onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Relationships”

21 Sep 2025

From out of my mind to into my own

As a sugar addict in recovery I have a person I call every day and tell her what I am going to eat for the day. I “commit my food” to her. And there are people who call me every day. And they commit their food to me. 

Well my friend is on a road trip and it’s hard to coordinate times so I’m committing to another friend in the program. And this friend and I had a miscommunication. 

As with all communities, there are little cliques and divisions within the group. Like orthodox vs reform. Because *for the most part* we all do all the same things. But some people do some things just a little bit differently. And within these little groups there is often a line between *how different* people can be comfortable with. 

Well I committed my food and she heard something different than what I meant. And it was a little too different for her to be comfortable taking my food commitment. 

But this is the point. She came to me so generously. She pointed out her issues. She even spoke to her friend in the community before she responded to me. And she asked that I either commit to her within her comfort zone, or find another person to temporarily commit to. And then, when I understood that there was as miscommunication, I apologized for my confusing language and asked if the communication was the issue. Or if she still needed me to make any changes or find another friend to commit to. And she was so happy to say that it was just a matter of phrasing that had confused her and that all was well. 

It was so loving. It was without drama. It was two people who genuinely like each other coming together authentically to solve a relationship issue. 

I got even the ability to do that from getting my eating under control. I have friends like that because we are all growing and shifting, some also specifically by not drugging ourselves with sugar. Building up our self respect so we can go into our relationships liking ourselves enough to be peaceful. Peaceful enough to be generous. 

I spent the first 28 years of my life terrified of being caught on the wrong side. Of anything. To be wrong felt shameful. And when I was ashamed I lashed out. I got angry first. I doubled down! I would go out of my mind doing mental gymnastics to spin a situation so that I was right. I was filled with more misplaced pride than properly placed honor. 

But in having put the sugar and simple carbs down and come into my own, truly my own peace and joy and contentment, I don’t have to cling to the things that don’t work for me. I don’t have to be right. I don’t have to be ashamed of being wrong. I don’t have to be anything. And that makes me want to keep my eating under control. 

Also, for those only here for the kitten updates, Harlow continues to be the sweetest baby in the whole entire world. She is full of piss and vinegar and when we play she loves to do all the weird stereotypical things black cats do. The arched back, the sideways walk, the twinkle toes. She’s perfect and hilarious. 

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14 Sep 2025

To love and be loved

“The opposite of addiction is connection.” That is a pretty common saying in addiction recovery circles.

When I first decided to get my eating and sugar addiction under control, I really believed I was giving up all of the fun and joy and pleasure in my life. But I was so desperate to not be miserable anymore that it seemed like a fair trade. Which I think is pretty telling.

But the fact is that when I put down the sugar and simple carbohydrates and started weighing my food, the food I *did still* eat was better and more pleasurable. And I did not stop loving food or stop loving the act of eating. Because suddenly it was guilt free! So the act of eating was still, and is now still, a delight and one of my favorite things about my life.

But I only eat 3 meals times a day. So there are so many hours in the day to fill with not eating.

And since starting my recovery 19+ years ago, I have connections to fill them with. I have friends and family that I have more intimate and loving relationships with now than I was capable of having in the food. 

I am more present. I am less judgmental. I am happier in my own life and more comfortable with being with others than I have ever been in my life.

And this week I care less about my food because I got a kitten! And I am so in love with her. 

I picked up Harlow Gold on Monday. And we have been madly in love ever since. She is a perfect little angel. Sweet and playful. Independent and silly. And so incredibly undramatic. She has not cried, or acted out all week. Which is better luck than I had any right to expect. 

And for me, eating my weighed and measured meals has been an afterthought. I do it because it’s what I do and I always do it. And every one has been wonderful! Delicious and filling and emotionally satisfying. But usually I am more excited by my meal than anything else. And this week I am more excited about playing with Harlow than anything else.

It’s such a blessing to have another connection. To have another string of fate. For my heart to have another hold in this world.

Another phrase they say in recovery rooms is that every choice an addict makes is either bringing them closer to recovery or to addiction. And I can see that every loving and authentic relationship I create, whether human or not, is a step toward recovery. So Harlow is one more reason to keep my eating under control. To love and be loved with a clear head and heart. 

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07 Sep 2025

Tomorrow everything changes. Like usual.

Tomorrow everything changes. 

Philosophically speaking, you could say that everything is always changing. But my life is very much built on routine and the comfort of sameness. Especially as someone who moves around so often. I keep touchstones with me always. I travel with a kitchen. With the same bedding and the same bathroom accouterments. I have my favorite mug at our house, and my favorite mug at our apartment. I have my ramekins at our house and my ramekins at our apartment. 

But tomorrow we go pick up Harlow Gold (we are keeping her shelter name, Harlow, and I love the line in Bette Davis Eyes “her hair is Harlow gold. Also she is black with dark grey underfur. So not gold at all. Anyway…) And that is a new personality. That is a new being with needs and wants and desires that must be honored and addressed. That is the start of 15-20 years (Life willing) of relationship.  

Once I got my eating under control, I got clarity. And I got to learn who I was and what I wanted. And what I didn’t. And I didn’t want kids. I could see that the societal assumption that I did want them, along with the assumption that the man I ended up with would necessarily want them, made me assume that it would all happen. That one day it would be “time” and I would know. But I didn’t. And he didn’t. And that was amazing. And we have spent almost 13 years enjoying our lives together.

And now, at 48, I am finally, for the first time, ready for a pet. And that feels good. It feels right. It feels just the right amount of life changing. 

I suspect that Harlow Gold will just slip right into our lives like she was always there. That my new normal will be normal pretty quickly. Having my drug foods down and my eating under control means that I am good at going with the flow and rolling with the punches. But no matter what, tomorrow, everything changes. Like usual. 

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31 Aug 2025

I can want with clarity

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I don’t want to excess, BUT I want what I want how I want it, pretty intensely. And that is still true now at 48. But there are some huge differences.

Getting my eating under control taught me that I am responsible for getting what I want. And it taught me that I really do care how I get it. I won’t “do anything” to get what I want. I have limits. I have personal boundaries.

When I put down sugar and grains and started managing my compulsive eating the very first lesson was that nobody could do it for me. Literally. I have to weigh my own food. Unless I am physically incapable, I have to be the person who puts the food on the scale. (People in my community are really committed. And I have specific friends who have had to have loved ones weigh their food for them after being hit by a train or a bus because they *were* physically incapable.) 

There were no “excuses” for why I didn’t have the food I needed. Or why I didn’t have a scale with me or why I couldn’t do what I said I would do. I was told it was my responsibility to be prepared.

So yesterday, I had a plan for eating on our travel day. (We are visiting family on vacation!) And it didn’t work out. But I was prepared for eventualities! And they did, indeed, “event.” (This time. Sometimes they don’t.) But I was prepared for that too. 

Were they my favorite meals? No. Were they still delicious? Yes. And they were all within my eating boundaries. One hundred percent. And that is the most important thing. My peace and my self-respect are inextricably linked to whether I put drug foods in my body.

The ability to put what I need above what I want came from putting boundaries around my eating. Along with the ability to know when what I want is not meant for me. But also, having my eating under control and my drug foods down, means that I can go after what I do want with clarity, consistency, and drive.

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24 Aug 2025

Less to push against

When I was a nanny, there was a very specific trick I learned to get a sleep hating kid to go to sleep. You have to NOT CARE if the kid goes to sleep.

Why does it work? I have my theories. Kids are energy vampires. If you have ever held a newborn you may have noticed that they don’t actually do anything, but *you* are exhausted anyway. And if you have any anxious energy for a kid to PUSH against, they will. But anyway no matter why it works, it *does* work. 

Well this week the kittens in the back yard of our apartment came back. With their very pregnant momma ready to drop another litter. And it occurred to me that they came back, because I stopped wanting one of them to choose me. Because my husband and I agreed to go to the shelter and adopt a kitten there. And now there is no anxious energy from me for them to push against. 

Is this true? I don’t know. But it definitely fits a pattern I am used to.

When I got my eating under control I started to learn to accept that I would not get everything I wanted, and that was OK. And then I started to realize that every time I didn’t get what I wanted, I got something better. So it was actually better than OK.

It takes a constant reregulating of my expectations. Desire, disappointment, mourning, acceptance of the reality of any situation. A cycling through of all of the emotions I need to catch up to the moment. And that hasn’t really changed. But the gift of doing this for almost 20 years is time. It takes so much less time for me to be disappointed. And I don’t have to NOT be disappointed. I don’t have to suck it up and be a grown up. I can feel however I feel. It just serves me to get through those feelings quicker.

So we are still going to the shelter in two weeks to find a kitten to adopt. But in the meantime we are feeding momma and her babies. And my husband keeps insisting to the strays that they missed their chance to be adopted by us. But we all know what happens when a guy insists he doesn’t want a pet….

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17 Aug 2025

I’m betting it’s for the best

When I was young, I think 20, I went to a (fairly controversial) self-help seminar. And because I was still actively eating compulsively, I heard a lot of good things, but I, personally, lacked the tools to put them into practice. 

One of those things specifically, is that when you make a commitment, you change the trajectory of your life. 

Those are great words. But without a frame of reference it was hard for 20-year-old Kate to comprehend what that meant. And I was just really not capable of commitment then. I didn’t know that, though. 

Because commitment is only commitment after it has been tested. And getting my eating under control in my current food program 19+ years ago was my first real follow through. And that paved the way for all my other commitments.

Well my husband and I have decided that we are getting a kitten in a few weeks when we get back from a week long vacation.

One of the reasons we have not before is because we travel for my husband’s job. A lot. And that is now another moving part in finding housing for us on the road. So that is a minimum of 1.5 bathrooms, a dishwasher, an in unit washer dryer and now pet friendly.

But cats keep finding me. And needing me. But ultimately not wanting to be pets. 

Besides the cats that live in our suburban neighborhood, that my neighbor has been feeding for us while we are on the road, here in our second apartment, there were 3 little kittens that I fed for several weeks. But once they were bigger, they disappeared. 

And I feel like Life is telling me that I need to find the cat that is my cat. 

And that will change the trajectory of my life. But how could it not? That is a new little (or big) personality living in my home. 

But I guess the most important thing is that I don’t have any idea *how* it will change the trajectory of my life. I know that right now I can’t imagine what getting my first pet at 48 will create. Just like I could never have imagined how getting my eating under control would not just change my weight, but my health, my peace, my self-love, my humility, my compassion, my creativity, my integrity, really just everything. For the best.

L toR: Leo, Gus, and Baby Donut (BD got their own food when the big ones left)
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10 Aug 2025

Caring more, but also could not care less

Yesterday, I had a very busy, very lovely day. My cousin is getting married and I went to her bridal shower. And then later that evening my nephew and niece and her girlfriend all came over to play Guitar Hero. 

I ate different food from everyone else for both parties. And I didn’t care. 

First, I made sure I didn’t feel deprived. I ate fatty foods that I love and are delicious. And I enjoyed the experience. Both at the shower and at home with the kids. For a minute at the shower I considered being embarrassed about my very clearly different and weird meal. But then I just decided not to. And I could. Just decide not to be embarrassed.

Having my eating under control makes social interactions ten thousand times easier, just because I don’t care how I land as long as it’s not as a bad person. 

Oh, you think I laugh weird? I do! You think it’s weird to bring your own food to a catered party? It is! You have opinions about my clothes or my hair or my very big personality? ME TOO! WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!!

Having my eating under control is the ability to keep promises to myself, not just to other people. And that, the ability to care for myself even better than I care for others, is where my self esteem comes from. Not from making everyone else comfortable. My self esteem comes from me keeping my life authentic. Even if that means disappointing other people. 

So people pleasing is an oxymoron, of sorts. When I am my most authentic self, most people like me more, not less. And I like me more. Which makes the other people who do like me less, less important to me.

Over the past few months and years, it has become more and more clear to me that it’s time to keep our communities close. That I, personally, want to look at what I can do to protect, and provide for the people around me. And that is money and resources. But it’s also space. And fun. And showing up to celebrate. The big moments. And also, just being together.

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27 Jul 2025

Maybe leave us out of it?

Sometimes I am really confronted with how much work I have done on my internalized fat phobia, and how much the default response of most people to fatness or things related to fatness, is disgust and judgement.

On Facebook the other day I saw a woman I used to go to school with posting about her daughter’s difficulties since being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. That is not the thing that hit me. That sucks and I wish her and her daughter the best.

It’s how she went ON AND ON about how it was not her daughter’s fault. Because type 1 is not the one where it’s your fault. My issue being the idea that type 2 is your fault? She explained over and over about how she and her daughter are following a diet based on her doctor’s recommendations and watch her food and she’s a healthy eater and they are doing all the right things.

Here’s the deal. I understand that this is a woman who has only had to deal with fat phobia as it applies to every woman in the Western world, which is admittedly no small thing, but therefore has never had to dismantle the structures in it. And she is a societally attractive woman. So she has most certainly experienced privilege based on her beauty. Which is not a slight. Just a truth. I like her. She’s a nice lady.

But fuck did it hurt my feelings to hear her try to insist her daughter is one of the worthy ones, instead of inherently understanding that every one of us is worthy. Even if we have eating disorders. Even if our bodies are not the standard. Even if we are hugely fat! Yes! Even then!

Fatness is not always an addiction. I didn’t understand that until I had my eating under control. There are plenty of happy, healthy fat people. People who love their lives and their bodies and are simply fat.

I was not one of those people. I was an addict. I wanted to stop and I could not. And even though I did it to lose weight, I KEEP my eating under control because it makes my life better. But it doesn’t always keep me thin. I have been very thin but I have also been quite chubby.

It turns out thinness is not as predictable for me as common lore would have you believe. Calories in calories out is not actually the way it works. Not for me, anyway.

But even if it is clear that a person is fat, and an addict, and miserable, and not doing the “right things,” do they really deserve to suffer and die?

There are plenty who will say yes. And I think it’s quite possible I would have been one when I was in the food and miserable and a self-hating fat phobe. Because I used to believe one had to earn their place in the world. But now that is not true of me. 

I guess I will wrap it up with this thought. Sometimes the only way to change is to think you are worth it. And when you tell people they are not worth it, you are just slowing the process of the thing you think should happen. 

Also, maybe mind your own business. You can talk about Type 1 diabetes without bringing Type 2 into it…

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13 Jul 2025

The price of magic

With having my eating under control for almost two decades, the food part – the not eating sugar and carbs, the weighing my food, the abstaining from eating between portion controlled meals – is usually on autopilot. And having all of that basically running in the background all the time, gives me time to actively work on other things. My relationship with myself. My own authenticity and the kind of life I want to live. My relationships between my authentic self and the people in my life. The ways I want to communicate. The ways I want to land. What I want to create in my community and the world. 

And that is just relationships. That is not the learning I do. The making. The expanding.

It is exciting to talk about all of those things and the work I am putting in. All of the breakdowns and breakthroughs of my humanity. 

But I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t note that all of this is based on me actively having my eating under control. Doing it all the time without exception.

My ability to grow all goes away if I start to eat compulsively again. Because having my eating under control is where my self esteem STARTS. Period. All of my self love and self respect come from my willingness to stop putting my drug foods in my body, and my ability to follow through. 

If you have never been an addict, there is a thing in us that feels ultimately incomplete and wrong any time we are not high on our drug. And then broken for feeling that way any time we realize we can’t stop. That is a bunch of broken promises to ourselves that seem to reinforce that we are, in fact, broken. 

And those feelings don’t go away the moment you put your addiction down. They slowly fade over years. SLOWLY!

There are a lot of things that I get from giving up my addiction, but, like I said, the first one is self esteem. And that makes knowing what I want so much easier. I am not wondering if I should want what I want. I am not wondering what other people think about what I value. I like me enough. I respect me. I know I’m worth having an opinion.

In fantasy books, one rule is alway clear: Magic always costs something. Keeping my eating under control is the price of this magic. Practicing it every day is the spell. 

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06 Jul 2025

Mine and not mine.

We had some people over last night. We over ordered Chinese food. We had the counter covered in cartons and containers and literally none of it was for me. And I felt great about that. 

When I was eating compulsively, I absolutely would have been obsessed with the countertop. And the company would be secondary. If that. How good was the food?

Instead I ate my usual “junk food” dinner of homemade sugar free chocolate ice cream and salt n vinegar pork rinds (there is more to it, but those are the highlights.) And I didn’t think about the food out for grazing.

I don’t graze. I eat my meals. Nothing in between but zero calorie drinks. 

My attention last night was for our company. Telling funny stories and laughing at theirs. I’m funny in real life. Charming. A good story teller. Quick with a one liner. I can be these things better when there is no part of my brain being used to keep track of the food. 

That is what 19+ years free of drug foods can do. Make food invisible. At least if I t’s not mine. My food is still mouthwateringly visible.

In fact, one of my food addiction milestones was looking through a NYC shop window at a really attractive man, and not noticing it was a bakery until I had passed it. INVISIBLE!!!

So I got to have fun and laughs. A meal I loved. And a mind free of all of the things that don’t belong to me. 

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