chapter 4: diet tips

Amber woke up the next day feeling exhausted. She had trouble sleeping thanks to her debacle at Dairy King. To make matters worse, she was starving. It was a terrible feeling. She was so hungry, but she knew she shouldn’t. There was nothing in her apartment anyway; she spent the last month and a half eating nothing but Dairy King.

While laying in bed, Amber scoured the web looking up any and all dieting tips. There were a ton of ‘get thin quick’ ads that she looked into, but she knew they were ridiculous. It’d take some time to lose all the weight she put on. She never exercised before; neither did she ever need to diet. This was all new to her. She hated it.

She spent most of the day doing random exercises, trying to drink as much water as she could to try and feel full. That did nothing to help her, as she still felt like she was starving. She looked at her list of exercises she found, and realized she hadn’t tried running yet. She put on some extra stretchy leggings, one of her large shirts she’d wear to bed, and went out for a run.

Amber was never very active, but she wasn’t unfit either. She definitely felt the extra weight, but she still felt as though she could run long enough. She ran around for quite awhile before she started to feel tired. There was one last corner in her route to head home. She kept up a good pace until she rounded it to see Dairy King in the way of her getting home.

Her stomach growled. All of a sudden, she felt how starving she was. She looked at her phone and saw that it was nearly 6pm, and she had gone all day without eating. The more she thought about it, the hungrier she felt. She needed something to eat. She spent all day dieting and exercising. She’d have to go shopping if she wanted to make something healthy, and it’d take forever to make anything after doing so. She attempted to jog the rest of the way to Dairy King.

Amber opened the door, huffing and puffing slightly, and went to the front counter. Jeremy was at the window; they had a slightly different schedule. He noticed her and gave her a look up and down before talking.

“Hey. Not used to seeing you in regular clothes.”

“Yea, just got done with a run and wanted to get some food.” Amber replied.

“Oh, Amber?” Amber heard Sarah in the back. Sarah popped up to the front counter. “Hey! You forgot your uniform if you’re wanting to work!” She giggled. She seemed to be in a much better mood than she was the day before.

“Not today! Actually, I just wanted to order something for dinner.” Amber smiled.

“Well, what can I get for you?”

Amber never looked at the front counters menu before. She could feel herself starting to salivate and stopped herself. All she did was eat whatever was being made. The thought of that made her realize how she had gained weight so fast.

“I’m not really sure actually!” Amber admitted.

“Well, I know you always have a shake, so I’ll get you that, and we just had someone order and drive off. You can have that for free! He probably forgot his wallet or something, and we can’t just reserve it for customers.” Sarah said.

“That sounds great!”

Sarah ran into the kitchen real quick to make Amber a shake, then grabbed the bag filled with the food the man had left behind. She came back to the counter, and dropped a large bag of food in front of her.

“That’s… THAT’S A LOT!” Amber said stunned.

“Yea, but I figure you can either throw out what you can’t eat or save the rest for tomorrow.”

Amber took the bag without a second thought. That all made sense to her! She was entirely too hungry to try and fight it either.

“Thanks!” Amber said. “Oh, and I know you're my manager, but would you mind me adding you on facebook?” Sarah had a big smile run across her face.

“Of course! I don’t mind at all!”

Amber thanked Sarah one more time and headed out the door. She was already slurping on her milkshake and fiddling in her goodie bag for food. She was so happy! There were 4 cheeseburgers, a 5 piece tender, and 2 large fries in the bag. It was a lot of food, but she’d have something to eat when she woke up in the morning at least.

She munched away on the bag all the way up until she was in her apartment. She felt pretty good about her run and all the exercise she did earlier. She was also able to finally sit down after seemingly being on her legs all day. She sat at her kitchen table and took out all the food she had.

“Hmm?”

There were two burgers left. Two burgers. Two burgers?! Maybe she counted wrong earlier? She didn’t eat Two burgers, 5 tenders and all those fries in that amount of time, did she?! She did take a longer time getting home, she thought. Amber had scarfed down all that food before even getting into her apartment. She felt a wave of embarrassment hit her, feeling more embarrassed when she realized she was still a little hungry.

“I guess this is what happens when you work out all day.” She thought. She had read earlier that some people get hungry after working out, and accredited it to that. Maybe she was just building muscle? She wasn’t sure, but she did know that she was still hungry.

She finished both of the remaining burgers, feeling more stuffed than she had ever felt in her life. In that moment, Amber had her very first food coma.