onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the month “July, 2018”

29 Jul 2018
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When rules don’t apply

I used to have a life coach who used to say (and probably still does) “If you really want to be a rebel, follow the rules. Nobody else is doing that.”

I was talking to some friends the other day and one was saying that she always thought she was so valuable that the rules didn’t apply to her. I know this feeling. Not the valuable part. Maybe I would say “precious.” Or “special.” But I was always clear that rules were for other people. They didn’t apply to me.

When people both “go on diets,” or try to change their lifestyles, they are talking about making rules around food (and often exercise.) One reason diets don’t work is people decide the rules don’t apply to them. Even when they make them up themselves.

There are always good excuses. Or sometimes pretty weak excuses. But for some of us, any excuse will do. And we play dumb. Like we don’t know how feeble our reasoning is.

I was guilty of this for a long time and on many levels. Lying to myself about whether I *could* follow my rules. Lying to others about whether I *did* follow my rules. Lying about why I gained weight, coming up with far-fetched stories. I even believed a lot of them.

Getting off of sugar and carbs was hard. It sucked. And I will tell you why I was finally able to do it.

1. I *really* got off of sugar and carbs. As in entirely. As in no cheat days, no special occasions, no eating things out of obligation. (I loved my Gram very much, but I never ate her lasagna again.) Just plain no sugar ever. And that meant no cravings. And no cravings meant I stopped feeling out of control around food. 2. My rules are so specific that I know if I am following them or not. I am either in my boundaries or out of them. There isn’t a lot of grey area in what I do. There isn’t room for doubt. And 3. Since I know exactly what I am supposed to be eating and exactly what I am eating, I could finally be honest about it.

It’s not that I was incapable of being honest before. But I had often been dishonest about what I was eating and how much. But also, I kept everything ambiguous on purpose. I wanted “freedom.” Really I wanted grey areas. I wanted wiggle room. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted, and then I wanted to blame something besides my eating for my weight. I might blame the diet. I might blame my genes. I might blame circumstances, like too many parties in a week (because how could I go to a party and not eat?) or that time of the month, or that I had a hard week and I deserved to treat myself.

Now, I love rules. I love to follow rules. I love when things are clearly spelled out and I am fully aware of what is expected of me, and what I can expect in return.

I always wanted “freedom” in my diets. But sugar was controlling my life. I was a slave to it. I had freedom to eat what I wanted. What I didn’t have was the freedom to not eat. When sugar cravings told me I was going to eat, then damn it, I was going to eat. I didn’t have a choice.

By following strict rules, I have freedom that I never had in all my years of wiggle room and grey areas. Freedom to not eat.

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22 Jul 2018

Routine and adventure

I travel with my husband for work. And I love it. I love the kind of travel we do. Long stints in a bunch of places. (So far we have done Mississippi, a couple of places in Kentucky, a couple in Texas, a couple in Indiana, and one in Tennessee.) One of the things I particularly like is it occurs like the perfect balance between routine and adventure.

I like routine. It makes the food boundaries easier. Having a home with all of the cookware I need to cook delicious meals, and getting to know the grocery stores and butcher shops, and what they have, and where to get what I need as well as what I want. And there is an indescribable peace that comes with knowing that my highest priority is always taking care of my food addiction. I know that if I do that, everything else will be well.

And I like adventure. I like seeing new places and meeting new people. I also like trying new foods, new seasonings, new flavors around the country. My husband and I are on a hot sauce kick at the moment. And it’s fun! And a mini adventure in itself. (Just reading all of the labels and ingredients lists is like an adventure within an adventure. And yes, there are a lot of hot sauces I cannot try because they have a lot of sugar.)

What I love too, is knowing that I can keep my food boundaries anywhere. Some places are less convenient than others, of course. But it is all about my commitment. And sometimes, that inability to get whatever I want at a moment’s notice gives me the opportunity to try new things in a different way.

When we were in small town Mississippi, I did not eat out at restaurants. I knew that they could not accommodate me. I made sure I had my own food all the time. But there, I figured out where to buy beautiful steaks, sugar free bacon, giant cantaloupes and apples. It’s also where a friend found me a recipe for making my own vanilla without alcohol. And I was lucky to have another friend who would bring me kabocha squash and fried tofu up from New Orleans once a month when she came to visit. I had yet another friend who introduced me to a bowl for making my own ice cream. It’s also where I was introduced to Chinese Five Spice, which I still use all the time. So obviously, in terms of food, small town Mississippi was not too bad for me. I did not miss eating out at restaurants.

I love my happy lifestyle, gently swaying from adventure to routine and back. I love the things I learn and the things I get to try. Some of them become staples, and some pass with the next move and the next town. But no matter where I end up, my food boundaries go with me. And I always make sure they are delicious.

