You Won’t Like Me When I’m Hangry

By Jillian Owens
February 28, 2014

Note:  My editor has informed me that the MidlandsBiz site is having a few technical difficulties and that this article can’t have any photos in it.  That’s okay!  Let’s use our imaginations, shall we?  Instead of posting a photo, I’ll just tell you what photo I would have posted and you can pretend it’s there!  It’ll be fun!

When my friends and I decided to go on a cruise, I was stoked (and I don’t use that word often).  In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be living a life of leisure – drinking and eating everything in sight whilst frolicking on gorgeous beaches with white sand and water so clear you don’t even stop to contemplate its bacterial content!
I was ready.  My vacation wardrobe was all picked out.  I just needed one thing– one thing I had been putting off–Swimwear.

[INSERT RANDOM GRATUITOUS STOCK SWIMWEAR PHOTO]

I haven’t purchased swimwear in years.   When I travel, it’s so I can eat amazing foods and explore fun cities.  I’m too much of a wanderer to enjoy lounging around on a beach for very long.  My five-year-old bikini only comes out of my dresser drawer for about one pool party per year, or to be covered up by shorts and a tank top when I go kayaking.

But this was different.  As total strangers were about to see at least 80% of my body for a large quanitity of time, I wanted to make sure I looked awesome.  And this is why I made the terrible decision that spawned into other more terrible decisions…I decided to try on swimwear in the Target dressing room.

You might not think this is a big deal.  It seems like a simple enough process.  I would choose several contenders for my cruisewear off the rack, enter a dressing room to try them on, and three would make the cut.  No big deal, right? 

Wrong.

Oh so wrong.

As I disrobed, I was absolutely appalled by what I saw.  What the hell had happened to me?  I always thought I had an alright body.  I mean, I’m no supermodel, but I eat fairly healthily and I do yoga.  But what was this hideous creature in the mirror before me?  My skin looked splotchy and marbly, and my body was lumpy, pale, and full of cellulite.  I looked like a piece of cauliflower that somehow gained sentience.  I pulled my stomach in (for whose benefit?!?) as I stared in abject horror.  I was being judged by the harsh overhead fluorescent lighting of truth, I was being measured, and I was found wanting.

[INSERT PHOTO OF ME AWKWARDLY SOBBING IN A DRESSING ROOM CORNER]

“Good God, I’m hideous,” I said aloud, which was met with a snicker from the dressing room clerk.  Nothing was purchased that day.

I left feeling completely gross and disgusted with myself.  With the cruise being only 3 weeks away, I had to take action!  But I was almost out of time.  Killing it at the gym wasn’t going to yield fast enough results.  Fine, I thought.  I’ll just go on a diet.

One small meal a day.  That was it.  That was all I was allowed to have.  This wasn’t easy.  Butter, cheese, bread, creamy sauces, and carbs are my best friends.  If I could find a man who looked at me the way I look at Gruyere, my love life would be set.  But I stuck to it.  When friends asked me why I was hardly eating, I’d say things like, “Oh I just ate earlier,” (lie), “I’m a really light eater,” (anyone who knows me knows that’s a lie), or “I’m just not hungry,” (big mondo lie). 

[INSERT PHOTO OF CRAPPY SIDE SALAD THAT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY MEAT OR CHEESE OR DRESSING ON IT, AND IS THEREFORE TERRIBLE]

One week passed.  I was miserable.  I couldn’t concentrate.  I started getting headaches.  I was tired all the time.  My skin looked dry, and my eyes looked listless.  I started being pretty awful to be around.  I was cranky.  Traffic was rage-inducing, and I was ready to bite anyone’s head off (for sustenance) who rubbed me the wrong way.

Finally, a friend asked me, “What’s wrong with you?  You’re acting really weird.  Are you mad about something?”  I told him everything…the dressing room, the miserable crash diet, that I was tired and desperately craving a sandwich, and that life without cheese isn’t really a life at all. 

“I’m not angry.  I’m just hungry…which is making me angry.  I’m hangry.”
As I explained all of this, I kept thinking, Do you realize how completely stupid you sound right now? 

My friend reassured me that what I was doing was idiotic and dangerous, that I looked fine, and that I shouldn’t worry about what a bunch of random strangers who are just there to have a good time thought of my physique.  I was reminded of the basic properties of light, especially that of harsh fluorescent light on the female form.

I decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

I proceeded to eat a burrito the size of a baby and called the cruise crash diet off.

[INSERT PHOTO OF MASSIVE BEEF BURRITO WITH EXTRA SOUR CREAM, EXTRA GUACAMOLE, AND EXTRA CHEESE]

Stop drooling on my imaginary burrito photo, will you?