom told me from when she was my age, how she felt awkward and chubby too, but when she hit 20, she blossomed, all her fat melting away to reveal a beautiful swan. I long to be that, and I hate myself for not being able to force it along.
When it finally hits 4 p.m. I jump out of bed eagerly, letting all my fretting disappear for just a moment to focus on the matter at hand. It’s time for The Walk.
The Walk has become a staple in my life, a minimum hour-long walk I take around the whole of my neighborhood. Mount Joy extends further than I would be able to cover comfortably, but I’ve figured out a route that works. First, I walk along Park Street. I live on the corner of Park and Barbara, so I can leave through the front door and still have enough time on my property to get everything situated, mainly just making sure my earbuds are connected to my phone. I walk through the rest of the neighborhood, appreciating and resenting what Lancaster County has to offer. Once I turn onto Main Street, the walk becomes more of a performance. At 4 p.m. Mount Joy is as alive as you’ll ever see it, and I have to make it clear that I’m out exercising to excuse my messy appearance. God forbid I exit the house in sweatpants any other time or my mother would never let me hear the end of it; she’d go on a rant about our reputation. But for The Walk we can make an exception.
I walk with more of a purpose now, pumping my arms like the little old ladies in their matching velour sweatsuits. I try to ignore the restaurants I pass, Tres Hermanos’ smell enticing me. Simmering rice and beans and fried tortillas haunt the rest of The Walk. I try to ignore the rumbles of my stomach as I turn off of Main Street. I’ve reached the end of the general section of town. If I walk straight any further, I’ll go past the diner and reach Lil’ Dippers, my favorite ice cream place, and I can’t handle that kind of temptation right now. I’m focused and on a mission.
Once I turn, I reach one of Mount Joy’s five parks, the second one I’ve passed so far. This one I go through, however, following the winding trail past the baseball fields. This little stretch is always the hardest, because its seclusion and clear path always makes me think about running. So I try, like I always do, the meager plastic play structure beyond the second field serving as my finish line. I turn my music all the way up and attempt to forget the way my body looks and feels whenever I do this, focusing on my breathing and the suddenly incredibly real feeling of the blood pumping through my veins. I make it to the end but have to collapse onto a bench, head between my knees, despising my lungs and wishing I had brought water or my inhaler or anything that wouldn’t make this so hellish. And then I remember the slice of cake I had the other day, or the bag of popcorn I split during that one movie, and I pick myself up, reminding myself I wouldn’t have to go so hard if I was able to have more self-control.
When I make it back home, maybe in another fifteen minutes or so, it’s around 5 p.m., meaning my mom has finished making dinner, or at least is about to. I know it isn’t a fast food night, but the options of what she could have made race through my head, and I fear the dreaded high-calorie casserole. The smell of marinara sauce greets me in the doorway, making my stomach audibly growl. My mom turns to greet me and I clock her grimace at the state I’m in. I imagine how she sees me— this frumpy outfit, hair all frizzed out, panting and sweaty. She immediately rushes to my side.
“Do you want some water? Oh, Bella, you look terrible!” I grumpily push her off, needing to go wash up first. I run up the stairs, getting some type of sick pleasure from how floaty my head feels as I ascend the steps, tripping over my feet enough to be noticeable to my brother as I pass his room. I hear him yell some insult about my height before thundering his way downstairs.
The bathroom is nice and cool, and the sink water feels so good when I splash it across my warm cheeks. My face is bright red staring back at me in the mirror, flushed from the hard work. I allow myself to be proud for a single second before my eyes flick down to the scale. I know logically I won’t weigh any less than I did this morning, but that doesn’t stop disappointment from churning in my stomach as I step on the scale and the number hasn’t changed.
My mom’s yelling from downstairs snaps me out of my pity party, and I rush down, falling into my seat. I sit across from my dad and next to my brother and mom. We hold hands and say grace, and I relish in the few moments no one is looking at me. But as soon as we finish my mom begins peppering me with questions about my day. I mumble responses between bites of food, aware of the way my dad and brother watch like it’s some type of tennis match. I try to just focus on the food.
She always makes good spaghetti, but The Walk and how little other food I’ve consumed today makes it taste so much better. I finish my serving in no more than five minutes and grab a slice of bread without even thinking about it. It’s halfway in my mouth before I realize I can’t have another serving of pasta now. I eat my last few bites much slower now, savoring the bread with this knowledge. After, I carefully put my dishes into the dishwasher, about to head back up to my room. My mom stops me.
“What have you eaten today?”
“I had ramen for lunch, and you saw what I ate for dinner.”
“How many calories have you had?”
I had already been calculating that in my head. I had probably eaten about a cup of spaghetti, along with a little less than a cup of the green beans on the side.
“I don’t know,” I mumble. “Enough, probably.”
She sighs. “Are you planning to have any type of dessert or snack tonight?”
I glance longingly over at the goldfish crackers on the counter and remember the Klondike bars in the freezer, but I quickly shake my head. “No, I can’t.”
“I just don’t think you’re going about this the right way, Bella. You know, it’s perfectly reasonable to be insecure at this age, but will these eating habits continue when you’re back in school? What will your teachers think? You really haven’t eaten all that much, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to–”
“Mom, can you just not worry about it?” I respond, a bit too loudly, and before she can get mad, I run up to my room, not wanting to have to deal with any more confrontation.
Calories: 904
After about an hour, I can hear that everyone has moved upstairs. I scurry down the steps before my mom can try to talk to me, then close the doors to the living room. They don’t latch properly and have floor-to-ceiling windows, but at least it gives me a sense of privacy. I pull up YouTube on the TV and go to my workout playlist. I click on one of the thirty-minute cardio ones, relatively happy with how I did today. I could stand to not do a full hour. I go through the motions, contorting my body this way and that, enjoying the stretch of my muscles I’ve accomplished something. After not eating for too long, or exercising a bit too hard, my stomach always twists up in the same way. It’s sharp and almost sweet in the back of my throat, and I want to double over from the throb of it.
But instead, I trudge up the stairs and flop down into my bed. I’m sweaty and gross and I can’t fathom having ever felt more hungry. I struggle to be truly happy with myself, even after a day of such successful self-restraint, thinking about the slice of bread and the olives’ fat content. But I do feel proud of the pain, knowing that I deserve it, and that sends me into a deep, dreamless, miserable sleep.
Izzy Astuto (he/they) is a writer currently majoring in Creative Writing at Emerson College, with a specific interest in screenwriting. His work has previously been published by Hearth and Coffin, Sage Cigarettes, and The Gorko Gazette, amongst others. He currently works as an intern for Sundress Publications, and a reader for journals such as hand picked poetry, PRISM international, and Alien Magazine. You can find more of their work on their website, at https://izzyastuto.weebly.com/. Their Instagram is izzyastuto2.0 and Twitter is adivine_tragedy.
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