Carving Bones

Nour Abuelreich

I loved bones.

I liked my ribs protruding my skin. I liked shimmering my collarbones with sparkling highlighter powder to define them before going out. I adored the skinny that resembles death reincarnated into a skeleton, straddling the fine line between organ failure and the Paris fashion week runway. My fondness for deathly skinny began when I was only nine years old living in Saudi Arabia. It was pounded into my brain until I could no longer distinguish the unhealthy habits.

It started with unsolicited advice from my mom’s acquittance. Men don’t like chubby women. She needs to start losing weight now. The lady said this loudly as though I was not present. She glanced down at me in a tight-lipped smile before helping my mom navigate the best weight loss center based on her own experience.

I lifted my head, brows furrowed in confusion, waiting for my mom to object. To remind her that I was only nine. That’s when I heard the rapid unzipping of a purse and rummaging through a bag. My mom listened intently, jotting down the names relayed to her.

“She wants the best for you. See she’s helping us,” my mom whispered under her breath.

“Thank you, Aunty.” I was utterly dumbfounded and crushed.

My mom gave me a look of approval after I thanked the lady for her recommendations in dietitians. I didn’t even know this lady well enough. Surely, she couldn’t want the best for me. My eyes, glassy, remained fixated on the ground for the rest of the encounter.

Later that night, I watched alarm flare in my father’s eye as my mom recounted the conversation to him. They were grooming me to become the ideal housewife in all aspects—looks, service, and education. They believed a young woman marries well if she possesses beauty, knowledge to tend to a household, and an education to properly raise intelligent children.

Beauty meant skinny, and that I was not.

A few weeks later, I stood in a nutritionist’s office, legs spread apart, as she measured each thigh with a yellow tape, making notes on her legal pad. My right thigh was bigger than my left by a few inches. She recorded everything, shaming me with words after every measurement. She asked how I let myself gain so much weight multiple times, then reassured my mom that she would fix me.

The cost of repairs equated to a couple thousand per month. It was average for any weight loss program. The global market for weight loss services has reached more than $250 billion in revenue, making my contribution unremarkably miniscule. I became a prisoner of the multi-billion-dollar industry following a strict calorie intake regiment.

At ten each morning, a food delivery from the program would arrive at my house in a triangular box that unfolded at the top. The food was packaged in small plastic containers with quantities more suitable for toddlers than a child who was racing up the growth charts. I was put on a nine-hundred-calorie diet to create over a thousand-calorie deficit—part of the program’s fast result promise to consumers.

My mom packed the school lunches in my bag without changing the containers despite my embarrassment. I was told that since people watched me get fat, they should watch me get skinny. She didn’t believe that I had to hide the fact that I was dieting since my tummy nearly spilled out of my too-small shirt. She also didn’t believe in buying clothes that fit just right or were a bit looser, because they left room for anticipated growth, and I shouldn’t anticipate any more expansion.

Everyone recognized the logo on the plastic containers. Friends said that I hadn’t reached the “unacceptable level of fat” to be put on this. They alluded to the fact that I could still purchase clothes at any store if I shopped in the adult section. That it’s only baby fat. It’s preventative, I told them. They understood. Teachers remarked that my mother was doing a great job. It appalled me that people communicated that any level of being overweight would justify months of abuse and humiliation from the nutritionist and elders.

I was gutted with shame and relief simultaneously as I peeled the plastic containers apart. I longed for someone to carry the burden of my weight with me. An accomplice to take accountability for the increasing numbers on the scale. A co-target for the doctor’s disapproval as he concluded I was ten pounds away from textbook obesity. I needed somebody who understood what it felt like for an entire community to fixate on fast-growing fat cells in my body. To always be uncomfortable in my own skin.

As I child I went along with it, but as an adult I live with feeling that I have been deprived of my growth milestones. The calorie deficit stunted my growth. My breasts stopped developing, my height stagnated at 5’4”, and my hair follicles became too weak to grow hair at the same pace. My body is still in frozen time with smaller breasts and thinned-out hair.

That year created a pattern for socialization. I missed out on my birthday cake and pried my eyes away from dinner tables at extended family dinners. My mother would loom over me, signaling “1” with her index finger.

“You can only have one thing that’s not a salad,” she would whisper.

It stripped away the pleasure of socializing.

What I needed most was an adult who understood, but none of the adults around me with decision-making capacity could encompass the harm that was being done to my body and mind. Instead, the adults in my life told my mom that she was doing a great job. That she should keep motivating me until I reached the weight goal for my age group.

It only took a few days for my energy levels to dwindle on the severe calorie cut. My days continued as usual with eight hours of schooling, daily physical education classes, and activities with friends, without enough nourishment to sustain any of it.

I took three-hour naps every afternoon to pass the hunger and exhaustion I experienced between meals. The muscles in my calves and upper body began to throb, transforming into a consistent ache that lasted days without subduing. It started as a dull pain in the mornings and transformed into sharp pains with every step. I gradually lost interest in activities that required physical movement.

