onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Life”

28 Jan 2024

Feels like a shame but probably isn’t

I am almost a full month into my “Peaceful Purposeful Joyful Creation” journey and I am still learning and shaky. But also still plugging along. 

One of the things that I had to learn early in getting my eating under control was time assessment and management. Because shopping and chopping and cooking and packing and eating took time. And I had to actually know how much time I needed. I had to learn to be practical about practical things.

And I got pretty good at that. Certainly good enough that I figured out my priorities and how to implement them in my life.

There is a saying that I think about a lot. “You can talk about priorities all you like, but your schedule doesn’t lie.”

And my schedule clearly says self-care is a priority. I take care of myself with my eating boundaries, my workout and sleep and meditation schedules, my skin and hair care. 

But all of this scheduling and routine maintenance has made a nice tidy place for my head to go chaotic. Rush through step 1 to get to step 2 while simultaneously preparing for steps 3-8 in my mind. My brain is full. No room for anything but the rest of my planned out time.

On the outside I look calm and confident. I know this because people say it all the time. “You have such a peaceful presence. You always seem so together.” Inside I am panting and panicking and focusing on perfection.

This past few weeks of trusting that my life will work out even if I don’t run around like a crazy lady is…frankly hard. There is a level of superstitious thinking to the way I live that stems from my childhood thinking. That the “magic” is in not stopping, not looking, not hesitating. Not giving life, or bad luck, or karma, or the devil or WHATEVER, a chance to get me.

But the thing is that I already know that the real magic is in slowing down. It’s in the stillness. It’s in the trusting. It’s in the space between thoughts.

Because ultimately that is what my brain chaos is. It’s me not having to trust. It’s me not having to look too closely at my dreams and my wishes and what I really want for my life. It’s me not having to expect that things will work out for the best for me in the end. So I can use that time and space to go into survival mode and “prepare for any eventuality,” instead of being excited, interested, involved, curious.

I guess what I am coming to recognize is that all of that mental busywork is a way for me to burn off my creative energy without having to create anything. 

And that sucks. I hate that! I’m annoyed at myself. I’m frustrated that I have taken so long to get here. I am impatient to grow faster and be better now!

But I am reminded, yet again, that these big changes come a little at a time. I do not currently have the capacity to bridge the gap between what I am and what I want to be. And the only way to get there is to continue. At life’s pace. Not mine.

Which feels like a real shame but probably isn’t.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Jan 2024

Fight, Flight, Tears, and a Time Out

I think a lot about change and changeability. About how I actually have tools to change my life now. And how slowly and strangely information is dispensed to me. By Life. By the Universe. By my own ability to comprehend and implement it.

The other day my husband and I got into an argument. He said a true thing about me rather angrily and it made me cry. Which upset him. It is difficult for him to see my crying. It is awful for him to feel like he “made me cry.”

I cry a lot. I always have. But I have come to understand in the past year or so that it’s the way a body, my body, reregulates after I have gone into “fight or flight mode.” Which I do. Kind of a lot. (Way less since I got my eating under control, but still a lot.)

Growing up, I cried, and everyone told me it was me being overly sensitive. And me being emotional. And me being some sort of way. So I fit myself into the narrative. I could find the emotions there in the crying. The shame. The hurt. The anger. The fear. The indignation.

Plus I had a whole world of stories and books and all manner of art depicting overly sensitive weepy girls unable to manage their emotions. Hysterical women! I didn’t have to look far to reinforce the idea that my tears were because I was too emotional and the emotions were shameful ones, if only for their inconvenience to others.

But this time I didn’t need to look for an emotion. Not because I knew what it was, but because in that moment I knew it didn’t matter. I was having a biological reaction. I could assign an emotion to it later if I wanted. (And I did. I was embarrassed that I had been called out. It sent me into a panic.) But in that moment, I just wanted to calm back down. I told him I was just in fight or flight and I just needed a minute. I excused myself and got myself together.

Having my eating under control, not eating foods that make me feel drugged, knowing what and how much I am going to eat every day, have all contributed to lifting my food obsession. And not being obsessed with food means lots of time and room and energy to think about other things, and plenty of time to work on myself. 

When I learn something like this now, I remember that I couldn’t have known it before. That some things can only be understood because they are a culmination of knowledge and experience. 

As my mentor likes to remind me: More will be revealed.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
14 Jan 2024
2 Comments

Building my peace muscle

One of the things about getting my eating under control is that I don’t have a lot of room to *not* grow. And this year I just sort of decided that peaceful, purposeful, joyful creation is the “theme” of my year. And apparently now I am committed.

