onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Life”

01 May 2016

Poor sugar. If only all of those fat people would push away from the table, it could stop being persecuted!

When I gave up sugar in 2006, I was single and poor. It was hard, but I managed because it was more important to me than anything else in the world. I was in the throes of bulimia and exercise bulimia. I felt crazy and angry and I did not think I would ever be able to dig myself out of the hole I had dug with food and sugar, lies and manipulation. But I wanted to. My desperation was even bigger and more powerful than the impossible.I was single. And I had the luxury of only looking out for myself. And since I didn’t eat bread, or pizza, or pasta or rice, which are cheap and easy, and since I ate mostly vegetables, I spent almost all of my money on food, and my time on shopping and cooking.

Eating a diet free of sugars, grains, and starches is expensive. Not just expensive, but exorbitant. (Ask my husband. He’ll tell you.) What I pay for a piece of fruit, which is only part of my breakfast, can often buy two cheeseburgers at a fast food place. Of course the fruit is nutritious, but it’s hardly as filling as two cheeseburgers. And it doesn’t get you high, the way fast food cheeseburgers will.

It’s interesting how framing something can shift your whole outlook. I read an article this week that said that what we call “obesity related illnesses” are really “sugar related illnesses.” There were some compelling arguments. No, I don’t know if it’s true. But it makes sense to me. And it created a change in the way I think about the subject of obesity.

It makes sense to me that what we have been doing is exonerating sugar and the food industry that adds it to everything, while we disparage the people who are victims, for being fat, shameful, and totally lacking willpower. (Don’t blame sugar. Calories are calories. If they would just push away from the table and stop shoveling food into their faces, we wouldn’t be spending so much of my taxes on medical treatment for slobs.) We treat sugar as the victim and people as the problem.

I read labels. When I shop, I almost always buy the same things. And even then, I have to read the label from time to time, because ingredients change.

And most often, they change by having some form of sugar added. Because sugar is cheap. And, if you ask me, addictive. And it’s not like they put a big splashy notice on the front, NEW FORMULA! NOW WITH EXTRA SUGAR! It’s added in secret, so to speak. So you don’t know you are eating more sugar unless you read the label. (Which I happen to do as part of my food boundaries, which have been described before as “extreme.” So because I am “extreme”, I know what is going into my body.)

I cannot tell you the number of times I had to give up a food I loved because it made financial sense to some company to add sugar. To wheat germ. To fish. To meat. To flavorings. To spices. Why would it make financial sense? Because sugar is cheap. And addictive.

So as a culture, we take foods that don’t have sugar in them, secretly add sugar to them, shame people for being obese, and complain about “obesity related illnesses” costing tax payers so much money.

Look, I am a person who climbed out of the deep hole (a kind of grave, if you will) of sugar addiction. And I did it by making some pretty serious choices about how I would spend my money and my time (like reading labels and cooking from scratch). And it was not easy but I did it. 

But what happens to poor people with kids? What happens to poor people who don’t have time to read labels and cook fresh food? What happens to people who work two jobs and don’t get enough sleep? I’m not saying it’s impossible, because I know it is not. What I am saying is that it can look impossible to the poor and tired and that is almost the same thing.

I don’t know the answer to our health problems. I believe in free will and I don’t believe in telling people what they can and cannot eat. I don’t believe that everyone has a genetic predisposition to sugar addiction (as I believe I have). But I think I am going to stop looking at obesity, a human condition, as the problem, and start looking at sugar. Humans have hearts and souls and minds. They need love and freedom and friendship. Sugar doesn’t need to be cared for and honored. And it sure as hell doesn’t need even more people defending  it. But people sure do.

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24 Apr 2016

I don’t make the rules. And I don’t pay in money.

I think one of the hardest parts of dealing with addiction, especially food addiction, is the surrender. It’s giving up your will. Before I gave up sugar, grains, and starches, I tried to deal with my food issues myself. And because of that I read all sorts of information about food and nutrition. I knew about calories. I knew about superfoods. I was up on all of the latest scientific research. 

But I only used the information that fell in line with what I wanted to eat. I loved nut butters, so I ate them whenever I could. By the jar. I hated vegetables, so I didn’t eat them. Or I ate the ones that were all starch. In fact, the fruits and vegetables I ate then were exactly the ones I don’t eat now. I especially ate sweet potatoes and bananas. Not just one, but one after the other. I was still bingeing, just not on cake. I don’t eat either of them anymore. The people who helped me get my eating under control said that those were foods we don’t eat. I could either accept that, or I could move on. I chose to accept.

