onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the month “January, 2026”

25 Jan 2026

Limits to Time and Momentum

I don’t eat compulsively, no matter what. No Matter What is a popular slogan with the people in my life who have boundaries around food. I eat my portion controlled food, three times a day, I abstain from simple sugars and carbohydrates at all times because they are drugs in my body. And I do it No Matter What. 

The United States is a terrifying place right now. I am afraid all the time. I am a person who has a lot of anxiety naturally. And right now it’s through the roof. 

I am worried about myself, about my family, about my friends, and the state of the country and the world. 

But I don’t eat outside my boundaries. No. Matter. What.

I have 20 years of doing this. Back to back, we call it. For 20 years I have done it every day all the time. And because of that I don’t think about food as a drug very often. 

But lately I have. Just little thoughts that are so fleeting. “I wish I could have another piece of bacon before I put the extra away.” Or recently “I wonder what would happen if I took 2 of my SSRIs today?” (Wow! Where did that come from???)

I don’t. I don’t act on these thoughts because I have 20 years of momentum keeping me doing what I do. And 20 years of going to meetings and talking to other food addicts. BUT! Momentum has its limits. 

So I also know that if I didn’t pay attention to the addict in me sneaking around, if I didn’t say it out loud, I could slide back. Yes. Even after 2 decades. So I am saying that I am having thoughts that say, “hey, I don’t want to have these feelings. There are ways we could not feel them. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.” And I am choosing to not do those things. I am choosing to keep my eating boundaries, and to take my medication as prescribed. 

Yes these are barely blips now. But I learned years ago not to get complacent. To play it out in my head anyway. Because when I really play it out to the end, it doesn’t make sense. 

My addiction didn’t go away. And neither did my compulsion to binge eat. I know because I can eat an entire huge meal and still be sad at the end and wistful for more. Did I mention 20 years? And a little piece of bacon, which, by the way, is not a drug food for me, is NOT going to do anything to make me feel better, but it is going to be me undermining 20 years of self esteem built by not eating compulsively.

Because it’s not about the bacon. It’s about the chink in my armor against my addict brain. 

The last thing I will say is, I only have a shot at doing the things that will make me proud and help me sleep at night, when I keep my eating under control. I learned how put boundaries around my eating by learning that the best way to get through a difficult personal time is to stop worrying about your own uncertain future and be of service to others right now.

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18 Jan 2026

An eat real food pyramid?

There is a new food pyramid. And…I…like it?!

There is seemingly only one hard division, making only two separate groups. The really big one with meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables and fats. And a small one with whole grains. And the directive to eat real food and limit ultra processed foods.

I say it all the time: I am not the food police. But I also have 28 years of experience in eating sugar and ultra processed foods nearly exclusively. And 20 years of eating mostly real food and not eating my drug foods. And I can tell you that everything about my life is different than it was before I got my eating under control. And part of it is *what* I was eating. 

My body, my mind, my hormones, my skin, my emotions, my cognitive functions, literally everything works better when I eat real food. That I also abstain from sugar and simple carbohydrates I’m sure helps.

Look, I DO still eat processed foods. Dehydrated cheese and pork rinds are indeed processed. Not like, say, pizza rolls and pop tarts, but still processed. There is propylene glycol in the chocolate flavor that I put in my ice cream. I sometimes wonder if I am single-handedly keeping sweet-n-low in business…

But most of my food is food. Butter and olive oil and green beans and gorgeous steaks and full fat Greek yogurt and so much bacon! 

I like that we as a culture are moving away from carbohydrates. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with them. But because the food industry in the US and the average American diet abuses them. Sugar and carbohydrates are the primary ingredients in our ultra processed diet. Always making ALL food sweeter. Not just sweets. To get us hooked enough to eat more than we want and much more than we need. People from other countries think our regular grocery store bread tastes like cake. I have seen sugar in frozen fish! I have had to stop buying so many products over the years because the formula changed to include sugar, starch, or alcohol in the first 4 ingredients. To this day I still read labels in case some sugar or starch got snuck in.

I know that not everyone is going to be addicted to sugar. Just like not everyone is going to be an alcoholic. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hurting everyone’s bodies and brains when they use it. 