I learned how easy it was to deteriorate physically and mentally without shedding a single pound on the scale. The nutritionist did not believe that I was exhausted. During my visits, she reprimanded my mom and I for not scheduling time to exercise in my impacted schedule. She needs to keep going. She’s not tired, she only thinks she is. If she was really tired, the weight would have dropped on the scale.

My mom sat in the chair absorbing the information. She peered over at me with no attempt to hide her disappointment. “I’ll make sure she exercises.”

It resonated with her. My mom who was also victim of the industry had taught me to worship skinny. She let the shame of having a fat daughter get to her and passed it down to my father. Within a few weeks, they bought a treadmill and workout gear for a spare room downstairs. Dread seeped into my already exhausted limbs as I watched the workers assemble the equipment. My parents grinned at the sight of me and the treadmill side by side. A sight of that would become very familiar in the house.

I spent at least an hour a day on the machine before starting any homework. School became a secondary matter instantly. My mom reiterated that health was the priority and everything else could wait. The pain climbed up my calves into my knees and ached for days after my workouts, but still the machine waited for me every night. I brimmed with anxiety over what would come next if I failed to reach my next milestone on the next visit to the nutritionist.

But with frequent exercise, my weight finally started to decrease. My thighs became equivalent in circumference. I was doing well—until I became very unwell. Despite that, the nutritionist and my mom decided to experiment by lowering my calorie count to seven hundred calories a day just to see how my body would respond. Slowly, I began to deteriorate.

By the time of my eleventh birthday, living became associated with the burden of physically participating. My body could not sustain the constant calorie deficit. I blew out the candles to my favorite birthday cake flavor knowing that I was only allowed four bites that day. My birthday wish was to be skinny so I could rest.

I completed the program with the nutritionist, losing all the weight deemed healthy. At target weight, I felt unsatisfied with the results. I could still pinch flabs of fat on my upper arms, lower tummy, and inner thighs. I fell short on recognizing the fat as healthy fat; instead, I pinched and twisted it, willing it to vanish. My mom shared the same dissatisfaction; she wanted me to lose more weight as well.

She was advised to enroll me for a second cycle to teach maintenance of weight loss, but she declined. She misplaced her faith in me—that I, at eleven years old, understood the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and she would be my guide. Her guidance was reduced to frowning when I ate more than a piece of toast or a cake pop. She would lecture me about the importance of self-control before placing my favorite cookies on the table and watching me attempt to resist as a test. I never passed.

I gained all the weight back in three months. My mother was ashamed of me. We both were, when people frequently asked what happened to all the weight I had dedicated months to losing. I spent my formative years in a society that did not consider it rude to comment on someone’s weight.

Most conversations began with weight. I recall my classmate spiraling into a depressive episode. She spoke at length about her lingering sadness and disrupted functioning. She unintentionally lost over fifteen pounds in a month’s time. The comments rained when her cheek bones sunk further in.

Most people would tell her “You’re going to vanish.” Then they would pause, laugh, and follow up with, “Teach me how.”

“Is it your carbs? Sugar?”

“Exercise? Which machine? What workout routine?”

She always laughed it off and said it was her metabolism, because metabolism was the most appropriate answer to weight loss or weight gain to halt further questions.

Listening to the repetitive conversation was crumbling to me because I was experiencing the same remarks—but for excessive weight. I wanted to intervene and ask them to stop commenting on her body, but it would inevitably bring attention to my own.

The topic of weight permeated every conversation. Those who lost weight would especially revel in any attention to the subject of weight loss. The society associated those who are able to lose weight with being strong-willed and determined as opposed to the members who could not control their cravings and urges, packing on pounds. They were perceived as inferior.

It was considered a kind gesture to be concerned with someone’s health and vocalize it. So naturally I was not allowed to respond in any manner that would convey sadness or anger over the comments made about my body on a daily basis. It would have been considered rude of me and reflected poorly on my parents.

I witnessed friends and cousins my age outgrow their baby fat while mine packed on, doubling the size of each limb. They moved easier than I did, wore clothes to display their new bodies, seemed happier. I moved slower, hid my fat rolls under oversized clothes, and lowered my gaze and muttered that I was trying hard when they asked about my “health journey” with weight loss.

My experience at ten years old was the first of many experiences that took very negative turns. Each experience severed my relationship with food a little more. Eating anything became associated with fear, guilt, and anxiety. My physical existence and life longevity rely on proper nutrition, but I feared consumption.

Despite my experience taking place in Saudi Arabia, I believe that the same experience could have occurred in the United States as well. Diet culture is not too different from country to country. The United States promotes skinniness as the only acceptable body shape too. Almost thirty-three billion dollars are spent per year on weight loss products within the United States.

I relocated to the United States at seventeen years old. By then, I had gained all the weight lost through the program and an additional sixty pounds. I learned what it meant to be fat in another country that worshipped skinny.

It is considered disrespectful for people in the United States to comment on someone’s weight. They still do it in other forms without needing to verbalize it, though. Strangers stared openly and shamelessly at me, and their stares were often accompanied with whispers amongst those around them. This occurred more frequently around younger peers who I attended school with.

The female peers my age judged me even more harshly because they aspired to be as skinny as the Instagram models that flooded our social media feed, watched the same trending movies with size-zero actresses, and worked out until their legs couldn’t walk straight anymore.