There are two aspects of the way I put boundaries around my food that make it so effective for me.

1) I don’t make the rules.

2) I don’t pay in money. I pay in being part of the group. I pay in honesty.

What I do is not science. As the years go by, science gathers more and more evidence that what I do is healthy. And also that food addiction, especially sugar addiction, is real. But people have been doing what I do for decades. Before the research and the studies. There were people doing what I do way back when rice cakes and plain baked potatoes were considered the perfect diet foods. When “fat makes you fat” was the mantra of every dieting woman in the United States. I do what I do, and the people who do it with me do it, because it works. Anecdotally? Sure. But anecdotally, I have personally lost over 150 pounds. I have kept it off for 10 years. (For the most part. There was some metabolism trouble for the 3 years after I quit smoking, but even that seems to have passed now. And even when I was gaining weight, I was not binge eating, or eating sugar or carbs.)  

Part of the reason it works is because the rules are laid out. You are either within the boundaries, or you’re not. And the rules are not about weight. They are about what when and how we eat.

When I put boundaries around my food 10 years ago, I was told I could not have nut butters or avocado. I did not like that at all. I tried to bargain. After all, avocado is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. Nuts as well! And I was told that in order to keep the boundaries, I was going to eat 3 meals a day, nothing in between except zero calorie drinks. But I knew that six meals a day was optimal. In fact, a mid day snack of almonds or avocado was highly recommended by sports nutritionists. I did the research! I knew what I was talking about.

But I didn’t know what I was talking about. I knew about nutrients. I knew about recommended blood sugar levels and eating habits. But I knew precisely jack squat about how to control my own eating. I knew nothing about how to keep myself sane and healthy. 

But people who had been unable to stop eating before, and who now lived a life free of food obsession, did it by following the rules like giving up avocado and eating 3 meals a day. No, they did not save a little milk from breakfast to slip into their coffee through the day. (Yep, I asked about that as well.) They had surrendered. 

It didn’t take long for me to give up the fight either. The peace and freedom from food obsession was enough pretty quickly. Black coffee became the norm for me. Avocado? Don’t miss it at all. 

The second part, the part where what I do is free (financially speaking), is another aspect of why it works so well for me. See, if I pay for a diet, the exchange is made. I pay, I get the diet. I now “own” the diet as it pertains to me. If I don’t want to do it today, well, you can’t stop me. And I don’t have anyone to answer to. You got your money. The rest is none of your business.

But with what I do, I don’t pay in money (though I do choose to donate to my groups). I pay in honesty. I pay in showing up. I pay in doing service. I pay in keeping the boundaries around my food. 

So, someone is giving freely of their time and attention to give me a chance at a peaceful life. Not someone. But many someones. Hundreds. Making phone calls, sharing their stories, helping people make difficult decisions about food. (If you don’t know what I mean by a difficult food decision, bless you. You are probably not a compulsive eating sugar addict.)

When my life is the currency, I don’t own anything. My life is connected to all of those other lives. And if I don’t want to keep my food boundaries today…well, I have free will. I can make a decision on my own. I can have my reasons and my justifications. But I have also created a community that holds me accountable. I have to be responsible for the time and attention that has been given to me free of charge over the past 10 years. And I am either in the boundaries, or I am outside of the boundaries.

This is not about shame for people who struggle or people who leave. Addiction is a bitch. And what I do is not right for everybody. This is about surrender. This is about when you are so hopeless and desperate that you give up your will when it comes to eating because you know you are sick with food. 

I know its natural to want what we want. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to know that when it comes to food, what I want is toxic. And while I am part of the group that saved my life, what I want is also irrelevant.

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17 Apr 2016

The joy of not being a jerk

Yesterday was, as the 12-steppers say, life on life’s terms. I went to the grocery store, got about $100 worth of groceries, checked out, and tried to pay with my debit card. It didn’t go through. I tried it again. Nope. Then the checkout clerk said the bank was declining my purchase.So I asked the clerk to take care of the people behind me while I called the bank.

It turns out someone used my card information to make some purchases. The first went through. The second, for over $300 went through. And the bank shut the card down when they attempted to make purchases for $500 and $700.

