ONE HELL OF A DIET -FLASH FICTION

Rob starts the most insane diet yet. A nine-month hike on the Pacific Northwest trail. The catch? No food. He plans to survive off his fat reserves. It has been done before, but will he make it?

Would I ever lose the excess weight? I had tried diet after diet, only to fail in each one.

I squeezed the massive belly that hung over my waistline; its blub rolling in my hands like dough.

“You fat slob. You have no choice.” I growled at my image in the mirror. Why did I still own mirrors?

I was done being big and had only one diet left to try.

“I will fast for nine months.”

“Dude, you are insane.” Everyone told me.

But they didn’t understand. I couldn’t be like this anymore.

“I hate you. Why can’t you get ahold of this?” That thought went through my head twenty times a day.

How had I lost control of eating? Life was so simple as a kid, eating anything I wanted to and not thinking about it. How had that changed, and how did I get here? I needed to reset my brain, and my starvation diet was my only chance.

Foolishly, I took off in the backcountry of the Pacific Northwest Trail with plans to travel through seven national forests.

“It isn’t safe to hike alone,” almost everyone told me.

I didn’t care. Either I would lose all the grotesque weight or make a lovely meal for a family of bears. I was good with either one.

I loaded my pack with all the needed gear without the essential staple in most hikers’ packs. I didn’t pack food. If I didn’t have access to food, then I couldn’t eat, right?

Do you want to know what Hell is? Hell is lugging around a 50lb pack through a wilderness that only knows two seasons: wet and soggy. Hell is spraining your ankle three times, the ankle you absolutely depend on. Hell is having no energy because you aren’t supplying your body with food. Hell is five million bug bites, and Hell is being chased by a bear not once but twice.

But I did it! I lost eight two pounds; at least that is what the hospital intake chart said. I forgot to tell you, Hell is falling off a cliff and slipping in and out of consciousness while every bone in your body feels broken. Hell is waiting four days for someone to discover your crumpled body at the bottom of the ravine while you experience the most excruciating pain. Hell is spending two months in the hospital in a coma, then two more recovering, all while in traction. And Hell is gaining sixty of those lost pounds back as the hospital forces total parenteral nutrition into you. Hell is the two-year loss of your life from eight months in the wilderness, four months in the hospital, and a year of physical therapy. Oh yeah, and Hell is the two-million-dollar hospital bill for it all.

All in all, at the end of two years, I added forty pounds to my hospital discharge weight, putting me at a net gain of twenty pounds.

That is one Hell of a diet.