Hidalgo-Robert - Fat no more: a teenagers victory over obesity

Chapter 5

I Go to Diet Concentration Camp

2000

Look at your boy; so well-fed and robust! You should be a proud momma.

What do you give him to eat? Just look at him, so well grown!

People all said the same things to my mom.

Adults really thought I looked healthy. Every time we would meet my parents friends, they would congratulate my mom for having such a robust and well-fed child. The meaning of robust is: healthy, hearty, energetic and strong. But I wasnt any of those. Actually, I wasnt healthy at all. Hearty... I dont think so. Energetic... nope. I always chose the most sedentary activity. Strong... not! Even though I looked big, that didnt mean I was strong. My legs were so weak that I wasnt able to last an entire period at a school basketball game. I always had to be pulled halfway through.

Whatever these friends said, my pediatrician was saying otherwise. He always worried about my familys history of heart disease.

Although my pediatrician was concerned, he wasnt traveling on the right path, either. His intentions were noble, but his ideasor should I say, his procedureswere not. He might have tried to persuade my parents multiple times, but I wasnt feeling it; so I was not buying it.

The doctor became like my parents Bible. He was their law, their regime, their Communism. If he said jump, they would jump. If he said sleep, they would sleep. If he said put Alberto on a diet, they would try to do so.

But he, like most doctors, was not well-educated about a new and growing disease: Obesity.

Obesity, in El Salvador, was unheard of. Therefore, trying to stop the problem was a special challenge. They didnt know Obesitys moves and methods, much less what he was made of. They didnt know how he disguised himself; they didnt know he even existed. His birth and evolution were all new to them. Because of this, all the methods that my doctor used failed.

By the age of nine, I had gone off the rails. I had already put on about ten to fifteen extra pounds. Additionally, by the age of nine, I had been on more than nine different merciless and waste-of-time diets! My parents tried them all on me, from the water to the tuna to the fruit to the vegetables diet. Been there, done that. On every doctor visit, a new diet would be thrown in my face like a cold bucket of water. Everything started with my pediatricians sardonic speech about my growing fat. Following the useless speech, he would toss a thin, white piece of paper on my moms lap. The paper listed all the things I was going to eat at every meal, for at least two weeks!

I had become a laboratory rat! The doctor was testing me with every diet available. He wanted to see if I could tolerate them. I had become something to play with. And lets not forget, these diets were physically tiring and, taste-wise, disgusting. They also tired me emotionally; I ended up crying every day because I didnt want to eat what the list said.

On top of it all, the diets were a waste of money. My parents would have to run to the nearest supermarket right after each consultation and buy two whole weeks worth of special food for the special kid. Overall, each diet would take a toll on my parents and me.

But the hardest part for me was the lack of support from my family. Every diet was like being put in a food concentration camp. Everyone else, including my pets, would enjoy normal, human food: chicken, meat, beans and rice. I was the only one on the diet.

Of the countless diets, there was one in particular that really screwed me up... and the faucet and the toilet, too! This is how the first two weeks unraveled.

It started with a piece of toast, spread with a minimal amount of jelly. Then, a glass of water, a glass of milk and a glass of juice. All that liquid at 6 a.m.?

Obviously, my pediatrician was simply trying to fill my stomach with liquids. How healthy could that be?

But let me give you a bit more insight into a normal day on the Liquid Diet. I would come down the stairs, right about six in the morning, and see a vacant, white plate. In front of the plate, I would see three glasses. Id sit down. That breakfast would be the dullest one I had ever eaten. I would eat my piece of bread, and my stomach would still be growling. How to stop that? With the milk, juice and water. Id chuck those three glasses down my throat. I pretended to fill up.

Immediately, my stomach would growl even louderand without delay, the bathroom awaited. I would open the door, and when I sat down, everything came out. The milk, the juice and the water would fight in my stomach. This War of the Liquids gave me a big case of diarrhea, every single morning, for two weeks. It felt as if I was vomiting from my behind. It was like a faucet was open and everything was coming out. Believe it or not, my butt crack got a rash from so much cleansing.

After the flood, I would get ready for school, thinking that it was over. What Im going to tell you next occurred every single day, too! As I was getting into the car, another growl would come alive. I wouldnt say anything. I knew what that meant, but Id think I could hold it until I got to school and could use the bathroom there. Id feel a cold rush through my body. Goosebumps would take over. My stomach would be hurting and growling and my arms would be hugging it, chokingly, trying to calm the ache. It wasnt going away and I couldnt hide it any longer. I had to tell my mom.

Go! shed say as I was running out of the car, racing toward the stairs. I would sit again, and this time it would be worse than the first time. It was a nonstop shower. I felt like my guts were coming out.

For two weeks straight, I would get to school at least five minutes late. The first day, embarrassingly, my mom had to walk me down to my classroom and explain to my teacher what had happened. I didnt want a detention or to have my teacher take a point out of my attendance record. But at that moment, I really didnt care what she thought; I was just so worried about having another of those urges.

After everything came out of my body, I went hungry for two hours until snack time at school. I sat through history and mathematics thinking about food and hearing my stomach growl. Id embrace it with my arms and trying to calm my hunger, as if it were an enraged lion try to get to its prey. Just picture me, with a chair and a whip, dressed up as Curly, trying to calm him down. And trying to pay attention to the teacher was another challenge. I was starving!

The first couple of days, when my friends heard my stomach growling, one of them turned around and laughed while the other one offered me a chocolate to calm my hunger down, but I had to refuse. I couldnt eat a chocolate. It would have broken my diet!

Time went slowly, but finally, my first recess would come. I used to call it Snack Time. It was very simple and boring. For a snack, I would have some pieces of carrots with cottage cheese, unsalted, with no flavor or color. Just some pieces of carrots for a snack? Sure, they contain vitamins, but I am pretty sure five carrot pieces are not equivalent to even one serving. Those ruthless portions, dictating the beginning of my new starved way of living!

After my snack time, my hunger would multiply by three. First, I was already hungry from breakfast. I had nothing in my stomach, and I was supposed to fill it up with a few pieces of carrots and a spoonful of cottage cheese? Then I had to wait two more hours to get out of school and go home so I could eat lunch? I thought I couldnt make it.