The gentleman at the bank unfroze my card long enough for me to buy my groceries, and asked me to call back when I was done to have the card cancelled. 

So I did. I bought my groceries. I packed them into the trunk. I got back in the car and immediately called the bank and cancelled my card, and confirmed that the fraudulent charges were not mine. 

The lady I got that time cancelled my card, took my Kentucky address so the new one could be mailed to me here, as well as the paperwork to dispute the fraudulent charges.

Do you know what I kept thinking the whole time? I kept thinking how much I like myself, and it’s all because of having my eating under control.

What I am saying is I was gracious and grateful and kind to every person along the way. I was friendly with the clerk at the store when he told me the bank declined my card. I was friendly with the man from the bank who told me about the fraud and reactivated my card so I could pay for my food. I was friendly with the lady at the bank who helped me cancel the card and who issued me a new one. I was able to make jokes with them all. 

I was more than just nice. I was grateful. I was grateful that the bank was looking out for me and shut my card down when purchases looked suspicious. I was grateful they could unfreeze my card so I could buy my groceries. 

This is the stuff that happens to everyone. This is the stuff that is not personal. This is life. But when I was a compulsive eater, when life happened to me, I was a complete jerk. 

I was already angry at life all the time anyway. I had a lot of anger and rage. And I used any opportunity to unleash my rage. Even, or maybe especially, at people who had nothing to do with it, and were trying to help.

My first reaction to this kind of thing is fear. Fear of what I did wrong. Fear of losing. Fear of having things taken away. Fear of scarcity. 

In order to keep my eating under control, I had to learn to do certain things differently. I had to learn to cultivate gratitude. I had to learn to behave in a way so that I would not be ashamed of myself. I had to do the next right thing, one step at a time. This all comes from having my eating under control. 

When people see or hear that I have lost 150ish lbs, they think that is the accomplishment. They assume that is the ultimate reward. And while I do enjoy this body, and how it looks and how it moves and how easy it is to get around in, the parts of my life that are the most profoundly impacted by having my food addictions and eating disorders taken care of are the parts of my personality that have improved over the last 10 years. 

For me, the real gifts are all of the ways I like and love myself. For me, the real gifts are being calm and peaceful in the face of fear. The real gift is that I can look back on yesterday and not have to justify why I was a jerk. Because I wasn’t a jerk. I was a nice lady, grateful for other nice gentlemen and ladies, who helped me get a lot of unpleasant stuff taken care of. 

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09 Apr 2016
2 Comments

I go moderate so I don’t have to go home

We all have at least one person on social media who is a fitness enthusiast. And there is a culture around fitness (at least in the U.S.) that is about leveling up, so to speak. It’s about getting better, faster, stronger. It’s about pushing yourself harder and harder. Every time. It’s about never being satisfied.I believe there is a place for this. I do not have a judgment about people who do this. I think it is beautiful. I love when people have a thing. And I have known, and have respect for, many people in the fitness industry. (A fat girl trying to be a skinny girl makes a lot of those kinds of friends.) 

But I think there is a conversation that we should be having that we are not. And it’s this:

Not everyone needs to be a beast in the fitness arena. I want to be in shape. I want to have a healthy body. But I am not interested in leveling up. Because constantly leveling up as the only way to exercise is not sustainable in my life. And that doesn’t make me any less admirable than the people who are constantly pushing themselves.

For me, and I think for a lot of people, this all or nothing attitude is overwhelming. And destructive. The idea that, if you are not continuously improving, you are some how going backwards, is prevalent in our fitness culture. Which is another aspect of our beauty culture. And it keeps you buying fitness gear, personal trainer sessions and gym memberships. 

Again, I am not knocking those things. I am suggesting that maybe having a commitment to work out consistently for your own health and peace of mind, without the need to “go big or go home,” or answer questions about “if you even lift” might be worth more to you in six months or a year, or 10 years, when you are still doing it. I am suggesting that maybe if you went moderate, or even small, you wouldn’t need to go home. Because I am going to tell you a secret I learned about commitment: 

Sometimes, in order to keep a commitment long term, you have to half-ass it. 

I’m telling you, sometimes I phone it in.