Already I feel like I have had so much purposeful and joyful creation!

But I also committed to being peaceful. And boy when I tell you I was not expecting Peace to go so hard!

I am a mentor to people who don’t eat sugar. And I have a lot of advice to give. (Solicited only! I do not believe in unsolicited advice.) And one thing I understand is that to be a good mentor, you have to be willing to take your own advice.

And ain’t that a bitch sometimes.

So when my mentees would come to me and need practical advice about how to stop thinking about food, (or eventually their ex husband, the test results for their biopsy, their kid’s relationship with the other parent that they have no control over) I would tell them to “change the channel.” To make an active and concerted effort to think a new thought. Put oneself in a new frame of mind and body.

So what I decided for myself in practical/actionable terms was to be deliberate in all things. To make choices and take actions from a calm place of Trust. To commit without fear, without second guessing, without looking back. And that means everything from writing my morning journal to showering to making food to crocheting to driving to the grocery store to putting my wallet in my purse.

For now that means slowing down to do a lot of things. But I know that purposeful and exact doesn’t have to mean slow. The internet is filled with artists and artisans who are methodical and precise with incredible speed. I am a craftsperson. I can simultaneously be quite fast and precise.

But those first few days this week of “being deliberate” were terrifying. Because I realized that my default is mind chaos. My default is waking and thinking in circles (literally, though I do sometimes dance, not in circles.) And I had to “change the channel” so many times I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me. (Oh, this thought is an old friend from when I hated myself for being fat and thinking it meant I was “fundamentally broken.”)

I would realize how amped up I was. I would calm down body and mind. And within seconds I would realize again. And do it again. And then again too quickly.

I thought about giving up. Which is not a thing I think very often anymore. 

But I trusted that almost everything can be built like a muscle. Or at least I acted like I trusted.

Just like when I got my fancy new mini stepper and I had to put my whole foot on each pedal, until I built the core muscle to balance on my toes. There was no way to start on my toes. And if I had given up, I still wouldn’t be able to do it. But I can.

So I just keep plugging along. Changing the channel. Going to that peaceful place over and over again. Building my Peace muscle. And already it is stronger.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
07 Jan 2024

Pretty sure my dreams are in the stillness

Over the past few years I have noticed that my New Year’s Day has set the tone for my coming year, though not intentionally. Which made me decide to be intentional about it this year. 

I chose to have an intentional day of joyful peaceful productive making, including crochet projects, comedy bits and improv jokes and snippets of singing on social media, and a delicious dinner to enjoy with my husband. 

And I noticed something in my intentionality to be peaceful; even when I am not upset, when I have plenty of time, when all is well, I am amped up to go go go. I am never really peaceful about being and doing enough. 

I want to crochet that row quickly and efficiently to get to the next step. I want to get the wording perfect but still get that quip out quickly in case someone else makes a similar joke! I want to salt and pepper the steaks quickly and efficiently to get them in the sous vide. So I can quickly and efficiently get to cooking the vegetables!

And I don’t just mean physically, though physically too. I am rushing in my mind. RUSHING ALL THE TIME!!!!

And I want to change that for myself. Because I know intuitively that the gifts of abundance, the life beyond even this life beyond my wildest dreams, are in the stillness. I know it. And I fear it. But perhaps I could notice because I am actually ready to be still anyway. Even if fear of success has always been on my list, just as much as fear of failure.

It occurs to me that that is why I spend so much time rushing. So I don’t have any space between thoughts of perfection in the now. I be careful what I think I can have. I be careful what I think I am worth. I be careful what I wish for. Or I don’t wish at all.

Because getting what I wish for means work. It means being great. It means trying and failing to be great and then being embarrassed about it. It means stretching and struggling. It means pain. 

If I ate over it instead, there would be no pain. 

But I don’t eat over things now. I don’t put sugar in my body to drug myself. And I have the benefit of 18 years of work, and trying and failing to be great and being embarrassed about it, and stretching and struggling and pain. And I know first hand that there is magic in the trying.

(Oh HEY! On January 2, I celebrated 18 years of having my eating under control! Yay!)

Now, when I notice my brain rushing, and telling me to go go go, I purposely slow down. I make every thought and movement deliberate and smooth. I trust that it will work out just fine. And so far it has. And has also brought me more peace daily.

