onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Relationships”

15 Jun 2025

Get in line

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. 

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08 Jun 2025

Can you keep your morality away from my food?

‘Tis the season…For giant cantaloupes!!!!!

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.

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25 May 2025

To Wren, and her best life

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.

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11 May 2025

Probably not the last time either

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.

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04 May 2025

Impact. Not intention.

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.

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20 Apr 2025

Shameless food shameless body

I have been having a little bout of body dysmorphia this week. I looked in the mirror yesterday and I looked very fat to myself. And I had some kind of judgment about it. Not positive. But also sort of disconnected from any real physical sensation. There was not the pain of hating myself. There was not any despair or dread. Just a kind of mean thought like if I saw a really unfashionable woman at the mall. (Yes. I am judging your fashion, people!)

I need to say that I am objectively the same size I have been for months because I am wearing clothes that fit the same. If anything I may be slightly smaller. But my body dysmorphia is not rational. If it were they would call it something else.

So I kept looking at myself until my body lost its already minimal emotional charge. 

Even in that moment that little judgment didn’t go away entirely, but I don’t expect it  ever will. All of my addictions and disorders are just reined in for the time I have my eating under control and I’m taking care of myself, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. 

One of the strongholds of my body dysmorphia when I was still in the food was eating foods I was ashamed of eating. Shame feeds the body dysmorphia. (Which is not to say that they were bad foods. I’m not the food police. I’m a sugar addict.) 

I (we all) had been told what good women with good bodies ate, but I wasn’t eating those things. So I was fat. Plus I hated my body. Plus I was ashamed of the foods I was eating. So when I looked in the mirror and saw something I hated, even if it were objectively untrue, it made sense. It *felt* real. 

Taking the morality out of food loosened the grip of my body hate. And that blunted the majority of the agony of the body dysmorphia. Sugar is a drug to me. My body is a still. It turns sugar and grains to alcohol on its own. I don’t need to eat skinless chicken breast and steamed broccoli to be a good woman with a good body. I do need to quit and stay away from foods that will get me high and kick off cravings. And also stop caring about whether someone else would call me a good woman with a good body…

I have eating rules. Foods to eat and foods to abstain from, weighed and measured portions and timeframes.  But with the *understanding* that I should be eating foods I LOVE. Every day. Every meal I can! I belong to a community that is for abundance not deprivation. It’s how I can do it for over 19 years. It’s how I still love it 19 years later. It’s how I feel good in my body. Because when I don’t feel shame about my food, why should I feel shame about my body?

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13 Apr 2025

Practice makes me proud of myself

I watched a video on social media this week about how if you want to truly be an activist a great step to take is to start some slow hobbies. To learn how to continuously work and wait with hope.

Not results.

And I looked at myself, which I do when I am confronted with something that I want or am afraid that I lack, and I realized that that is what having my eating under control has been teaching me, a day at a time, for over 19 years. 

In fact, it was in getting my eating under control that I not only returned to crochet, but for the first time in my life, had the wherewithal, the attention span, the patience, and the cognitive capacity to significantly advance my skills. Then I had the desire to take on yet another craft, knitting. Then embroidery. Weaving. All the while still learning new crochet techniques. New knitting. Trying new things. Designing! Designing crochet dolls. Designing crochet doll clothes. Designing accessories for dolls. 

I can make things that only existed in my head before! Things that were once just yarn and stuffing and my imagination are now art.

But that took time. So much time. So many years of trials and failures and biting off more than I could chew. And sometimes managing to succeed anyway! And sometimes just not. And having to take 2 steps back. And having to take 200 steps back! Years, coming on decades.

Addiction and instant gratification have a lot in common. And there are many ways that they overlap. When I was in the food, actively in my sugar addiction and eating compulsively, the instant gratification of sugar always got me too high to really be able to advance in learning much of anything. And any project that didn’t come out the way I expected was a miserable failure. And anything I did had to be done in a frenzied burst, before I got too high on sugar and sort of ran out of steam.

I did creating but it was always long on idea and short on execution.

When I put boundaries around my eating, first thing I had to learn was to wait at least 4 hours between meals, plus over night for breakfast. That felt like an eternity to me. It was literally painful sometimes. It sometimes felt like I was going to die. That’s not hyperbole. It’s addiction.

