So, I’m getting undeniably thinner and weaker. When I kneel down, say to put something in the fridge, it feels like I’m sinking into a lovely cushion of rest, and I find it difficult to muster the strength to get up again. I have to gather my resources, for a moment, and then push up with an effort. I could stay down there forever, gazing into the fridge’s humming, illuminated interior. It seems an attractive prospect, when you’re faced with the daunting up-thrust.
We’ve already established that running (in both the literal sense and the ‘organising” sense) at what I hope is a calorie deficit, every day, I am flirting with the hope of inflicting serious, though temporary, harm upon myself. However, I am not courting a heart attack. This would be too binary, too abrupt, too final: it would suddenly kick in, or it wouldn’t, like a pressed switch, and, if it did, it would probably kill me and do so at once without hope of compromise or mitigation or second thoughts. And this is not a suicide attempt.
When I run, I am very aware of, very sensitive to, the strange sense of tenderness in my chest: a sort of painless, ache or strain; a pervasive, breathless, exhausted murmur against the effort of it all. This feeling is luxuriantly absent if I cover the same distance at a walk.
Walking or running, I feel the weakness in my legs, though. My legs are now very thin and veiny. My thighs do not meet, even if I squeeze them together, and each bend clearly enunciates and delineates individual muscles in the thinning sheath of skin that clothes them.
The weakness in my legs is different and less ominous than that in my chest. It is a looseness, a ticklish tremor, a tiny shiver, almost just a blush of sensitivity that creeps into the muscle tissue, between the joints, the ball and socket. It testifies to low blood sugar, I believe: a job well done.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 