My time on this planet has been a long slow lesson in easing into this life. 46 years in, I may be getting the hang of it.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
31 Dec 2023

Ice Cream Week > Cheese Week

One of my favorite things on social media is that this week between Christmas and New Year’s is “Cheese Week.” Nobody knows what day it is and everyone is full of cheese.

I find this particularly hilarious. And part of why is the connotation that cheese is a guilty pleasure, a “sometimes food.” The idea is that this week all of the structures and routines are suspended and the rules are out the window. Cheese all day every day!

For me it has been ice cream week. I have eaten (my homemade, fits in my boundaries) ice cream every single day. And on a few days, I even opted to have it twice, once for lunch and once for dinner.

My husband often teases me that I have the palate of a 4 year old. He’s not entirely wrong. I am still a food addict. 

Getting my eating under control only works for me because I can do it while sometimes indulging in the foods that make my inner 4-year-old happy, while still having no sugar or drug foods and therefore zero guilt. And I am a 46-year-old grown ass woman. I can eat what I want. So I choose to eat foods that don’t make me high. But I still want foods that make me giddy!

I can see that a lot of people look at what I do and think it looks punitive. So many rules. So much restriction. No sugar. No carbohydrates. No potatoes or pasta or rice.

But what I eliminated with sugar and my “drug foods” was guilt. So I can have ice cream every day of every week of the year and not have to think twice about it. (I would quickly get annoyed watching my husband eat filet mignon and shakshu without me, so I won’t.)

I may not know the day of the week, and I may be full of ice cream, but at no point did I think these were bad things.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Dec 2023

Custom Holiday Wishes

A thing I don’t usually think about, but I am eternally grateful for when I do, is the emotional evenness of holidays for me since I got my eating under control.

I have pretty basic expectations. And I am only interested in connecting to the people around me. I don’t care about money or presents. I don’t care about going out.

Holiday food and drinks are not on the menu for me. And after almost 18 years, it’s not a blip on my radar. I can be right next to cookies and chips and not even see them. They have not been in my body long enough that my body doesn’t even recognize them. (I do still have an addict that lives inside me, so I be vigilant, I just don’t be scared.)

I feel like the holiday season is a wintry mix SAD, regular sadness, childlike wonder, hilarity, kindness, unbelievable rudeness, unrealistic expectations, family drama, unspeakable joy, and unspeakable grief. And it’s exhausting for everyone. Even if you love it. Even if it’s you’re most magical time of year.

So I remember for myself that I am in charge of my life and time and money.

The truth is, I am a great gift giver, because I love people, I love getting to know them, and I love showing them how clever I am. But I don’t have that in me for the number of people who are in our families. So it’s gift cards. And the gift of me paying unwavering attention to you when I get to bask in your presence. And not a single bad feeling about it.

Merry Christmas to you all. May you have exactly the holiday that suits your needs.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
17 Dec 2023

Living the life I am in

My dad and stepmom are coming over for lunch today and I have to clean. If you had thoughts about how maybe it’s late for that. Well I did too. 

I have a whole arsenal of ideas that could send me into various spirals. I have a history of fleeing. Of freezing. Of shutting down. And they live in a murky soup of fear of failure, fear of success, procrastination, perfectionism, self-aggrandizement, and self loathing.

Basically, I am an addict.

Getting my sugar addiction under control taught me how to do “enough” without having to go go go at an 11 all the time. I learned that the reason so much in my life did not get done, was because I lived like I had to go big or go home. So I just went home, put on some pajamas and ate.

Now there is no cake, even at home. So I am going to clean my house. Not like a crazy person. But like a person who knows how to live the life she is in, not the life she thought she was supposed to lead.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
10 Dec 2023

Not another quit in me

Today I am going to write about quitting. It has come up twice this week, once just this morning, so I guess I will take that as a sign. 

There is a very big practical difference between quitting, and having quit. It is harder to quit than it is to stay quit. And I am pretty sure I do not have another quit in me. Not for sugar. Not for cigarettes. Because both of them sucked so bad.

17 years and 11 months ago, I quit manmade sugars, starches and almost all grains, along with some foods so naturally high in sugar that they kick off sugar cravings. I think it’s worth noting that all of the natural foods I avoid (potatoes, grapes, corn) are all easily made into alcohol. My body is a still.

It took a full year for me to start digesting food properly after I quit sugar and carbohydrates. When I was in the food, everything I ate was so processed that my body didn’t even know how to break down whole foods. And then another 6 months on top of that to come out of the food fog I had been in for the majority of my life.

