onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the month “October, 2025”

26 Oct 2025

Being just to be with another being

One thing I have noticed since getting my kitten, Harlow, is that she pulls me back to the present all the time. Which alerts me to the fact that I am not in the present a lot of the time. 

There are some things that I have learned over the past 19+ years of having my eating under control that go against the modern conventional wisdom. Like that I should be eating to live not living to eat. If a food program is going to be sustainable for me, I am going to have to be obsessed with the food. Or that the goal in life is to be present all the time. I am an artist and a creative. I do my best work in my fantasy world. Literally. 

But there is something that I don’t get in my daydream world. And that is peace. And Harlow brings me peace. A new kind of peace that I don’t have a lot of experience with. Being just to be with another being. 

Sometimes it is too much peace. I have literally never in my life slept so much in the day by accident. And I am not a good napper. I just wake up tired and disoriented and then have to make dinner…

Don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of worries and anxiety about her. Doing accidental harm is my biggest personal fear. But the relationship is easy. And being in the moment with her is easy. And that brings me a lot of peace in my everyday.

The other thing I have to remind myself of is that she has been so easy that I expect her to be easy about everything. And that makes me nervous to do things she won’t like. But we are both still capable. For example, she hasn’t  taken to harness training the way she has to all of the other things, like car rides and exploring 2 houses. And I have to actually do the work like I would have to with a cat with a difficult personality. 

And honestly. The worst she does is give me the side eye! She doesn’t even cry! So I am just that spoiled! 

I have lived my life for myself. And I have zero shame or regrets. It kept me from taking on responsibilities I didn’t want. It means I have a life I love that I chose for myself. But there is something special that I have never had before BECAUSE I didn’t want responsibility for another life. That I am now so grateful to have. 

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19 Oct 2025

Getting over any it

Before I got my eating under control in my late 20s, it always felt like nothing would ever change. All of the bad things seemed to stick around. All of my problems seemed linked to my “being.” When people said this too shall pass, I often felt like no. Not *this*! This is set in stone. 

And there is a saying. What you resist persists. Which I believe. Resistance is an acknowledgment of something. Acknowledgment is a form of power. And of course a big part of the persistence is perspective. There only ever seemed like one, impossible way to solve any problem. 

By quitting simple sugar and carbohydrates I changed myself. First I changed my perspective on what I was capable of. Like the ability to not eat compulsively. The ability to keep my word and my commitments. And then, slowly but surely I became a person I had once believed I was not and could not be. 

I believed I was not meant to be one of those people who watches what they eat and works out. I was terrified and traumatized by doctors, so I never sought medical help if I could at all avoid it. I had a lot of excuses that felt REAL! They felt true. And I had so much evidence. 

And then after choosing to get control of my eating I became a person who takes care of herself. After the food, moderating my caffeine lead to getting better sleep. I became a person who wanted to use her body. Working out lead to loving my body at any size. Going to the doctor lead to learning I have exercise induced asthma, and making my workouts actually easy and enjoyable. And getting an antidepressant that changed my entire outlook on life. 

I don’t usually think about it this way but I needed to get over some idea about myself. Or the world. Or myself in the world. 

It is only after getting my eating under control that I had the mental and emotional space to deal with all of the fears and worries I was living with. At 48, troubles I had at 25 that I could not imagine a solution to, aren’t even a blip on my radar. Fears for my future that used to paralyze me are gone, non-issues. I am the most content I have ever been with myself and my life. 

I just had to get over it first. Any it.

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12 Oct 2025

Tips on how to eat more

I’m hungry and tired lately. Maybe it’s the change of seasons. Maybe it’s the switch from over a pound of melon every morning for breakfast to a big (14 ish oz) apple, that is delicious, but does not weigh over a pound. Or maybe it’s spending my days with a not quite 4 month old kitten. But I’m rarely fully rested and satisfied lately. 

I like to feel stuffed. I like to feel a little overfull. I prefer that to any kind of hunger. And once that was a source of deep shame because I was fat I was supposed to eat less. I was not allowed to feel satisfied!

