Fat is Who I Am

April 2005

“Raa-fia?” the physician’s assistant called out.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to be here.

“Please come with me.”

I followed her down the brightly lit corridor, passing the walls covered with photos of newborns and ‘thank you’ notes. Even though I was a high school senior, my primary care physician was the same pediatrician I’d been seeing since I was eleven.

“You can set your things here,” the assistant pointed to the room where Dr. Singh would later see me.

I knew what was about to happen. The dreaded weigh-in. It had been years since I had seen the doctor, and years since I had been weighed.

“Please take your shoes off and step on the scale.”

I looked down at the dusty scale and imagined the last kid who stood there, running around in the dirt before his visit. I hesitated. I didn’t want my socks to get dirty. I was only seeing the doctor because my mom insisted. I was feeling fine. I mean, other than being fat, which I had been my entire life.

But I took my shoes off, stepped on the scale, and then waited. Back in those days, doctors’ offices had not yet advanced to digital scales. You started with an estimated weight and then they would slide a weight to the right or left depending on where the scale tipped.

Most of Dr. Singh’s patients were less than 60 pounds. When the PA quickly moved the slider to 150 pounds, I knew I was going to be standing on that scale for a while. It had been years since I weighed that amount. She moved the slider to the right.

Clank.

170? Nope.

Another clank.

180? Not that either.

Clank.

190? No.

Now, even I was starting to get worried. Had I really gained 40 pounds?

Yet another clank.

Not even 200? I don’t think even Baaj ever weighed that much when she was pregnant with Ahmed.

Maybe 205?

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear it.

What about 210?

Then the final clank.

I opened my eyes and stared at the scale. Two-hundred and twenty pounds.

I couldn’t believe it. I knew I was fat, but I had no idea I was that fat. I peered over at the PA writing some notes down on my chart. She took out a calculator, crunched in some numbers and wrote down 39.9 as my BMI.

According to the NIH, a person is considered obese if he or she has a BMI of 30 or greater. A BMI of 40+ rendered a person morbidly obese. That meant I was 0.1 points away from killing myself. “Death by Fatness” could have been the title of my story, except there would be no Hercule Poirot needed to solve the mystery of my death. I was the culprit.

Up until that point I told myself I didn’t care about what I looked like. Now confronted with the reality I didn’t want to face, I cried like I’ve never cried before.

Summer 2005 – Spring 2009

For as long as I can remember, I have been “Fat Rafia.” I was Fat before I was Rafia. I was the cautionary tale Desi aunties warned their daughters about: “Don’t eat too much! Otherwise, you’ll look like…Rafia. And then you’ll never get married!” I learned at the age of six that “Fat Rafia” was how most people would ever see me, and it forever shaped my own self-perception. I was born fat and I would die fat. End of story.

But when I learned from my doctor that my weight could lead to other conditions that could result in blindness or the inability to walk without assistance, I realized I had to do something. I didn’t want to die young.

After starting college in the summer of 2005, I began to make small changes to my diet. Although at the time, these small changes felt like huge sacrifices.

From the time I began eating cereal as a kid, there were only two kinds I ate: Cocoa Pebbles or Cocoa Puffs. No exceptions. But now I had to make some changes. When I accompanied my mother during her weekly grocery shopping trip, I hovered in front of the brown box, looking at the happy Flinstones. I then looked to my right where the cereal boxes no longer pictured cartoon characters.

I scowled.

“Rafia,” my mom said. “Remember what the doctor said!”

“How about Bran Flakes?” my mom suggested in her cheery tone.

“Yuck! I’m not eating that stuff. You eat it!”

I knew I couldn’t have Cocoa Pebbles anymore, but did I really need to eat cardboard for breakfast? I remember my naani used to eat Bran Flakes. One time when I was hungry and there was nothing to snack on, I thought I would try some. I promptly spat it out because it had no flavour. I know Nanaami was diabetic, but I wasn’t old like her. I was too young for gruel.