So learning to wait to eat was a lesson. Then doing something to pass the time was a lesson. Then rediscovering my love of learning was a lesson.

Keeping my eating under control is a practice. There is no end goal. It’s an ongoing lifetime goal of authentic living. It’s a lifetime commitment to process. And I only have that because I happen to be a sugar addict, who is now in recovery. A happy outcome to a shitty situation.

So many of the best and most fulfilling aspects of my life are a direct result of getting my eating under control and thereby gaining the ability and possibility of choosing delayed gratification. The possibility of practice. Of doing something just because I do it.

Because if I am goal oriented, at 4:30 in the morning, my butt is not going to be as good an incentive to get out of bed. But I am going to get out of bed anyway, because I work out with my husband at 5, so I may as well get that butt. It’s the workout that is the practice. An hour a day, 5 days a week, to practice loving movement and strengthening of my sacred vessel.

My workout, my meditation, my sleep, my skin care, and my eating are all ways that I take care of myself every day. And any results are from consistency and are a bonus. I do them because the practice makes me proud of myself. Period.

It is a blessing for me to have learned the lesson of patience, of growth, of worthwhile things taking time to build, before the pervasiveness of things like Door Dash and Amazon Prime. Because I cannot imagine how much less patience, or how little capacity for change I would have now if I had not put boundaries around my eating 19 years ago. 

It’s worth the reminder for myself that worthwhile things take patience and time. And that the things that I want and want to be a part of, are going to take, not just work, but work, plus time and hope. 

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06 Apr 2025

I (over)stepped in it.

I violated a friend’s boundary this week. With no malice or ill intent. And I didn’t even think I was in the moment. But I did. And shit, did that suck!

My immediate internal reaction when she called me on it, even though she was so sweet about it, was defensiveness. All of these rebuttals flashed through my mind! *But you said! But I thought! But I didn’t mean it and you can’t blame me.* 

But years ago when I wanted to find my husband and fall in love, the best advice I got was stop looking for a husband and start *being* the kind of partner I wanted to find. And that is just great life advice. Be the kind of person I want in my own life.

How would I want someone to react to a generously set boundary? 

So I did what I have heard called “fall forward fast.” I immediately apologized, assured her of my good intentions, but also acknowledged the harm I did. I asked for forgiveness and immediately set to make it right based on her desires. 

And how she came back to me later was with so much additional generosity. Coming up with ways that she could accommodate me and keep her own boundaries. And that was amazing. And I feel even closer to her! Which is a joy! 

But I also want to say, I had a hard time forgiving myself. I slept uneasy that night. And I woke up still a little ashamed. 

Part of me thinks that this stuff is supposed to feel good. A weight off my shoulders from knowing I have honored another person. And usually it does. But right now it just makes all of the relationships in my life feel more important. And maybe more fragile. And like the stakes of being a person who can be trusted and counted on, are higher than ever.

I learned to set boundaries at all when I learned to set them around my eating. But they have turned out to be one of the best tools for living I have. Because boundaries aren’t to shut people out. They are to keep people in our lives. 

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16 Mar 2025

To trust and be trusted

Today is 12 years with my husband and our 9th wedding anniversary. He was my only boyfriend ever. And he didn’t come into my life (back into my life – we were childhood friends) until I had my eating under control for 7 years. 

SEVEN YEARS! And I was GORGEOUS! And 35 and single that whole time. And that sort of frustrated me, and made me angry at Life. Like I did the thing to be socially acceptable and I wanted my “reward.”

But as I mentioned earlier, I had had my eating under control for years. And those years really do accumulate in terms of clarity and self-trust. So I knew better than to decide that just anyone would do. 

I chose a partner who would grow with me. Maybe not at the same time or at the same rate, but by their own standards and choices. And I could do that, see and choose that, because I was growing the whole time I wasn’t eating compulsively and high on sugar. And he was either going to like that and choose to stick around. Or he was going to be disappointed and leave. 

That is what I have learned the most clearly from having my eating under control: My life is the most fulfilling when I am unapologetically myself. I attract MY people. I repel people who are offended by me or the fact that they cannot change me. 

