Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t counting calories. I’m sure there was one – but it was so long ago I don’t remember it. sure, there are times when I’ve tried to blissfully ignore the calories I’m consuming (for example: during a binge or when I’m splitting takeout food with my man), but it’s always there in the back of my mind. Calculating.
I can remember the first time I skipped a meal, though. I was still living in North Carolina, and it was around second or third grade, so I must’ve been around 7. I saw how skinny the other girls were, and how I wasn’t, and I took the lunch my mom packaged me and threw it away. Of course, after ballet I scarfed down a portion of French fries, but let’s face it. The seed was planted.
Food isn’t food anymore. They’re numbers. I don’t taste the nutrients, just the calories it contains. I endlessly calculate and do the math for my meal plans to make sure that I stay under 500 calories a day, that I can burn it off, and that I can lose the weight I want to. Food is numbers, exercise burns those numbers, and the more negative numbers, the lower the numbers that define your existence get. And that’s what I want. I want those numbers to get so low that my bones are peeking through my skin. I want a gap between my thighs. I want them to stop looking like they’re able to have a movie screened on them.
I don’t understand how people can just eat things without looking at or looking up and knowing the calories they’re consuming. That would (and has) sent me into a blind panic before. What is it like to not think about the numbers? To not have them memorized in the back of your head? To not do quick math every time you’re faced with a plate? To not plan out your meals in advance to make sure you’re under your goals? To have to plan outings with friends that aren’t centered on food, and if they are to try to push it to somewhere that you can control and limit the numbers you’ll have to force down your throat?