I am thinking about this today, because I half-assed my run today. The truth is, it’s cold here, especially in the mornings. And the wind is brutal. Yesterday morning, there were 25 mph winds with gusts up to 30 mph. And at certain points on my path, I have to run directly into it. And it ticks me off! I actually swore out loud at the wind yesterday.

So you can imagine that this morning, when it was 37 degrees, felt like 28, with 14 mph winds, I did not want to go.

I jog a 2 mile path that runs around my house, so that at one point close to the end of my run, but NOT the end, there is a little sidewalk that shoots off basically to my door. And today, I sure did want to go right there and skip the last quarter mile or so. But I didn’t. 

What I did do was slow down. Not to a walk. I was still jogging. My commitment to myself says that I only walk if I am injured or fear I will injure myself If I continue to run. What I did was take it easy. 

Today, I added over a minute to the time I ran just Tuesday. But I don’t care. I am not angry, frustrated or ready to quit, like I would be if my run were always about leveling up. Like I would be if it weren’t OK to take it easy.

The truth is, that I am improving. Naturally. Without trying. Without pushing. Without beating myself up. I’m sure not as much as the ones who are pushing. But I’m not them. I’m me. And I am making sure I can go on to jog another day.

Now, keep your fingers crossed for me that spring comes to Kentucky soon, and Running Against The Wind can go back to just being a Bob Seger song. (Darn it! Now that song is going to be stuck in my head all day.)

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , ,
03 Apr 2016

The willingness to be willing is the beginning of change 

I used to weigh myself once a month, on the first. Only on the first. Because it was a good way to keep an eye on my weight, without the obsession of getting on the scale every day. Or multiple times a day. People with eating and body image disorders can become obsessed with the scale. I was one of them before I put boundaries around my eating. I would get on the scale constantly, looking for the secret recipe for weight loss. Was I down a pound in the last 2 hours? What had I done? Could I replicate it? 

It was insanity. I was treating it like science and wishing for it to work like magic. Needless to say, it was neither.

When I quit smoking, I gained at least 30 pounds. Almost certainly more, but I stopped weighing myself. It was devastating to me. I lived in fear of stepping on the scale. It haunted me constantly. Not just around the first, but for the whole month. I started to obsess about how I could stop the weight gain, and lose what I had gained, within days of weighing myself. It was never over.

I started to feel the same crazy I had when I was eating compulsively. I wanted something to work. Anything! I wanted some sort of magic.

So my friend who helps me make decisions about my food and my weight told me to stop weighing myself. She didn’t want me to make myself miserable. My job was to keep my food boundaries, and not focus on my weight. 

Now, it’s almost 4 years since I quit smoking. And I have lost what seems to be most of the weight I gained. I don’t know, because I haven’t gotten on a scale in 2 1/2 years. 

It makes sense for me to get back on the scale. But I’m scared. The truth is, that experience scarred me. 

I was angry at life. I was angry that I did the “right” thing by quitting smoking, and I was punished with the worst possible thing that could happen to a former fat girl. I gained weight with no relation to what I was eating or how much I was moving. It made me feel crazy and desperate. It triggered all of my body image disorders. It was hell.

But now, I think I should start weighing myself again monthly. And that means having a conversation with my friend about it. And I don’t want to. I’m worried. And it makes me feel a little nauseous. 

The truth is, what if it’s not enough? What if the number just makes me feel fat and gross? What if I hate myself all over again?

But I guess I am telling you this so I can keep moving forward. When I put it out there, I can be responsible for it. I need to out myself so I take some action. And so I don’t keep all if this fear bouncing around in my head. 

I don’t know when I will have this conversation with my friend. I don’t know when I will be ready. The point, I guess, is I’m getting ready. And it’s that, the willingness to be willing, that is the beginning of change. 

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26 Mar 2016
1 Comment

Some next-level sh…

I happen to be living the sweet life at the moment. Just Married to the love of my life. I not only have a driver’s license, but I even have a cute little car for running errands in a cute Kentucky town. There just happens to be a 2 mile path around my house for me to jog in the morning. Robins and daffodils are everywhere. And I’m writing and learning to knit socks. People used to tell me, “put boundaries around your food and your life will get better.” But that first day that I put boundaries around my food, I could never have imagined that they meant *this*. 