And of course, nobody was really allowed to. There was a new strategy to eat less in each women’s magazine, every single month.

Drink water instead of eating because you might just be thirsty! Ask for lemon in the water and suck on a lemon wedge. Only ever eat 3/4 of what is on your plate. Drink a full glass of water before you eat so you are already a little full. Eat slowly and then wait for 20 minutes to see if you are still hungry. Use a smaller plate to trick your brain into thinking there is more food. 

All of these are things normal women did and do on a regular basis to eat less. Just so that they could take up less space in the world.

I don’t have a “done” button. It’s a part of my addiction. I don’t know when I have had enough. I could literally eat a whole other meal after every single meal. Even after 19+ years of having my eating under control. I’m telling you sometimes I eat POUNDS OF FOOD, and *could* literally do the whole thing again. Which is why I have a food program to this day. 

But I do have the capacity to feel happily stuffed and I love that I no longer feel beholden to the idea that I should always eat less if I can. I eat more. I eat the biggest and the best. I eat to be satisfied. And to not be satisfied is the exception and not the rule.

I always wanted to eat more and I was ashamed of it. Now I am unashamedly joyful to eat the biggest fruit. The fattiest protein. The yogurt with 10% milk fat. The most filling and satisfying meal I can think of with no drug foods in it.

Getting my eating under control meant guilt free eating. And more importantly, guilt free satisfaction. 

I know this too shall pass. I bet if I go back through my blogs there is a lot of “hunger” in the months I switch from melons to apples. But forgetting stuff like that is also part of my addiction.

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05 Oct 2025

A particularly freeing choice

Last week we went to the house we own in the Chicago suburbs, and while I was there I dropped off most of my summer clothes picked up some fall clothes. 

And I noticed a few things. That some clothes still technically fit but were unflattering because I bought them for the me with a smaller butt. And that the clothes that I do have and still wear are a huge range of sizes. Size 8 pants. Size 14 pants. Size medium pants.  Size Large pants. Size XL pants. 

The thing is clothing companies clearly *want* us to have a reaction to sizes. And different people have different reactions. Some women want to see a smaller number so some companies size everything bigger. Some companies size everything smaller. In fact some women shop at places that don’t carry more than a few small sizes because they want the exclusivity of fitting into a limited skinny size range. 

Sizes are not actually helpful because they are not standardized. They are a kind of psychological warfare. Because thinness is considered a virtue in the Western world, and women are expected to strive for it. And I spent most of my life trying to strive for it and failing. Or striving and then failing.

About 3 years ago I started doing exercises to build my butt muscles. And I have entirely changed the shape of my lower body. And that was the first time in my life that the goal was “bigger.” Previously, the goal had only ever been smaller. 

The goal of bigger meant that the number/letters on the clothing tags had less impact. The truth is my size did go down at first as I lost fat and built muscle. But when they started to go back up I was happy, not freaked out. When what was filling out the pants was butt and not belly, I had the experience of loving bigger! I had the option of thinking about drape and fit with bigger sizes because I was not obsessed with the smallest possible numbers!

I quit smoking cigarettes about 13 years ago, and I gained weight uncontrollably. Even though I was still weighing and measuring all of my food. And it was making me crazy so I stopped weighing my body. The number on the scale would mess with my head. It didn’t matter if I thought I looked great in the mirror. 

Because there are numbers that are good and numbers that are bad. Numbers we should be. Single digit sizes. S M L. And numbers we should not be. Anything with Xs on the tag. Double digits. And we, as girls, learn this. From our family members, from our peers, from random ass women on the street making their judgements known.

I guarantee every girl and woman has a number she should be and a number she is. And almost all of the time, the number she should be is smaller than the number she is. 

And the goalposts move.

I didn’t even know how much this impacted me until it stopped happening to me. I did sort of know. You can’t not know growing up a woman in the U.S. But I had no idea how deep rooted it was until it changed in my head. Because I chose muscle. I didn’t even know I was choosing muscle over skinny when it started. I was just enjoying having a butt for the first time in my life as a grown woman! 

But it turned out I was making a choice. And it was a particularly freeing one. 

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