Luckily for me, I was able to find something that had some flavour and less sugar than my beloved Cocoa Pebbles. I opted for Special K and limited myself to just one serving, though I filled up my bowl as I always did. I missed not being able to drink that chocolate-y goodness straight from the bowl, but the Special K box touting “Good Source of Fiber” and “Made with Real Strawberries” made me feel good about my decision.

After a couple of weeks of Special K, I decided I was ready for another change: brown bread. Though it wasn’t as yummy as the Hostess white bread I was used to, Nutella had a way of making anything taste good. I was not about to give up my precious Nutella. That was asking for too much. “Small steps,” I recalled my doctor telling me.

When it came to dinner, I reduced the amount of rice I ate, limiting myself to just one plate. After chocolate, the only other thing that gave me comfort in life was chawwal and khatti daal with some talaawa ghosht. We were a family that ate rice everyday for dinner and it was not uncommon for me to eat chawwal sometimes three times in a single day. To reduce my rice intake to just one measly plateful a day was akin to depriving myself of the only happiness I had ever known.

To supplement my new food choices, I decided to make friends with the treadmill collecting dust in our basement. This may have been even harder than eating healthy. I was the kid who sat on the bench during recess. In middle school, I purposely sprained my ankle so that I could get out of playing softball during gym class. I did whatever I could to avoid doing anything that required movement. Thankfully, we had a TV downstairs. Watching America’s Next Top Model while I walked every day for 30 minutes made me almost forget I was “exercising.” Only the psychotic tirades of Tyra Banks could divert my mind from the pain of having to walk on the treadmill.

Over the course of my freshman year, I started to notice small changes in my physical appearance. The XXL t-shirt that I had to squeeze to fit into was now loose. By the end of my second year of college, I had lost 30 pounds. Though I was still obese, this was the first time in my life I had lost weight. I started to believe that maybe I could be more than just Fat Rafia.

With the early success, I was motivated to do more. During my third year, I began to carefully read and scrutinize nutrition labels. What was previously a 30-minute grocery trip often extended to an hour. Not only did I read the ingredients to make sure I recognized every one, my final selection had to have the lowest amount of fat, sugar, and sodium. After learning that Special K was full of sugar, I opted for oatmeal instead. I bought a food scale to calculate the calorie count of whatever I couldn’t assess in a measuring spoon or cup. Though it meant more dishes to clean, I had to make sure I consumed no more than 1,500 calories a day.

My goal was to reach 135 pounds by the time I graduated in May 2009. That was the number I needed to be in order to have a “normal” BMI. After losing those first 30 pounds, losing an additional 55 seemed a bit more achievable.

After dinner, I would spend even more time in the basement, walking on the treadmill for at least one hour each evening. I was now able to walk faster than before and even added some running spurts to increase my calorie burn. The pain I felt in my legs meant I was getting closer to my goal of 135 pounds.

May 2009

On graduation day, I weighed 139 pounds. I had gone from a Size 22 to a Size 10 in three years. Although it was great I was no longer plus-sized, I still was not happy. And although I won three big awards that day, all I could think of was that I had missed my weight goal by four stinking pounds.

On the outside, things were looking good for me. I had graduated at the top of my class, people were remarking on how good I looked, but it still was not enough. I had to be 135 pounds.

When I finally reached 135, I still was not happy with the way I looked. I needed to lose more. My new goal was 120.

I poured all my energy into losing weight rather than looking for a full-time job. After about six months of unemployment and upon my father’s insistence, I finally got a part-time gig. Though it came with no benefits and I hated it, I wasn’t motivated to do anything about it. A part-time job meant I would have more time to exercise when I got home and I could control the amount of food I ate without being tempted by food in the break room. It was a win-win.

By this time, I stopped going out to eat and refused social invitations. I couldn’t eat all that greasy deep-fried food. And how would I measure anything?

My family was concerned that I was becoming too extreme, but I scoffed at their comments and pleas to eat more. These were the same people telling me I was fat my entire life, and now they were telling me I was too skinny? I ignored them. I had to get thinner. Being thin was all I cared about.

