I’ve always loved food the same way most people on this planet do. I loved the emotional, sensory and social aspects of eating. But that simple, innocuous fact took a complicated turn about two years ago, when I was staring at a photo of myself. I’d never really liked the roundness of my cheeks, but at that moment, it became unbearable. I hated being mistaken for being years younger than I actually was. I hated that I felt I was perpetually perceived as “ugly” and “fat.” And the rest of me wasn’t really desirable either.

So I decided to steal the reins from genetics and resolve the issue. I decided to lose weight.

At first, even though the number on the scale didn’t seem to budge, it wasn’t unhealthy. I’d eat smaller portions than I was consuming before and exercise more. But after I returned from a too-indulgent vacation to China, I found that I’d gained three pounds, and when the school year started, I loosened a little and drank more bubble tea and ate more chocolate, so I gained more. As the number mounted up, sometimes in sporadic spurts, sometimes little by little, something in me tightened just a little too tautly. I resolved that I’d set stringent guidelines and stick to them. So set them I did—and they became the backbone of my existence.

I looked up the number of calories I was to consume every day to lose weight, and because different websites proffered different values, I strolled on the “safe side” and chose the lowest value to regard as holy, as the ultimate guideline. This number I would not surpass by even a decimal.

It was at this point I started to look up the calorie quantities for every for every food item imaginable. I started to exactingly keep tabs of every single thing I swallowed, down to the last blueberry. I started to skip meals, never eat snacks, and plan my meals for the day down to the dot.

I didn’t care about the nutritional value of the foods I ate. One hundred calories in apples was the same as one hundred calories in cake. All I cared about was the same, blaringly tedious equation: calories in - calories out ≤ total calories.

The “≤” was a salient part of the equation to me. It meant that I could consume even less than all the calculators recommended, I didn’t think about how the nutritional deficiency could potentially decimate my health; again, I was supposed to be invincible and it could never happen to me. I’d been taught that anorexia only involved stick-thin figures and that the consequences manifested only then.

It was so so hard because, as aforementioned, I loved food. Each day, I’d stare in envy as others around me stuffed snacks into their mouths and never seemed to gain a pound. What I did many times to compensate was eat a variety of foods at meals—but only two bites of each, hardly the size of a sample at the grocery store. And then I’d systematically and cold-heartedly quantify all I’d eaten and insert it into the equation, and if it was too much, I transformed it into how much less I should eat later or how much more I had to exercise that day. Or, if there was a food day or event that involved a massive amount of sustenance, I’d load up a plate and finish, but it’d be all I ate that day. I’d probably skip breakfast the next morning as well.

Through all those unhealthy months of merely existing and not living, running had become harder and harder. The more I practiced, the more my endurance seemed to be slipping away through my fingertips—whereas I usually ran 40 minutes at one speed before, I could barely do 12 now before my heart and legs would scream to stop for a break, and I’d collapse on the cold basement floor by the treadmill.

Exercise was so arduous and nerve-wracking that I couldn’t bear to think of doing it in the afternoon after school, even if I’d completed my homework. I didn’t want my parents to witness me going down to start and emerging over two hours later with bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair, wondering why I’d been there for so long now compared to before. But I refused to run less—I had to burn that magical number of calories. So I started to run later and later at night from putting it off and off again, from 10 Pm to 11 Pm to 12 AM, and soon it was not uncommon for me to go for a run at 2 AM. And that was often after falling asleep in my room with the lights on, awakening in a cold sweat and skittling downstairs. Since it took two hours to finish, between running for 12 minute intervals with almost hour-long breaks in between as I dreaded starting again, it was usually 4 AM before I’d tiptoe back upstairs—pausing to check my weight daily on the cold, metallic scale and walking as noiselessly as possible in the obsidian dark house to not awaken anyone. And after showering, it would be 5 AM before I went to bed for real.

Yes, I checked my weight obsessively every day, multiple times. Every slight increase would devastate my mood. Every decrease was my favorite part of the day. The scale became both my best friend and my worst enemy.

