onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Relationships”

01 Mar 2026

Not right. But just right

This week my husband and I had a talk about money and how he wants to move some around. 

The truth is I disagree with his plan. But entirely intellectually. And his plan is not bad. Just different than what I think we should do. What I think would make *his* long term money goals a reality. Because if we are honest my only long term money goal is to continue to never be stressed about money ever again.

But there is a part of me that is sort of trained to want to be recognized as right. Don’t you see…if we do it MY WAY you will get what you want. 

But I don’t do that.

What it comes down to is that honestly, I don’t actually care. Not the way my husband does. I don’t have the same kinds of *feelings* about money that he does. And there are very few money hills I will die on. 

Obviously I tell him what I think. But not in depth. If he pushes back even a little, I drop it. Because I am not emotionally invested the way he is. I don’t think about it the way he does. It does not affect my quality of life the way it does his. 

But I do have my own hills. Food of course. But also other things. After we ended up having to drag our kitten out from under furniture to get her on the road twice in 24 hours last week. My husband asked if I wanted to try to leave her home next time. It’s less than 24 hours. 

I said I was not comfortable with that and probably wouldn’t be for a while. That I would come up with some strategies for making it easier, but I was willing to drag her out if need be.

And he said “fair enough.”

There is voice in my head that says it’s stupid to care more about leaving my cat for a day than money. That money is objectively more important. More valuable. There is a voice in my head that says that it’s easy for me to not care about being poor while I am not poor. 

But I remember that I was poor for my pre-married adult life. I didn’t have high paying jobs. I did what I had to do to get by. (Like a quintessential xennial, I was participating in the gig economy before it was cool…) When I got married I stopped worrying about money. And when I stopped worrying I stopped having most feelings about money.

(Wow, I just realized that’s also true of fatness and Valentine’s Day. Maybe I should look into that pattern.)

But ultimately I most want to enjoy the peace of knowing I don’t need to be right. I don’t need to force my ideas on someone else’s feelings. I don’t need to judge myself for not caring about the things that most people care about. And I know how to take care of myself, and ask for what I need. 

So maybe not right but still just right.

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22 Feb 2026

I probably won’t stop, but I can learn

My husband and kitten and I all packed ourselves into the truck for an hour and a half yesterday, to spend less than 24 hours at our house, and then drive an hour and a half back to our apartment this morning. 

The other day I packed all of my food for those next meals. Then I packed the cat’s toys and food. The cat’s water fountain. Then my clothes. Craft stuff. 

I could have literally just packed my food and Harlow’s cat fountain. (When I type it out even that seems a little overkill. No I will not stop bringing her fountain.) 

We were barely there to need anything. I never opened the suitcase. I never made anything. Food or craft wise. I went from one home to another and anything I brought to one was already in the other one.

Really I just hung out with family and ate the meals I brought. Then we left this morning. After repacking all of the cat stuff. And dragging the kitten out from under furniture…

But even though I can see that I’m a little obsessive, I know I feel better when I am prepared. For eventualities. I feel better when I know I have taken care of my own comfort, peace and happiness. It keeps me from being mad, at myself or anyone else, if things DO go pear shaped. When I am prepared I know I did what I could, so I can just shrug and say “that’s life,” and do what I can to fix it. 

So I will still probably over pack two weeks from now when we go back for less than a day. 

But also. I can learn. That I don’t need to bring two outfits a pair of pajamas, and 4 pairs of underwear for 20 hours at home….

Harlow Gold on the road in her harness giving me the ears
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15 Feb 2026

Right now that doesn’t seem too bad

My kitten, who is almost a cat, is a very independent girl. She has a limit to how much touching she likes. And how. There is generally more wrastlin’ (pronounced RAS-lin) and more games of “bite the mamma” and fewer snuggles and pets.

But she loves to sit on my lap while I am eating. 

She doesn’t try to eat my food. Usually. She is occasionally interested in knocking my silverware off the table. But in general she doesn’t need anything. Not pets or scritches or even my attention. She just wants to be there.

I was a nanny for several years and I love babies. Like *baby* babies. I know how to communicate with them. To have them understand the important things at the very least. I love you. I see you. I care. I’m here. I’m happy when you are happy, and I want to soothe you when you are not.

And communication with a cat is similar. They don’t know words. They know energies. They drink intentions, feelings, experiences. 

And I can imagine that my meal times create a kind of palpable joy in me. A peace and also an excitement.

And here is the other crazy thing. I LET HER! I let her sit in my lap during my most treasured time: meal time!

I am forever and eternally obsessed with my food. I have never wanted to divide my attention between my meal and literally anything. Not even with those beloved babies I nannied. And here I am eating one handed with a cat in my lap and I am not even annoyed or begrudging. 

Here is the thing about babies. They are only babies for a year. Those babies I nannied are in their late teens and early 20s now. Grown ups or close to it. 

But having a cat is like having a baby forever. So maybe it’s me eating my meals one handed for the rest of my life. Which right now doesn’t sound too bad.

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01 Feb 2026

Snipped Threads

This week my account on my favorite social media platform (Threads) is glitched. I cannot get on to access it but it seems to still exist. I have been getting notifications but I can’t access them. And the truth is I don’t really want to do anything to get my account back. And I don’t even know if it’s possible. And actually taking action about it doesn’t appeal to me right now. 

So I have been on social media significantly less. And I am all the happier for it.

I am not one of those people who think the internet is “not real.” There is plenty of real news and information there. Plenty of interesting perspectives backed by science and educated experts. There are plenty of real people there.  And I have made real, true, lasting friendships there.

But it has been so peaceful to not be dealing with personalities this week. Because another thing that is on the internet is bait. To be enraged. To be mean. To be justified. To be brutal. And even after years of personally taking steps to protect and regulate my mind and body when I am on social media, that is a lot of work! I still have to stop. Breathe. Remember I get to choose my actions. I don’t need to react. I don’t want to react.

One thing that is not really on the internet is accountability. A friend of mine (whom I know through social media) says that the internet eliminates “reputation” in a way that those of us who are over 40 *had to* learn because all of life was in person. (Ok, fine. Cyrano was managing to catfish in the 1890s. But it was harder and you had to be really smart…) On line, you can disappear after you make a mess. You can hide behind a blank profile picture. You can pretend to be someone you are not. You can have a thousand different accounts presenting a thousand different personas.

I, on the other hand, didn’t take accountability in the 3D world until I got my eating under control. For the first 28 years of life I was just ruining my reputation right there in the open. I didn’t have the skills or the confidence to be honest, take responsibility, or make amends. And when I began to learn 20 years ago, I learned that you can’t really be accountable for anything if you don’t have accountability as a way of being. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. That I can really only be the one me that I am.

I couldn’t be accountable for my food and then lie about my work, or my responsibilities. And conversely, I couldn’t be a liar and keep my eating under control. 

When I stopped eating sugar and eating compulsively, it became clear to me that I couldn’t compartmentalize my life and be content. I couldn’t only be myself when it was convenient for other people. So I became more and more myself. Unapologetically. Joyfully. And it continues to this day. 

Because I am accountable to myself first. Because I care about reputation. Because I choose my actions based on my own thoughts and beliefs. Not as a reaction to rage or hurt or difficult feelings. And when I fail I make amends. 

I am not accountable *for* others. To be liked o admired or praised. I do it because it makes my life easier, better, more peaceful. Because it makes me LIKE myself. I am accountable because when my words thoughts and actions all align that way of being makes me feel free.

I may get back on my favorite platform. I may not. But I am going to enjoy this break for as long as it lasts. 

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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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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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28 Dec 2025

Twenty years ago and a lifetime ago

Twenty years ago today I was pretty miserable. 

I don’t think about it much at all now. Not even as my anniversaries approach year by year. 

But someone said something to me recently that reminded me that 20 years ago right now, I was 28 years old, I was an exercise bulimic and a regular old stick a toothbrush down your throat bulimic, I had gained 30 pounds since Halloween two months earlier, and I was terrified because I could not see a way out. 

But also, it was good for me. A kind of shock to my system. I had hit a bottom. 

Once I started trying to make myself throw up, I could not pretend that I didn’t have a problem. We had reached After School Special levels of not okay.

As I approach my 20th anniversary this week, I get to really remember the excruciating pain of existing in the food. I could not stop eating. I could not stop punishing my body for it. With laxatives, with bulimia, with exercise to the point of and past injury, with harming myself any way I thought I had to so I could be in a different body. BUT STILL I COULD NOT STOP EATING!

So yes, it basically comes down to the fact that I am grateful for the ability to stop eating. Food thoughts don’t plague me. All of my eating is guilt free. I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I have the ability to live a life between my meals. And love my meals 3 times a day. 

These boundaries are freedom. This freedom is liking, loving, and trusting myself. This is nearly two decades of increasing peace.

So here’s to my gratitude for the past almost 20 years and here’s to a lifetime more. 

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14 Dec 2025

An almost 20 year head start

I got my eating under control at 28. And that is a miracle. For me. But also, it’s not common. 

Most people (definitely not all) who come into food recovery are women. And most women come in about my age now. I’m 48. Essentially, when their hormones are changing. And when that need to please is greatly reduced.

I heard a woman say that society calls menopause “The Change” because that’s what it is for men. Their wives and mothers change. The women they relied on for everything are no longer as reliable, and some of the wives just LEAVE! (Can you imagine????) 

The older I get, and the less “reliable” my body gets, the MORE reliable my heart and soul and passion are. The more creative I am. The more proud I am of the time I spend learning and making and the product of my work. The more inspired and excited I am.

And I have all of this because in January of 2006 I decided that my sugar addiction had such a hold on me, that it would be better to give up all of my joy (I really thought that food was my only joy) than to live the rest of my life with the compulsion to eat and all of the shame that came with it.

A thing I hear a lot now is “I love your energy.” And they are right! I have great energy. I know I do because I WORK at it. And it’s a product of a lot of things that most people don’t actually like when it’s happening to them. 

You love my energy? I say NO to things that drain my energy. I limit my interactions with negativity and greed. I limit my interactions with drama. Even if I like you. Even if I love you. I say NO! I protect myself first, my family second, my friends third. 

And all of this is cumulative. I am just weeks shy of 20 years of taking care of my eating and letting that be the first step in taking care of the rest of my life. All of the rest of my life. So I have an almost 20 year head start of loving my body, of choosing my own peace and my own path, of living without resentment for the way I failed to measure up to someone else’s standards. An almost 20 year head start on so many women addicted to food, to sugar, to the idea of a perfect woman and the perfect body, or at least a “better body” that someone wants to sell us all. And I refuse to take that for granted. 

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07 Dec 2025

I already eat like it’s a celebration every day

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I eat well as a lifestyle. My husband and I spend money on quality food ingredients and cooking implements, and spend time cooking at home. We essentially eat like wealthy people. Though we don’t live like the rich and famous by any means. Unless you count an executive Costco membership…*bragging eyebrow waggle*

I had to entirely shift the way I thought about food when I first put boundaries around my eating. Eating was always a double edged experience before I got it under control. Either I was eating food I loved and craved and was ashamed of it because I was fat. Or I ate “healthy” options (not necessarily healthy in actuality, just low calorie) and hated the experience and felt like a martyr. 

When I got my eating under control the first thing the community told me was that “we eat the biggest and the best.” We love our food. We eat the foods we want. (Not sugar obviously…) If we want to eat the same foods every day, we are welcome to. As long as it is portion controlled and not a drug food. If we want to change it up every day, that is welcome too.

It meant there were rules that served me, and following them served me, and I knew when I was and was not following them. And when I was following them I was keeping a promise to myself.

And that, just the understanding that I could eat and not hate either the food or myself, was a revelation. And a freedom I didn’t want to give up. I say to this day that guilt free eating is the very best, number one thing about keeping my sugar and food boundaries. And if I lost every other benefit, just that would make it worth it.

As we come to the season of bowls of candy everywhere and homemade cookies on tables and big boxes of fruit and nut breads, I am reminded that I don’t need to do this anymore. I did it for 28 years. No holds barred. And I DID NOT GET TO ENJOY IT!

So it’s good for me to remember that I eat like it’s a celebration every day. And let the cookies lie. (I actually have zero interest in cookies. It turns out that when you don’t eat them for nearly two decades, your body doesn’t care anymore.)

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