I won’t imply that I am not physically beautiful, because I certainly am. But I am also weird. And loud. And ridiculous. And purposely annoying. And I live 300+ days a year in yoga pants and an oversized men’s hoodie. And I leave a trail of either yarn or hair or both positively everywhere. And I sob until I’m dehydrated, sometimes because I’m desperately sad and sometimes because the character in the audiobook I’m listening to has been grievously betrayed and humiliated. And I am also not a spectacular housekeeper. 

But I AM a quality partner and friend. A person my communities can count on. Honest, honorable and generous. A person of integrity. An empathetic and loving companion. Because I have my sugar addiction and my compulsive eating under control.

When I was eating compulsively I only thought about how things would impact me. How they would hurt me. I didn’t care about the impact I had on others. And I would throw anyone under the bus to “take care” of myself. I would not have been a good partner. I would only have been looking at myself. But I was still very upset that I was not a “girlfriend” or a “wife.” That I had not been chosen!

Being a member of the community of men and women who support one another in keeping our sugar addiction arrested taught me that being of service is its own kind of self care and spiritual nourishment. And because of being active in my community I know that allowing someone to be of service to me is also part of love and community.

When I asked a friend in my community how she found her partner, she said she stopped looking for a partner and became the kind of person she wanted to date. Basically, don’t wait to be someone’s partner to start to learn how to be a good partner. A sort of spiritual Be Do Have. 

I am very grateful for my husband. And for 12 years of partnership. And for all of the ways we have inspired each other to be better for ourselves. But also very much for my own willingness to trust and be trusted.

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09 Mar 2025

Do the next thing and hope it’s the right thing

Throughout my life I spent a lot of time being told “the way it is” about so many things. And really just not believing. Just deciding that I was going to do it my way and see what could happen. 

I definitely did not choose the path of least resistance. Kind of ever. 

But when it came to my body I *never* believed there was any other possibility than the very narrow one I felt confined to. I was fat. I had a certain shape. That was just the way it was.

When I quit sugar and carbohydrates and started to weigh my food 19 years ago, that was the very first time that I felt like I had any control over my body. Before that my own body had felt like a curse and a force of nature. I could lose weight, but I could never really stop eating. Every weight loss felt like a lie. I KNEW that it was unsustainable. Until I stopped putting my drug in my system. 

So ok. That was amazing. I could stop eating sugar and I could be “not fat.” But I still had a very specific shape and it was “weird.” I had to dress to “hide my flaws.” My weight distribution was all up front. I had  big belly. I had wide hips but no butt. My shorter right leg (from when I was born with a club foot and they put me in a full cast from hip to toe) was bigger and stronger and so was/is my right foot. I carried almost all of my weight on it all the time. My right hip hurt constantly. It was just the way it was. And it was still a more comfortable and easy body than when I was eating compulsively.

And then I started walking stairs and as my butt got bigger my center of balance moved way back so I was no longer balancing on my toes. And my belly got smaller as my balance shifted back. But as my legs got stronger and stronger my back started to get tighter and I had to spend a lot of time stretching and massaging my leg muscles to open my back up.

So a couple of weeks ago I started using a lift in my right shoe to accommodate the full one inch difference between my left and right legs. And that ended up making a huge difference in my back. 

In less than 2 full weeks it has reduced my back and hip pain and significantly increased my range of motion backwards. 

None of these things ever felt like anything I had any kind of power over. They felt predestined and set in stone. But I just didn’t know anything. And when people or media or movies told me about “how it was” with bodies like my body, I just believed them in a way I didn’t for almost anything else.

I was ashamed of myself and my body when I was in the food. Ashamed of my fatness, ashamed of my shape, ashamed of any anomalous aspect. And that kept me from even thinking of simple fixes. I would have to be worthy of that. I would have to just be in need of a little help. Not irrevocably broken…

But now that my eating is under control, I love my body. The beautiful, the weird, and the weirdly beautiful. And by loving my body I have a shot at taking an action that leads to me loving it more. Like putting a lift in my shoe. 

I am trying to remember every day and in all things that there is no “way it is.” There is only the way it has been and my choice of what to do next for myself and my community. And I’m trying to remember that I did not know what was possible before I started any of these things. I just did the next thing and hoped it was the right thing. 

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