It took years of not putting sugar, grains or starch into my body for me to untangle myself from my false notions, bad behaviors, and manipulative ways. It took years to get free from my self-loathing. To be willing to take an honest look at myself and my character flaws and change. There was no way I could have fathomed this kind of happiness. But that is because I could not have guessed the self-love and freedom that exist in integrity. I would have wanted all of the “prizes” but I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea what it was going to take to get them. And if I had known, I would have been terrified of the work.

Work used to terrify me. Discomfort was the boogie man, it filled me with dread and panic. In the end, I had to make friends with discomfort. It was the only way to grow up. Only children expect to feel good all the time. 

I can imagine on an animal level why instant gratification is a necessity. Eat the food when it’s there. You never know where there will be more food. But when you have a car, gas, a local grocery store, and you do know there will be food, instant gratification means higher obesity rates and a rise in the number of obesity related illnesses. But I’m not just talking about food, either. I’m talking about discomfort in general. I’m talking about sacrificing a fulfilling future for a comfortable present.

I am not one of those people who looks forward to exercise. (Do those people really exist? Are they all underwear models or motivational YouTube celebrities?) What I look forward to is having done the exercise. I like being energized. I like feeling accomplished. I like the endorphins. I like feeling like I am doing some long-term planning, investing in the future. A future with less pain and better brain function. A future where I continue to love my body and care for it, and it loves me back.

And I still marvel that this body can jog for 2 miles. This body that I was sure was such a curse. This body that I was so ashamed of and disgusted by. 

But that just brings me back to my point. How could that me, the one who constantly diminished and criticized myself, ever have had a glimpse into this future? 

They told me if I put boundaries around my food, my life would get better. So I did the work. And my life got better. So I kept doing the work. Yep, I still do the work. But I have to admit, I’d do this much work for a lot less. I mean, it’s not always easy, but it’s really not that hard either. I’d do the work just to be free from my obsession with food. I’d do the work for the guilt-free eating alone. But this whole thing, the love and the peace and the joy, the “prizes”, the life beyond my wildest dreams, this is something else. This is some next-level sh*t.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , ,
19 Mar 2016
2 Comments

How you know you’ve found a keeper

When you have boundaries around your food, things that other people take for granted are off the table. Like grabbing a quick bite, going out to dinner somewhere you have never been, or sharing an entrée with your date. It can be complicated, annoying, inconvenient, and difficult. It’s worth it, but it’s not always easy or simple.

That makes it a great way to figure out who is worth your time. See, if I tell you that my food boundaries are a life and death matter for me, and you think it’s embarrassing, or ridiculous, or you simply think I am being difficult, then you are toxic to me. We can’t be close, we can’t be great friends, and we certainly can’t be partners.

This week I got married to the love of my life. I knew he was the one pretty early. I mean within days of being reunited with him after over 20 years. One of my big clues was that he asked me for a shopping list when I was flying to Texas to visit him. And he sent me a picture of a grocery cart filled with pounds and pounds of vegetables. He even found bok choi, which he had never even heard of before. Over the past 3 years, he has let me choose the restaurants, taken my eating schedule into account, and he never minds if I don’t eat with him, if I ask the server a million questions, or if other people are staring at me. 

I’m not saying it’s always easy for him. It’s not always easy for me. But it’s important to me. So it’s important to him. 

The thing about putting my food boundaries first is that my priorities become obvious. And my husband is a priority in my life. 

So pardon me, but now I need to go for my run, before I go out to dinner, with my husband, on my honeymoon. At a restaurant I picked.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , ,
13 Mar 2016

No fear of flying. Or airports.

In some ways it’s interesting what has become “normal” for me. For instance, right now, I am in an airport on my way to fly to the Florida Keys, and I am not worried about what people are thinking about me.There is something about airports, the close proximity, the hundreds of people passing by and passing through. The natural people-watching atmosphere, that always used to heighten my embarrassment of living in a big body. It made me tense and self-conscious. There was a lot of shame involved. 

Now, to be fair, I was always self-conscious and ashamed, it was just more noticeable in airports.

It seems like I have a different life now. In many ways I do. In specific moments I get glimpses of it. Like the other day, when I looked in the mirror, and knew that I never had to be fat again. It was a beautiful moment. I felt free. 

I have the luxury of feeling free every day now. Especially on a day like this, at the airport. I fly relatively regularly. It’s easy and I don’t have to stress about it. I don’t have to worry about fitting in the seat. I don’t have to think about who is looking at me and why. I don’t have to worry about what clothes will cover my butt or camouflage my belly. I wear what will be comfortable. Because I don’t care.

But that is not exactly true either. I do care, every day, about what I eat, about keeping my food boundaries, about staying away from sugar and carbohydrates. And that constant, steady caring, no matter what, allows me to not care about things like what I’m wearing, or if the person next to me will be angry that I am sitting next to them, or if I’m going to spill over into someone else’s seat. 

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I keep boundaries every day. I don’t have cheat days. I don’t make exceptions, or excuses. So a vacation to Florida doesn’t mean anything goes. It doesn’t mean that since I have never had deep fried alligator or conch, that I get to “live a little.” Why would I live a little for a bite or a drink, when I can live a lot.

There are a lot of things that I will never taste. And that’s ok. It lets me sit comfortably on an airplane, on my way to Florida, in whatever clothes are comfortable and easy to get through security, with my bikinis packed.

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06 Mar 2016
1 Comment

The complexities of body image and wearing a slinky dress anyway

Body image disorders are a trip, I tell you. So lately, it’s not about my weight. It’s about the shape of my body. 
The truth is, I’m small right now. In fact, my boyfriend has never seen me this small. So it’s not about my weight. It’s about my knock-knees, and the sort of square shape of my hips, how big my belly is, how my arms jiggle. It’s about what bulges and what sags. It’s always about not being pretty enough. 

It’s not that I’m not beautiful, or that I don’t know that I am. It’s complicated. It’s more about obsessing and worrying. It’s more about focusing on the aspects of my body that are not photoshop perfect. 

I know I’m not the only one. And I also know that “perfect” is just a bill of goods we have collectively been sold. But it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. Sometimes obsessively.

We are going to Florida next week. So there’s wearing the bikini. And I bought a new dress to wear on the beach and it’s what you might call “slinky.” And I keep thinking “did I make a mistake? Should I buy a different dress? Is my body not perfect enough for the one I bought?”

Sometimes, when I am disconnected from something, it doesn’t occur to me as “painful” but it affects my life to a greater extent than I am aware of. For example, when I used to have a personal trainer years ago, he would give me fitness tests from time to time, and ask me to rate my pain/discomfort level from 1-10. As I got into better shape, my levels rose. When I was out of shape, I was so disconnected from my body that I was almost numb to the pain of living in that body. So even though in reality it was easier to do the exercise as time went on, it registered as more painful because I was actually living in my body.

I have a similar experience with my body image disorders. Over the years, the more accepting and loving I am of my body, the more my disorders are right there in my face.

So I may be less numb to my fears and my judgements, but at the same time, I’m more likely to wear what I want to wear. There was a time I would never wear a bikini in public. And I would have opted for a more loose-fitting dress.

But now I wear what I want. And I love it. And if I worry about how big my thighs are…well, moments pass.

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , ,
28 Feb 2016
2 Comments

It has to be about my head, not my butt.

I have been keeping up with my running. 2 miles a day, 5 days a week. (I may call it running, but I am unapologetically super slow, so what I really mean is jogging…)I like it. I like the way I feel. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes from keeping that kind of commitment. I like the way it feels to know that I can count on myself. Especially since I grew up telling myself all sorts of things about how much I hated exercise, how bad I was at it. And I was alway looking for the time that I would never have to do it again. Now I am jogging in the hopes of doing it for the rest of my life.

But there is another side of my exercise commitment. It is sneaky little thoughts about “more.” That I should run longer. That I should run faster. That if I do that, I might lose more weight. Maybe even get more food.

This might seem innocuous enough. Normal eaters with healthy weights might think that makes some sense. Many normal eaters and exercisers manage their weight like this. I am not a normal eater. I am a compulsive eating sugar addict, exercise bulimic, with body dysmorphic disorder.

I want to run 2 miles a day, 5 days a week for the rest of my life. And I want that to be enough. I will probably get faster, because I have already gotten faster without trying. But even if I don’t, heck, even if I get slower, I want to be satisfied that I’m doing something loving for my body, not something to “fix” it.

I don’t want to burn out. I don’t want to get injured. I want to run. Slowly and consistently. Because, as a friend pointed out to me, as a food addict, exercise can’t be about my weight or my size, it has to be about my head.

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , ,

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