Designated Fat Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

want, on tap. I brought a refrigerator to school, and my roommate provided a microwave. This brought all new possibilities: I could eat sugarcoated cereal for breakfast every morning, and microwave pizza in our room. Probably the most damaging part of my newfound food freedom was burger baskets. I was stuck on campus without a car, and back then there were no fast-food places in our little college town. But we had an on-campus burger joint, and I made a regular practice of ordering a hamburger-and-fries basket. I remember being in awe of the fact that I could do this at 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., long after I’d eaten dinner.
I can do this to get through my studying,
I told myself.
I just need a pick-me-up.
How I didn’t gain all my weight back and more that freshman year, I’ll never know. But it would happen soon enough.
    By my sophomore year I was living off campus with a roommate. I was also commuting an hour and a half each way to work as a reporter at a television station in South Carolina. I worked horrible hours and had to drive miles and miles on the interstate. This was where my fast-food addiction really heated up. I was working late. I was tired. I was stressed from the job,the commute, the full load of courses I was taking and, oh yeah, I was planning a wedding. It was almost too easy to give in to the temptation of the many fast-food places up and down I-95, most of which were open twenty-four hours. I found myself stopping for burgers and fries at midnight three and four times a week, always telling myself that this was the last time, I just needed it to get through the commute. Famous last words.
    I definitely was eating more fast food, but I wasn’t at the bingeing point yet. That would come just a little later, when the weight started to pile on from the extra burgers and fries and endless soda. The stress from gaining weight and all the other things in my life started to get to me, and in a desperate attempt to stop the madness, I would employ what worked so well for me on that New Year’s Eve back in 1990. I would load up on fast food, promising myself that this was the last time, all I needed was to get it out of my system. But more and more I found that what I thought was a foolproof method no longer worked. My resolve would erode quickly, and I would eat more. The weight began to pile on even more, and for the first time in my life, I entered a weight class I never thought I would achieve. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it became. I felt as though I was sinking in quicksand.
    Over the years, I brought bingeing to an art form. It usually centered around fast food, but not always. Sometimes I couldn’t leave the house, afraid Michael would know what I was up to. I would take a loaf of bread, a jar of pasta sauce, and a tub of butter, and over the course of an afternoon, I would eat all of it. I would tell Michael I was “working” in our second bedroom that I used as an office. And I would just eat and eatand eat. I eventually would get sick and have to go to the bathroom, but if I waited just a little while, I was ready to eat again. And again and again.
    Fast food was always my drug of choice, though. In early 2000 I started a new job that had me commuting an hour each way, again along the interstate. I would call Pizza Hut before I left work for the day. Imagine how mortified I was when they knew me by my order, “Ms. Joyner? Oh yes, a medium pepperoni and sausage pizza and a twenty-ounce Mountain Dew?” I sheepishly said, “Yes,” and left to pick up my food. I was embarrassed to be remembered for my standing order, especially when the purchase of a single drink must have clued the folks into the fact that this was indeed a meal for one. But not too embarrassed to keep going.
    I could down the whole pizza in the first twenty minutes or so of my hour-long drive home. Then, when I was halfway there, I would stop off the interstate and hit McDonald’s for a double cheeseburger meal. By the