And they expected me to do so too.

My weight became an invisible barrier that shunned me. Peers seemed disinterested and disengaged each time I attempted to strike up a conversation or introduce myself to a lab partner. They responded with one-word answers and avoided eye contact. At almost two hundred pounds, I was not extended kindness or respect. I became the metaphorical elephant in every room.

I kept the weight on for a single year before I decided to diet again. It would be the last diet I followed very strictly, but it is worth noting that it completely shredded all ties with a positive relationship to food and my own body. During my diet, I received the same kind of praise that normally accompanies weight loss from people around me, including the new friends and acquaintances. Suddenly, everybody thought I looked fantastic.

My interactions with people seemed to be a lot more pleasant as the pounds dropped. I returned to school fifty pounds lighter after the summer. During my first week, I discovered that the people who brushed past me did not recognize me. I was asked if it was my first day at school at least twelve times that week. I tried to explain to a couple individuals that the previous year was my first, but I looked different due to weight loss. They rejected the information, asking for proof. I would pull up a picture from a few months prior and have my phone snatched away as they zoomed in closely. They propped the phone up close to my face.

“That’s not even your face.”

“That’s not you.”

“No way.”

So I ultimately decided to bury the pictures, and for the rest of week I was new. It prompted exchanges in Snapchats, numbers, and Instagrams. I made more friends my first week of school than the entirety of the previous year. It felt surreal to be interacting with people who outwardly ignored me just a few months prior.

The weight loss unlocked a certain kind of kindness that was accompanied by interest from both sexes and plenty of invitations to get togethers, dinners, and parties. Through several more positive interactions with people who previously refused to even address me, I realized the effect that weight loss has on a person’s life. Weight loss opens a wide door of new opportunities, because skinny is beautiful, and beauty is desired.

The new diet that I was on consisted of calorie counting, a journal, and a gym membership. I could account for every calorie that I consumed and burned through exercise. My understanding of calorie deficits was quite dangerous for the diet plan. I planned a greater calorie deficit that was subject to change based on the workout. I only did cardio at the gym to take care of the excessive skin while I restricted my food. I hated the possibility of having stretchy skin at seventeen that would require surgery to remove, but I also knew my father would pay for the surgery if needed be.

On average I burned between seven hundred and a thousand calories at the gym in the span of a two- to three-hour workout. The more I burned, the greater calories I could consume as long as my calorie deficit for that day was above five hundred calories. My food consisted of healthier choices, smaller portions, and carefully calculated percentages. I monitored everything, including my sleep and steps, and frequently my heart rate and blood pressure. My obsession with numbers grew during this time.

I met my target numbers six months into dieting, but I was told to continue. Everyone seemed to know the  “plus-two, minus-two” rule, which basically meant that the body fluctuates by two pounds on a daily basis, so for a perfect number on the scale there should be more leeway for weight gain. I decided to lose fifteen just in case. When I lost the unnecessary fifteen, I lost fat in certain places that I never thought that I could lose.

The fat padding my ribs dissolved, leaving my three ribs poking into pale skin. My hipbones could be seen clearly through the skin. I lost fat in places I didn’t want to lose any fat. My breasts reduced in size to match the new body I worked for. My cheeks lost all fullness, and I didn’t know it then, but that was the last time I would have my baby cheeks. Every part of my body became bony. And I loved bones.

I applauded myself mentally for bringing my nine-year-old self’s version of skinny to life. Glorifying skinniness is very dangerous, yet I still keep two scales in my room in every home that I live in. One for weight and the other for metrics on fat percentages, muscle mass, and water levels; for a time, they traveled everywhere with me.

Ten years after the initial nutritionist visit, I sat across from a therapist who told me I was going to die. That I needed to gain to weight if I wanted to live. The effects of dieting have wrecked my body, because it’s been years and my heart still beats slower than most.

In therapy, I learned that 25 percent of individuals who diet experience eating disorders as a result of intense dieting. That was the first time I realized two things: that I had become a mere statistic on a chart without a clue on how to break a statistic, and that I was probably going to die from organ failure.

For bones, I had been willing to die.

To heal my preconceived childhood notions about weight and food, I had to relearn food from a biological perspective. I had to understand that there are no good or bad foods, only sustenance and survival to be able to eat. I gained a healthy ten or fifteen pounds, reintroducing foods into my body over the course of two months.

Today, a layer of fat coats my ribs, protecting them from injuries and exposure. My thighs no longer fit in a size-zero pair of jeans, and I no longer cry into my food at the dinner table.

I avoid the scales I’ve hidden under my vanities, standing too long in front of mirrors, and rooms filled with weight-conscious people who are consumed with numbers. I select clean, raw ingredients to prepare food that feels good for my body, and I remind myself that twenty-one years of learned habits cannot be undone in two years. That healing is a process with milestones, and I strive to do my best each meal.

Nour Abuelreich is a Palestinian American writer earning her MFA in creative writing at Chapman University. She writes extensively about mental health and sociopolitical issues within her community. Her poetry has been featured in Chapman’s Calliope literary magazine and nominated amongst the top ten at Ulysses Blog.