For that year and a half I wore fuzzy pajama pants everywhere because I could not handle anything rough or restricting on my skin. I was afraid of binging so I would go to the Manhattan flagship Barnes and Noble (in said pajama pants) and stay and read until it closed at midnight, and then take my time getting home so I wouldn’t eat in the night. I watched the same 3 DVD anime (Fushigi Yuugi) on a loop just to obsess over something that wasn’t food.

When I quit smoking cigarettes I got a side effect that affects about 3% of people who quit smoking. The top layer of skin in my mouth started to loosen and peel off. I had open sores all over my gums from having basically smoked the inside of my mouth like a salmon for 20 years. I had already been off sugar for over 6 years but I started gaining weight uncontrollably. And I mean uncontrollably. My food got cut. I was eating quantifiably less food and fewer calories and I was gaining weight. I felt crazy. I was miserable. And it is only over 11 years later, at 46, even after years of working out 5 days a week and keeping my eating boundaries, that I am *almost* the same size I was at 34.

If I had known how these things would look, and feel, and work out, I would NEVER have done them. Were they worth it? Ten thousand and a half percent! But I am afraid of exactly those things I had to get through. Pain. Weight gain. Feeling out of control. Sickness. Lethargy.

I don’t know how, knowing what I do, that I could ever choose it again.

Maybe I am not being fair to my very powerful and committed self. Because I have certainly learned to lean into choosing the practices of delayed gratification for the purpose of long term contentment. But I still think it’s asking a lot of the girl who went through all of that to do it again. And for what? A smoke at a party? A bite of cake?

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
03 Dec 2023

Retroactive love

Someone posted on social media the other day that they used to think they had a high pain tolerance, but then they realized they are just excellent at disassociating from their body.

That is how I got through a lot of the physical pain of being fat. And for me personally there was a lot of physical pain that came with my fatness. Foot pain. Back pain. Period pain.

Well right now, perimenopause is kicking my ass. I am not disassociated from my body anymore and my periods are as bad as they were when I was eating sugar compulsively. I have been in pain for the last few days. And none of the pain medication I have taken has worked well or for any prolonged amount of time. And I am reminded of what a gift it is to live the majority of my time in an easy body. 

I am grateful to be in communication with my body. I am grateful for a relationship with my body based on gratitude and grace. But more than that, I am thankful that I don’t have to live with pain every day. Because for as much as I take care of my body with nourishing food and water and gentle loving exercise, much of that is still luck. 

I used to think of and treat my body like my own enemy. It was fat and I blamed it for being fat. It was always hungry and that was shameful, so I blamed it for the uncontrollable need to eat. It was an easy target, so I blamed it for being the easiest joke in the room. It was the problem. It was the root of all my problems.

I gave up sugar to lose weight so I could get rid of the ugly body I hated and get a new, better body I didn’t think I deserved, so other people would stop being able to target me.

But giving up sugar let me get to know this body. The old body. The same one that I hated and pushed away so it would just work like a machine, even while in pain. I wanted to shame it into perfection, and instead I learned to like it and love it and be grateful for all of the ways it took care of me while I was hating it. To love it for being me. To love it retroactively, all of my iterations and presentations.

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
26 Nov 2023

Available for the cascade

Years ago on (I think) the public radio show RadioLab there was an episode where they talked about the way kids start to understand numbers in a more complex way; and learn to differentiate quantity beyond 1 and more than one. And they said that a kid experiences a leap of faith moment and then a cascade. I was probably 30 ish when I heard this. I would have had my eating under control for a few years. I didn’t really get it at the time.

Years later, as I was trying to improve my crochet skills, my husband bought me a book of symbol patterns for crochet. And I had one of those moments. I don’t know if I thought of it as a leap of faith, but I definitely had the experience of a cascade of all of these pieces tumbling into place, and then suddenly I had a brand new frame of reference for the world. This has happened to me over and over again since having my eating under control. As a writer, as a knitter, as a designer, as a person who wants to learn to do things.

I often think that I should be “farther along” in my life purpose, I mean, 46 is no spring chicken, and that if I were good enough or smart enough or whatever enough, that I would be.

But I keep being reminded lately that innovation is built on past innovations. That knowledge requires a basis of previous knowledge. And why would that be any different for my life?

I couldn’t learn much when I was eating compulsively. Maybe because I was too high. Maybe because I was too busy eating. Maybe because I didn’t have a lot of capacity for faith or leaping. But now that I have boundaries around my eating and I am able to keep moving forward, I am available for the cascade.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →