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)
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.
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…
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.
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.
I saw a video on social media this week that I have been thinking about. It was about how to spot and stop manipulators. But the point was that the hardest person to manipulate is the one who is in alignment with themselves.
The person who knows what they want, what they stand for, what they want to achieve and create, and who they want to be in the world, isn’t going to be swayed by anything other than something even more in alignment with their heart and head.
I spend a lot of time worrying I’m doing life wrong. And will probably never entirely grow out of it. But this was a nice little reminder for me.
Because getting my eating under control is how I learned to listen to myself. I had so much noise in my head when I was eating compulsively. Most of it was about food and eating and craving, but it was also about shame. What I did wrong. What I failed to do. How I was lacking. How I was broken. How I was ugly and wrong.
When I was in the food, I could not see what I wanted. And if I thought I could, but the world didn’t agree, I assumed I was wrong, not the world.
But here’s the thing. The world often doesn’t agree with me. I’m not particularly interested in its conventions. And once I made friends with that, it was easier to be authentic. After all, the world doesn’t really want me to quit sugar and grains. It upsets a whole group. People who have zero stake in my eating have had all sorts of opinions about it. Strangers! And there is a whole ultra specific group that thinks that what I do is not only useless but harmful. People on the internet insisting that sugar addiction isn’t a thing. That it is about food morality. That I am a fatphobe monster because I assert that I have a problem with sugar and that sugar can be addictive.
Look. Just to clarify, I don’t think every fat person is an addict. I don’t care if a person is fat. I don’t think fat people need to lose weight. I don’t think that anyone owes anyone else any explanations of their food or their body.
But I was getting drunk on sugar from childhood and it was ruining my life. And want to help a compulsive eater and sugar addict who still suffers. (P.S. Not all sugar addicts are fat. I want to help them too.)
But that is part of how getting my eating under control helped me align myself and my principles and my past. It was only in putting boundaries around my eating that I could separate my fatness from my addiction. Come to love my body in all its iterations. To feed it nourishing foods. And not worry about health or weight. Just worry about not doing my drug foods. Just worry about not using. Take the morality *out* of food.
And every time I make a choice that makes people who are not me look at me funny, I remember who I am, what I want, what I want to create and what legacy I am leaving. And I have enough clarity of mind and purpose to actually know the answer. And all of that is the culmination of 19 1/2 years of keeping boundaries around my eating.
I ate almost two pounds of fruit this morning – along with my bacon and cheese and coffee with whole milk – and I did not DO NOT have an ounce of regret. I didn’t even feel a little stuffed. (Which would be a perfectly acceptable outcome for me personally.) Just the pure joy of a huge sweet breakfast.
It’s such a good reminder that bodies change. And that some of those changes are from our own choices and are in our control, and some are not.
In the summer, any summer, I am going to eat half of a giant cantaloupe, or a quarter of a ginormous honeydew every day I can. And if I can’t, I am going to be disappointed. (I mean, I will still have a delicious breakfast because loving my food is a priority. But I’ll be a little sad too.)
And in past years, that sometimes meant that I would be uncomfortable and overfull after breakfast. But again I don’t mind that. I would rather feel too full than hungry. And I don’t have to have a moral or emotional reaction to that anymore.
But lately my current workout is centered around building muscle, so even eating gargantuan fruits, I am very rarely really full anymore.
I had so much shame around how I felt about even my own experience and preferences of eating before getting my eating under control. Hunger was “greed” and wanting was “greed” and preferring to be stuffed rather than hungry (thin) was “greed” and I was never going to be a good girl if I wanted to be satisfied.
But getting my eating under control also taught me to sit in discomfort. Withdrawal is a bitch and sugar is no different. It taught me to live with feelings. Even hunger or the cravings that masquerade as hunger.
But also, my eating boundaries come with a community. So if I need more literal fuel, I have someone else to help guide me through what kind of food and how much and when.
Having boundaries around my eating let me choose my eating for myself, while also having a set of clear rules that keep me from my drug foods. And that took the morality out of food for me.
About a month ago I became enamored with a pretty little feral cat in my neighborhood. She was scared and jumpy and never let me touch her, but she was clearly hungry. And did I mention she was so pretty? I named her Suren, Wren for short, after a fantasy novel character who is a fairy queen who grows up feral on the streets in the mortal world.
So I put out a bowl of food, and she was grateful. And I kept putting out food and she became affectionate in her own way. Rubbing against things near me, and lots of slow blinks and head cocks. And when she was hungry every day, she sat like a lady in front of my window and waited to catch my eye. So I was feeding her expecting her to eventually touch me. Trust me. But after over a week she never did.
And then I figured out that she was pregnant. And had been the whole time she had been coming to me to eat. And my vet-tech-step-daughter said that moving a pregnant stray cat was often too stressful for them. And that it was *why* she was afraid to let me touch her. (And why she always had her tail down.)
So I just kept feeding her and let her do what she wanted. Because that is the lesson of honoring boundaries. She was asking for food and also to not be touched. Was I offering help? Was I being of service or was I expecting a return?
And then one day, she came earlier than usual. So I fed her. And I noticed that her tail was up! And I thought, “you had those kittens.” And then she came back again later that same day. And ate a whole other can of food. Plus a bunch of treats. And I thought, “oh you definitely had those kittens.”
That day she led me to a neighbor’s home and went into their yard where I could not follow. But I knew where she was. And that felt better. Plus my step daughter said that it was better because if she thought I knew where they were she might feel the need to move them. So I left her alone. And she came every day and I fed her.
But we went to our new work apartment this week and my husband found little pictures of her on our ring camera waiting like a little lady and I WAS NOT THERE. I got upset which got my husband upset. Ugh!
And then we came home this weekend, with a bunch of food and two bowls to hand out to two of my neighbors, to ask them to leave it out for Wren if they saw her.
But when I went to see if I could lure her from the neighbor’s yard, another friendly neighbor who was friends with the neighbor in question looked and said there were no more cats but there were empty food and water bowls out.
So maybe she moved her babies because they were found. Or maybe she and her babies *were* found by someone who took them to Animal Welfare. But for now, I don’t know. And maybe I never will.
One of the hardest things to give up is the idea that “I should have done a thing better.” If I had been better, known better, done better, an outcome would be different and I would not have failed or come out lacking.
But that is the first thing that everyone told me when I got my eating under control. That I am not in charge of anything but my own actions. And that “If all you did today was keep your eating boundaries, you won. You succeeded.” It didn’t matter how many other things I failed at. Because the world is not on my shoulders. And not every problem or situation is mine to solve. And if some of them are mine, the best thing I can do is not drug myself with sugar. The rest will follow.
Clearly I know intellectually that I did “enough” with Wren. I was willing, and did what I was able. But somehow it still feels bad.
And also, I liked her. We would sit together while she ate. She would occasionally come close enough to eat cat food off a plastic fork in my hand. She had a personality and I liked it. And now I miss her.
It feels hard to just accept certain boundaries. Especially from a feral cat. It feels like I want to help her, and do what is best for her in spite of herself.
But also, I have a lot of identification with a feral cat. I am also used to doing what I want. And don’t really care if you like or appreciate my decisions. And trying to put me in an environment that makes you comfortable is not a gift to me. It is a trap.
But hell. For all I know, she is living in the lap of luxury because someone snatched her and her babies up and took them home. What do I know. We all make our own choices. (Human and cat.)
There is a saying of people who do what I do with food. Having my eating boundaries lets me “wear my life like a loose garment.” When I am not eating my drug foods compulsively, I can (usually) gracefully navigate my life. Including my relationships, my hopes and disappointments, and just the changing of everything.
So here’s to Wren. I hope she’s living her best life, whatever that looks like.
This past week has been enlightening for me as a person looking to continue to grow. I always forget that most real spiritual breakthroughs in my life happen through breakdowns. I always think about the joys of the other side without remembering the absolute physical, mental, and emotional misery of the catalyst for it.
The 2 month period that led up to me quitting sugar and putting boundaries around my eating was emotional torture. But people who saw me then said I seemed fine. Perfectly normal.
The months that led up to me no longer weighing my body and no longer judging my life based on the size of my body were riddled with uncontrollable weight gain, nightmares and stress hormones, and crying jags I couldn’t control.
This week it took some time to get me out of my woe-is-me-feelings. But they say to do service to feel better. So I did some stuff for other people. Which got me out of my head. And I decided on my amends. (I ended up donating to the GFM for Burn the Cape by Dr. Raquel Martin.) So that I could move on. Because I hurt someone by accident and then I got terrified that I would do it again. And I made myself as small as I could be. Made as little movement as I could. Froze right in place and stayed as still as possible.
Because that is how it goes for me. I be whatever I am. And I get bigger. Weirder. Sillier. And then make a mistake and hurt someone. Again. And I freeze. Then I flee. And I go and hide.
Getting fatter was absolutely a way for me to get smaller when I was still eating compulsively. More invisible. A way to have less impact. To be less seen. To hide in plain sight. I definitely did not know that intellectually at the time. And the being high on sugar helped me not know.
This is a difficult thing to explain. If you know me you may already think I’m “big and weird and silly.” You may think I have a gigantic personality. Which I do. But even that is still a stifled little girl doing a cha cha dance of trying to never ever make a mistake and then making one anyway and then quitting the dance and then 5-6-7-8…
And that is the lesson here for me. That the shutting down and the woe is me and the hiding away is not authentic. It’s a way for me to stop and regroup and figure out what is palatable. What’s a tolerable dose of Kate? Let’s get it in that range.
