Free Hyper-chondriac by Brian Frazer

second place…still have no idea…I’m not great with names of men in Speedos. When they announced that I had finished first, I was in shock. I was Mr. Natural New England 1984. Tall division. I won a large trophy the size of Erin Moran.
    However, victory would soon turn to defeat.
    Since I had barely eaten over the past few weeks I was literally starving. Luckily, it was time to celebrate. So off I went, by myself, for a post-competition meal to that Mecca of health: IHOP. There my trophy and I ordered a large plate of pancakes, which I wolfed down before the maple syrup had even hit the sides. But I wasn’t through. I was craving pizza like a picnic ant. So I went across the street and proceeded to eat an entire pie. Eight slices. In about ten minutes. All by myself.
    As the last remnants of crust slid down my throat, I came to a startling conclusion. I didn’t feel well. My stomach was killing me. Of course it was! I had gone from 800 calories a day for the past two weeks to 800 calories a minute. I was a moron and my digestive system was in shock.
    After a difficult drive back to my parents’ house, I staggered inside holding my trophy and they bombarded me with questions about the contest. My mother released the biggest smile I had seen since she took care of me when I had chicken pox. My father insisted I wear his Superman ring for the rest of the week. I just wanted to lie down. But my stomach wouldn’t let me. When I couldn’t even make it up the stairs to my bedroom, my dad drove me to the hospital.
    A doctor informed me that I had eaten so much food that my exponentially expanding stomach had gone through a part of my diaphragm wall. I was diagnosed with a hiatal hernia. I faced potential surgery. In the meantime the gastroenterologist ordered me to have the head of my bed raised to prevent acid from going into my esophagus during the night. Oh, and not to eat anything, not even a rice cake. Arnold never mentioned this in his encyclopedia. Thankfully, nearly three days later, after fasting like a Falun Gong leader and letting some 19,000 or so calories take a trip through my intestines, I felt much better.
    And I had learned a valuable lesson. Bodybuilding was stupid. And, in hindsight, not exactly a path to calmness. I was tightly wound to begin with; now I was tightly wound with a collection of interminably contracted muscles. Besides, it was time-consuming, expensive and destructive to the mind, skin and internal organs. The pinnacle of pointless self-absorption.
    On the other hand, the Mr. Southern Connecticut competition was coming up in April.
    And the more trophies I won, the more likely the Nazis would skip over our house and head for the Scheinermanns next door. Now they were skinny.
    2Bigarexia is ostensibly the opposite of anorexia, the latter of which my friend Josh, who knows every doctor in town, has but won’t admit.

5
Swallowing
    The one thing Jews and bodybuilders have in common: we love our food. So when I got that knock on my dorm door, just two months after starting my freshman year of college, I wasn’t surprised. Bobby Zellers was looking for someone to represent our floor in the Häagen-Dazs ice cream eating contest at the student center. His first stop was my room.
    Although I was by no means a large person, when it came to food I was an absolute animal. And it wasn’t just prepping for bodybuilding competitions that made me a savage. I was one way before I ever touched a barbell. Because of my mother’s illness, all of my adolescent meals were initiated by the following conversation.
    â€œWhat do you want tonight? McDonald’s, Arby’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken?”
    â€œMcDonald’s.”
    â€œTwo Big Macs, large fries and a strawberry shake?”
    â€œYeah. Thanks, Dad.”
    Not only did my father have to continue teaching first grade and take care of four children and my mother, he was also a full-time waiter.
    The