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14 Jul 2018
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The good sense to remember I’m an addict.

In this blog I can sometimes write a lot about the periphery of my sugar addiction. I write about the ways I had to change my thinking, or my behavior. I write about how I became more confident by becoming more humble. I write about the ways my life is different because I dealt with my sugar and carbohydrate addiction. But today I want to touch on the food.

I know I have written about it before, but I think it’s worth coming back around to. Because ultimately, all of the peripheral issues I get to wax poetic about, are only available for me because my eating is taken care of. And my eating is taken care of, partially because I have strict rules about my eating behavior, as in strict portion size and 3 meals a day with nothing in between but zero calorie drinks. But mostly my eating is taken care of because I do not put sugar, grains, or starch into my body. This even goes as far as certain vegetables and fruits. I don’t eat potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cherries, grapes, or bananas. I don’t eat quinoa or brown rice.

Sometimes people balk at this. “Those foods are healthy,” they say.

I am not denying that they are nutritious foods. I am not saying that they are “bad for you.” I’m not saying *you* should not eat them. I am saying that when I put those foods into my body they create a phenomenon of craving that defies all rationality. I am saying that if I eat a sweet potato, it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to me eating an entire cake. That is not hyperbole.

Sometimes people talk about moderation. I do, in fact, practice moderation in the “unhealthy” foods I do still eat. I limit my pork rinds and my sausage. Because I *can* eat those things and limit them. I can eat my portion of sausage and be satisfied until the next time I can eat it.

But I am physically incapable of moderating my sugar intake.

Sometimes people offer me a cookie or a piece of chocolate. Sometimes they say things like “it’s just one,” or “it’s just a little.” And they are correct. It is, indeed, just one, and just a little. But even a little is too much for me and I will not be able to stop there. I will be forced by my addiction, against my will, to go out and get more, and more. It will never be enough. I cannot eat a cookie without finishing the box and then going to the store to get another box and finishing that one too. And again. And again. Forever.

This came up for me because on Twitter the topic of willpower popped up in a series of tweets I was reading. People get very judgy about willpower. Especially when it comes to food and weight. The implication is that people who cannot eat one cookie and then go about their lives are lacking some kind of basic moral foundation. That this thing called “willpower” is somehow the measure of a person’s character and worth. (Especially if that person is fat.)

I want to be the first to say that while I am willful as hell, I do not now, nor have I ever had willpower over eating sugar. When I was eating sugar, I had to eat more sugar, no matter how much I did not want to. I hated my body and wanted to change it, but I could not stop. I wanted boys to think I was pretty and did not want to be fat, and I could not stop. My family was filled with diabetics and I knew it was only a matter of time before I became one too, and I could not stop.

I have now abstained from sugar, grains and starch for over 12 years. So clearly I do have some control, but what I have is not willpower.

What I do have are 2 things: 1) A body free of the substance that causes cravings for more of the substance, and 2) A commitment to remember that one bite of sugar (or flour, or brown rice, or banana) will inevitably mean I will be thrown back into the hellish cycle of craving, eating, and by eating, perpetuating craving.

So I am grateful that I can write here about my emotional and spiritual growth. But that is only possible because my drugs, sugar and carbs, are not in my body. And I take actions every day to keep it that way. Because I don’t have willpower. I just have the good sense to remember every day that I am an addict.

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08 Jul 2018

I prefer bite-sized, individually wrapped inconveniences

It has been yet another week of “not my week.” Someone at work who is stressed is going out of their way to stress everybody else out. Including me. I’m having a hard time dealing with a group I belong to. There is a decision that has to be made that I have strong feelings about, and it remains undecided and I need to consider what I want to do about it for myself, my peace of mind, and my own integrity. And that sucks. I am a person who doesn’t remember dreams, and recently I have regularly been having nightmares. And then yesterday, we had sewage coming up from our bathtub. And after the plumber snaked the drain, one of the pipes to our water heater started leaking, soaking our carpet. So someone else came to fix the leak, and someone else came to dry the carpet because we thought the leak was fixed, but it wasn’t, so it’s leaking again and getting the carpet wet again.

Oh, and I cut myself with a knife I had just sharpened while I was making dinner.

I’m tired. I’m scared. I’m frustrated. I’m angry. I’m annoyed. I am having a lot of difficult feelings. And they are eroding my confidence. And that is a scary place for me.

In general, I walk around with a lot of confidence. I am happy with my life, with my integrity, with my honesty, with my marriage and how I interact in it, with my work and my work ethic, with my gifts, and with my resilience. I have a lot to be confident about.