That is a problem. For me, anyway. Because what got me here to my sugar addiction and compulsive eating being arrested, and loving my life, and being in a loving and happy marriage, has been an uncovering of who I am. Very much *not* the making myself easier to digest. My life is better because I care about my authentic self.
I understand a few things.
My ego is not particularly big but it is fragile AF!
My impact in the world, and not my intention, is what I am responsible for. So that ALSO MEANS I don’t have to have a whole emotional breakdown about being a scourge on humanity because I made a joke that landed a way I didn’t mean for a person I really like. I can make it about my integrity (a thing I can do something about) and not my ego (an amorphous blob of ever changing and impossible standards.)
I just want to say that over these past 2+ years I have seen an incredible transformation in so many aspects of my life. My breathing health. My mental health. My physical strength and wellbeing. My balance. My willingness to see the doctor regularly and to get blood work done.
I am clearly changing for something. Into something. And I expect it won’t be the last time either.
I made a joke on social media this week that landed so badly. I meant it to be a word joke. But if I had rubbed two brain cells together I would have realized it could be taken as racist. So I made a racist joke. (FUCK!) And I was even slow on the uptake and when someone said “that’s not funny” I thought they meant my pun! (FUCKING FUCK!!!)
I am obviously rightly, deeply humbled and ashamed. I harmed a parasocial relationship I enjoyed with a woman I like and respect as well as harming a group of people.
I considered not writing about it this week. Not bringing other people’s attention to it. It’s embarrassing and emotional. I had to ask myself if I meant it subconsciously, which was terrifying. (I do not believe it was a subconscious thing. I do believe it was a true accident.) And yes I hate the idea of looking like a terrible person. But I did a thing. It’s out in the world. Even if I wish I could take it back.
It’s not a thing I can take back. It had an awful and ugly impact. Intentions pave the road to hell. Of course I deleted and apologized. And I sent a private message apologizing and offering amends. But the harm is done. And I am the only responsible party.
But this is my blog about me. And for a moment I want to separate what I did to her, from me, and my own personal growth in the face of this. Because there is something else that is deeper in there for me, about me accidentally hurting people and how it has haunted me in my life. And when I was talking to my best friend about this particular incident, what I did and how I was ashamed, I started talking about some of the times in my life that I accidentally harmed people and when I got to when I was 5 and I laughed when a girl fell but she hurt herself, I started to hyperventilate cry, the way I would when I was 5 years old.
Also, just to be clear, this list of my harms does not include any other racisms. This is not a regular occurrence for me. It’s things like when I was 10 and I accidentally sat on a classmate and I sprained his ankle, or the time I was 30 and said *in front of my friend’s boyfriend* that a different guy we knew should be her new boyfriend. This coming to terms with the unintentional harm I do and trying to mend it is apparently a long time coming for me. A lesson about myself.
But in the end for this specific incident, it’s still impact not intention.
I am clear that I am not the victim. I am the perpetrator. I harmed another person. It doesn’t matter that it was not on purpose. It doesn’t matter that it was on the internet. It does not matter that I did not mean it. I was absolutely unsafe for another person.
I have also been in physical pain on and off over it. The humiliation and shame. A loop of dread. And the question of what to do to get complete with having done harm and knowing I do not want to do it again. But being afraid that I will do it again. I can’t pretend it doesn’t matter. This is not an “it’s in the past” so I should let it go kind of situation. Because I am clearly haunted right now.
I talked to my best friend about it. Because she has her eating under control. And because she is not going to tell me that it’s ok because I didn’t mean it.
She is going to tell me that it’s my responsibility to clean my side of the street.
I hope sincerely that the woman I harmed does not give a flying fuck about me. I hope I am barely a blip on her radar. And while I would be honored to make amends, she has not requested that. So I am leaving her alone and fixing my own shit for myself with my own spiritual community. The people who will not try to tell me that it’s all fine. The people who help me be responsible, accountable, a person with integrity.
So I need to come up with an action to take for me. An amends I can make to somehow mend the break I made in my own world. Because again, it’s about impact. Not intention. And I also hurt myself by harming her. So I need to get myself right with me!
Like my best friend told me: You don’t get to let yourself off the hook but you do have to figure out your way past it.
I never had to “watch my mouth” as a white woman growing up. And it is a *good thing* that I do have to watch it now. It’s not a punishment. It is an opportunity. It’s a gift. It’s a boundary. And I love boundaries. They changed my life! They saved my life. So yes. I need to be ever more careful with my words and my actions. And yes of course I already should have.
I don’t want to hurt people or harm people. I don’t take that lightly. And having to be accountable for literally everything that comes from me is just life. It’s the natural order of things. I was thoughtless and it was a cruelty. Period.
I am going to think more about what actions to take next to get my self complete. I’m also going to watch my mouth. I’m going to remember that wanting to be a safe person and being a safe person are not the same thing. But I am also going to take whatever actions I can to truly be a safe person.
onceafatgirl 