Besides, how could my family not understand how absolutely delicious my carefully measured ⅓ cup of oatmeal sweetened with ½ cup of (unsweetened) applesauce was, or how satisfying my low-carb brown bread with 2 tablespoons of hummus and spinach were! And who needs cake when you can eat 10 grapes for dessert? If you freeze them for an hour, it’s like eating a grape-flavored popsicle.

February 2010 – September 2011

Nine months after graduation, I reached my new goal of 120 pounds.

But even that was not good enough. Even though my BMI was normal – and the positive comments continued – my stomach was still flabby, my thighs still jiggled, and my calves prevented me from fitting into skinny jeans.

I had to lose more weight.

By the end of 2010, I had gone down to 108 pounds. I was now a size 4 and could fit into an XS. But my thighs still touched when I sat down.

I stopped eating rice completely by this point. I also banished my beloved Nutella from the house. I only ate because if I didn’t my father would get upset. I made sure I drank a lot of water while I sat at the dinner table and ate slowly so no one would notice how little I was eating.

“Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels,” I would tell myself as I held on to my stomach, trying to massage my hunger pangs away as I lay in bed, unable to sleep.

October 2011

During the daytime, I was still dieting. But as soon as I was alone, a new side of me began to emerge. A shadow that had to be fed, and on the night of Halloween, she took no prisoners.

As I lay in bed unable to sleep, all I could think of was the leftover chocolate stashed away in the pantry. I stared at my ceiling fan and instead of sheep, I counted the different chocolate bars that remained. After an hour or so, once I heard my dad’s loud snoring, I got out of bed. I tip-toed in the dark, quietly pressing against the walls of our narrow hallway. I fumbled a bit until I grasped the railings. Holding on firmly, I took one step down the stairs, one foot at a time until I felt the cold marble floor under my feet.

Before my weight loss, my brother and I would eat a few pieces of the leftover candy each day until they were all finished. It usually took about a week. I was content with having a few pieces each day. But this new version of me wanted them all—NOW. It’s as if the future didn’t exist and if I didn’t act immediately, I’d forever lose my chance.

“Just take a few. Bhaijaan won’t notice,” Shadow Rafia whispered as I opened the pantry door. “Just eat the ones he doesn’t like. Save the Snickers for him.”

I took the bag out and put my hand in, not knowing which candy I would pull out first. I squinted to see what I had fished out. It was a Mars bar. I didn’t like Mars and in the past, left them uneaten. But Shadow Rafia didn’t distinguish the subtleties of flavours. Chocolate was chocolate – and she needed chocolate. I ripped open the plastic wrapping and hurled the chocolate into my mouth. The wrapper fell to the ground. I paid no attention to where it landed. Barely done with my first candy, I picked out another from the bag.

Rip.
Throw.
Drop.
Swallow.
Grab.

Even though it was the middle of the night and everyone was still asleep, I was in a rush. I went searching for more and took what I made out to be Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, but I didn’t bother savoring the smooth chocolate melting in my mouth. After a cursory chew, my hand went searching for more.

After about 10 minutes, when shadow me was sated and quietened, I was me again – the good dieting me – and I looked around to witness the carnage I had committed. There were tiny wrappers all around me. I had broken my “Don’t eat after 6 pm” rule. This was no small infraction. I felt embarrassment, dread.

What had happened to me? Just a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have gone for even one of those candies. They were against the rules. I had lost all control.

Then the lights turned on.

“Rafia, kya kharray? Kya hwan?” my mom asked in bewilderment, as she came into the living room. I was crouched on the floor in the fetal position, crying like a baby.

I had turned into a monster. And Shadow Rafia was so much worse than Fat Rafia.

March 2012

There was an Einstein Bagels about a block away from my doctor’s office. I knew it was there and often thought about stopping by, but never did. Good dieting Rafia kept me in check. Bagels were full of empty carbs, and I knew that drinking even water before an appointment would add pounds to the scale. Every time I had to see the doctor, I went on an empty stomach.

Once the bingeing began though, I seemed to lose the control I had once mastered. During one particular visit, after I saw the Einstein Bagels, my stomach growled almost on cue. Without thinking, I turned into the parking lot. Shadow Rafia had taken over.