And usually, difficulties come into my life in drips and drabs, in easily manageable portions. Bite-sized, individually wrapped inconveniences. Fun size, if you will. But this past 2 weeks have felt like non-stop bludgeoning. I’m unhappy.

There. I said it. I am unhappy. I’m feeling a little whiny, a little resentful. Why me? Waaah waaah waaah!

It hurts my pride a little to say it. I like being the girl who can shake stuff off. And I definitely like being *seen* as the girl who can shake it off. But really, it’s OK. It’s OK to be unhappy. It’s the truth. I don’t have to pretend to be invulnerable. I am definitely not.

I lived my whole life unhappy before I gave up sugar. I lived my whole life resentful, and scared, and angry, and sad. But then, I was the one making myself miserable with my lying, cheating, stealing and instigating drama, and I was entirely unaware of how I was responsible for my misery. Everything seemed like something done *to* me, not by me. And every circumstance and disruption seemed immovable, insurmountable, unchangable.

And I know now that very few things are immovable, and that the things that are usually have a workaround of some sort. Like I’m a sugar addict. And I believe that will never change. But I found a solution to my problem with food. I didn’t have to learn to live with being fat and obsessed. I just had to learn to live with being an addict. I had to learn to give up sugars, grains and starch. I had to learn to eat 3 meals a day in specific portions. I’m still an addict, but the things about being one that used to plague me, don’t anymore.

In some ways this is good for me. First, I am sure there is a growth experience in here somewhere. Maybe lots of them. And I am committed to growth, as a lifestyle. And second, I can sometimes equate my easy, happy life to some sort of virtue on my part. And that is not entirely misguided. I don’t lie, so I don’t deal with the consequences of having lied. I actively try to maintain a positive attitude, so a lot of my happiness is created by me. But life is not made so that only good things happen to good people. And it is not that a happy life is a reward for pleasing an old white man on a throne in the sky. Bad things do happen to good people. And apparently so do a string of uncomfortable inconveniences that cost time, money, and energy.

Oh well. Breakfast was delicious. And lunch is coming.

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01 Jul 2018

Roller coaster buddies

The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster. But seriously, that’s the good news.

First, a particularly annoying guy at work asked for documents that I have already given him, and at least 2 other people, *at least* once before. That ticks me off. I am good at my job, and I don’t like doing the same thing repeatedly because other people are not good at theirs.

And then I got a call that a particular shady landlord did a particularly shady thing, even though I was sure I had taken care of everything. And they did so in an illegal manner. (So I am pretty sure I did take care of everything, because that’s how I roll, and this person came after me out of spite.)

It’s not a big deal in terms of money. But it is a *huge* deal in terms of honor, honesty, and integrity. And now I have to decide what I want to do about it and how hard I am willing to fight. I have a lot going on. And it is work to fight for what’s right, and the financial loss is so minimal. Essentially I have to decide what my priorities are, free time or principle.

And then I found out that someone has been repeatedly lying to me for the past two weeks, about something I take incredibly seriously. And they told me in a way that made it seem like they thought it should be no big deal to me. And tried to convince me that they didn’t have to tell the other people they have been lying to. That they didn’t owe honesty in a community that is based on honesty.

But none of any of this ruined my day, and that is amazing! That is a gift! That is a miracle of having my food under control. And of having “a roller coaster buddy.”

My life was a roller coaster of ups and downs for a couple of days. But when I was eating compulsively, this would have been all down and no up. Not a roller coaster, just a long drop straight to hell.

I often write in this blog about getting high on sugar. But I also used to get high on things like anger. I use to get high on drama. There was something perversely comforting about my blood pressure going through the roof, and my pulse thundering in my ears. And all of my anger could be turned into “righteous anger” in my own head.

Now I know that I can’t afford “righteous anger.” I am not saying I swallow whatever someone else is trying to shove down my throat. I am saying that I can’t get high on it. I have to take an action. I have to be proactive. I have to calm myself. I have to keep everything in perspective. I have to enjoy the enjoyable, and take actions to right the wrongs. I have to make decisions and keep priorities straight. I have to keep loving my life.

So my first strategy was to call my best friend, who is a voice of reason for me when I lose my shit. And I am the same for her. We have a commitment to one another not to “yes” each other to indignation, but to help one another find some peace and perspective in difficult moments. So this is a plug for having “roller coaster buddies,” people in your life who will help your life be a roller coaster of ups and downs, and not a bleak, angry, downward spiral. People who won’t feed your misery and “righteous anger,” but who will feed your happiness, your integrity, your love of life.

Because you can’t escape the ups and downs, but you can have a friend who can help you enjoy the ride.

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