I know that “fed is best” for all people, not just babies. I know that there are a million and one reasons, political, social, and personal, why someone may only eat processed foods. I am not the food police!

But I hope this change on a bigger scale can help change the ideas of people now, and find more young parents, more kids growing up now, and maybe make a difference for their kids in the future. And maybe that’s a kid who doesn’t end up an addict.

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11 Jan 2026

A 20 year wish come true

I had my photo shoot for that magazine this week and one thing it reminded me of is how comfortable I am in my body. Just really IN it, as opposed to trying to see what others see and judge as I think they are judging. Which was my experience the first 28 years of my life.

The photographer sent me a pic for myself to keep that will not be used in the magazine, and you can see the outline of my belly in my clothes. Not my favorite, but not emotionally devastating.

But when I was posing, I was not thinking about my belly. Or my chins. Or my arms. I was not thinking about anything but following directions. Or maybe that I am pretty. And when it was done I sent that picture with the belly to a couple of people. Because I did not feel the need to hide it or hate it. (Ok I didn’t and wouldn’t send it to everyone…a girl still needs to know her audience and hold her boundaries.) But I did not hate my body for having a belly. And that is a miracle. 

When I got my eating under control, I had been volunteering in a self help seminar, and the leader asked me what I wanted to get out of the seminar. And I said “for my body to stop being an issue.” And literally 20 years later I live every day in a body that is not an issue.

The problem when I was eating compulsively was that I made my body my enemy for a long time. I didn’t give it what it needed and I expected it to give me what I wanted. And instead it gave me what I needed. And I was ungrateful. 

Food saved me when I needed it. I could not manage my feelings and emotions as a small child. I really thought they might kill me. That is not an exaggeration. I was terrified of not being capable of living with so much pain. And food got me through. Right up until it started to kill me. 

Now I give my body what it needs. Not as an ultimatum. Not like training an animal. Like nurturing a plant. Water and light. Exercise for strength and mobility. Good food for both energy and pleasure. Rest. Learning.

No where in there is anything about my weight. I am perfectly comfortable in this body. Happy to make it bigger with muscles. Not worried about making it bigger with fat. 

So I am grateful to have the shoot over and done. It was more thinking about my body than I like. But I am even more grateful that I got to experience myself just being, even when the focus *was* on my body.

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
04 Jan 2026

Patience is an ingredient

I was reading a multi-post social media thread about how to make the best banana bread, which is unusual for me. I don’t generally read posts about food. As a conscious  choice. 

But I was reading this one for whatever reason. And right there a few posts down were the words “patience is an ingredient.” And then I stopped reading. Because that was what I was there for. 

Not the process of how to make banana bread. The reminder that time does not move at my whim, that things worth doing are often done by process over long periods, that time takes time. 

These are all part of my personal “spiral staircase.” The lessons I am here on Earth to learn. That I keep coming around to but at a new level and with a new perspective, and a new understanding. But keep coming back to nonetheless.

I was a precocious child. Very clever. Quick on the uptake. And I expected to be a prodigy. I was not. 

And I likewise expected Life to come easily to me. Again, it did not. 

I had to learn delayed gratification, and slow and steady, and bare minimum for myself in what I can only assume is the most difficult way. Withdrawal.

But what I gained was a sense of time. 

When I first started putting boundaries around my eating 20 years ago, (January 2, 2006) I would look back at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and think really??? No cheating? Not even once? And it was so hard to believe that about myself. About my own integrity. Because I was so used to being untrustworthy. Like maybe for a day, or a week, I could do something. But months? And then years???

But the rules were clear. And I couldn’t trick myself if I broke them. So YES! I could confidently say yes. And getting those months and years took months and years. 

Every day that I keep my addiction and my compulsive eating under control, I know better that I am that trustworthy. That I have been. I no longer think it’s weird that I don’t cheat. And I don’t think it’s “unlike me.”

And every day that I keep my eating under control is a day to build on my learning, my making, my art, my craft, my relationships, my communities, the things that matter to me. 

So this year I am choosing Patience Is An Ingredient as my mantra. I am going to try to remember to honor where I am in all of my many processes, and also that old wisdom:

If you pray for patience, expect to be tested. 

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