I’d think about losing calories all the time. How many minutes it took to burn off breakfast. What fraction of a pizza slice I could eat to still fall into the green zone of the equation. Adding and subtracting and calculating, all over again every single day.

I was overwhelmed with fatigue every moment—so much that I forgot what it felt like to be energetic, that I’d deny being tired despite my lack of sleep.

I wanted to join track—but I couldn’t because my running had taken a 180-degree U-turn.

I began to think of food in almost all waking time. About how much I adored it, daydreaming about succulent aromas and delectable flavors. About how much I hated the massive caloric quantities that all my favorite foods possessed. While I loved food before, I was obsessed with it now—ironic when considering how little of it I ate.

Yet I still didn’t know I was harming myself.

My weight plummeted. Five, 10, 15, and eventually about 20 pounds.

I was proud of myself. I’d accomplished my initial goal of 10 pounds much before. But still I wasn’t satiated (literally) and I wanted to keep restricting myself more and more and more.

I didn’t know I was harming myself. I didn’t.

I stopped having my period. I’d discovered I had an iron deficiency before the turmoil began, but only later would it plunge to such a level that I almost needed a blood transfusion (but I didn’t know this then.) One month, it didn’t appear and would never do so again for months.

And the worst part of it was during the months of hell disguised as paradise, no one knew of my predicament, my twisted goals. Some suspected it, but I denied the proposition. I guess they believed me, knowing how much I talked about food all the time.

I had no idea what crime I was committing to myself. In fact, I was super proud, felt super accomplished and didn’t know till I visited the doctor for my checkup.

I’d lost more than 10 percent of my body weight in just five months, and my iron levels were frighteningly, terrifyingly low. As the knowledge sunk in, I felt as though I wanted to vanish.

At this juncture, I knew I gradually had to let go. It was tough. I permitted myself to gain three pounds, but I was too fearful to see the number surmount any more. For a few months, I stayed at that weight, better but still not healthy. I was still counting calories, exercising unhealthily, only slightly loosened by my doctor’s words. I didn’t care if I lost weight or maintained it; I just didn’t dare gain it.

Because of my new obsession with food I’d developed through cravings and restriction, I started baking and cooking extensively. I’d eat much of my baked desserts in diminutive amounts for breakfast instead of midday snacks because I still didn’t want to gain.

One day, after an indulgent chicken and mashed potatoes dinner I’d prepared, my weight went up one pound. I thought it’d subside again, like it usually did. But it didn’t.

I religiously took iron medication. A month after the appointment, suddenly I could run for 20 minutes, and then 35, and then I could run for that time, but at a faster speed. When I went back to my doctor, my iron was about back to normal. There was a clear correlation between my iron levels and how easily I got tired—during exercise or otherwise, I suppose because the fact that blood carries oxygen to muscles and there was now more of it.

I had friends who shared my love of food and cooking, and gradually, I started allowing myself to eat more, bit by bit. I’d still wince every time the number increased, but it didn’t stymie me so much that I had to cut sustenance later. Finally, I broke the minimum barrier of a normal weight, and even more. I’m still in that range today.

Now, I enjoy cooking and baking and running not because I want to control my weight, but for the pure love and joy that they bring me, something much healthier that eclipses any desire to be thin. I admit, still I sometimes revert into a temporary mode of estimating how much I’ve eaten for the day, but it’s never to the utmost exact degree anymore. Because I know all my time calculating and compensating was torturous and it’s not something anyone should ever have to go through, all the sleepless nights and never-ending anxiety.

I don't want any sympathy or tissues or pats on my back of sorrow. That's not why I choose to recount my experience. If I could, I'd lock it in a chest somewhere and it'd stay secret forever. I'd never talk about it again, but the thing is, I have to because it's shaped so much of who I am today, and I want people to see that it's easy to lose control, and no one should ever, ever repeat my same mistakes again.