But I hesitated before I got out of my car.

“No, Rafia. Don’t do this,” good, dieting Rafia pleaded.

“Don’t listen to her, you deserve this,” Shadow Rafia comforted.

“You don’t deserve anything. Remember you will be weighed!”

“Carbs, chocolate….you love chocolate. When was the last time you had chocolate, Rafia?”

I parked the car. Shadow Rafia won most, if not all, debates.

As I waited in line, I battled with feelings of guilt, hunger, and enticement. My mom said that whenever she had a doctor’s appointment, she’d treat herself to a coffee and bagel at Dunkin Donuts. Was it really that bad if I got one too? Didn’t I deserve to be happy as well?

I was next in line.

“How can I help you?”

“Umm, just give me a minute,” I told the cheery teenage attendant. I could walk out right now and just say I’m late for an appointment. I didn’t have to get anything. But I was hungry. I looked at the whole wheat bagel. It didn’t look very good. My eyes kept going back to the chocolate chip bagel. Oh, chocolate!

“Whenever you’re ready!” her cheeriness had turned down a notch and she let out a sigh. I could hear rustling behind me. I was holding up the line and everyone behind me was getting irritated by my indecisiveness. I looked over my shoulder. I looked at the bagels again.

“Okay, I think I’ll get a chocolate chip bagel with cream cheese please?” As if I was asking for my order to be validated by a stranger I’d never see again. Ashamed, I quickly ate the bagel in my car before driving to the doctor’s office.

As I sat in the waiting room, I started to panic. Now that she had gotten what she wanted, Shadow Rafia was gone for now. Only Diet Rafia remained and she was freaking out. The second hand on the clock above the receptionist’s counter began to tick loudly. It got louder and louder as I waited and I could feel my heart race ahead of it. Thump. Thump. Thump. I wanted to go to the bathroom one last time to see if I could reduce the bagel bloat, but it was too late. The nurse came out.

“Raaa-fia?”

I wanted to sink into my seat.

“Please follow me.”

If only I could go back in time! Why had I stopped at the Einstein Bagel? The bagel wasn’t even all that good anyway, barely any chocolate chips, and now I was going to pay for it.

“Place your things here,” the nurse said.

As I went to take off my shoes, she interrupted me. “You don’t have to take off your shoes.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” I said with a slight chuckle. “They’re practically off anyway.”

She looked at me in disapproval, but I didn’t care. Anything to reduce the number on the scale. Why did I wear this thick sweater? Should I have worn my khakis instead of my denim jeans? I should have worn something lighter. It was too late now, so the least I could do was take off my shoes and pray to God that the bagel didn’t undo all that I had worked so hard for.

I stepped on the scale, eager yet anxious. I had to know how much time I’d have to spend on the treadmill later to make up for my major slip.

113 pounds, the digital scale instantaneously read.

“That’s great!” the nurse said.

Great? Was this woman taunting me? How was I doing great? I gained 5 pounds!

I should have been happy I had managed to maintain over 100 pounds of weight loss, but I was angry at myself for gaining back five of those pounds. Those five pounds were what really mattered.

April 2026

It’s been 21 years since I reached my highest weight of 220 pounds. Twenty-one years since I stepped on that scale in my pediatrician’s office and broke down in tears.

It’s been 16 years since I reached my lowest weight of 108 pounds. Sixteen years of battling with myself to be a weight I thought would make me happy.

Though it was nice to be called “beautiful” for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel it. There was always more weight to lose. Until I couldn’t. At the time, I had thought Shadow Rafia was a monster, but now I realize she was trying to help me.

Losing over 100 pounds was not easy – accepting my new body and all the changes that came with it was even harder. At the time of writing, I am learning to accept my body for what it is and what it can do, instead of focusing on what it’s not.

And for the record, I am eating chocolate again, and none of those bottom of the variety pack Hershey’s bars. I’m now all about the premium couverture brands like Callebaut and Valrhona. Shadow Rafia has evolved!