onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Relationships”

09 Feb 2025

I just hope both teams have fun.

I didn’t remember the Super Bowl was today. I don’t particularly care about sports in general or football specifically. I am interested in the cultural aspects like the commercials and the half time show, but I always feel just as good being in bed in real time and catching up the next day. 

My husband and I are on the road away from family and friends but even when we happen to be at home, we don’t really do Super Bowl parties. And I have to say that I believe a big part of this is that he doesn’t really care about food and I don’t eat the food anymore.

For the past 19 years I have avoided food focused media. Social, print, video, the whole thing. My husband will often tease me by saying I lack awareness of my surroundings. But it’s generally just a fast food joint. Like he asked if I went to the grocery store with a Burger King in the parking lot. And I told him I had no idea. But then I told him there was an Ace Hardware there, and we agreed it was the same place.

I don’t see fast food places. They literally do not register. But an Ace Hardware might have bendable wire to make a crochet doll’s limbs movable. You can see I simply have my own priorities.

My point is that I don’t see fast food restaurants because they have zero use in my life. (Ok, potentially a bathroom…)

20 years ago I really may have cared about the Super Bowl for taco dip and football shaped cookies. Because I was always thinking about food. And a party like that is centered around food. And the kind of food where it’s all laid out and people can come and go as they please. 

The truth is I would almost certainly have looked forward to the food, and then been filled with shame and guilt and anxiety over it once I was there in front of it. Because I hated my body. And I hated people seeing me eat in my “unworthy” body. And I hated that I could not control my eating. Really my weight. I loved eating. I just hated being fat and everyone seeing it. 

I am grateful that today I don’t have to eat. That I both stopped hating fatness and started to love freedom from my sugar addiction. I love my food! I love that when I do not eat compulsively, all of it is guilt free. I am grateful I don’t feel like I am missing out. I just hope both teams and all my friends have fun!

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02 Feb 2025

The Other F Word

A particular thing that has come up for me several times this week is the word fat, and how I feel about it and how the rest of society feels about it.

I use it as a neutral descriptor. But I forget that that is after well over a DECADE of dismantling my internalized fat phobia. 

See I *hate* the euphemisms. Every fat person has the ones they can tolerate and the ones they despise. But you sure as hell are not going to get any kind of consensus. And the truth is, we use the euphemisms because we have made the word fat an insult all the time.

Even after I have taken all of the sting of the word away for myself, there continue to be people who will hear me describe my young self as fat and insist that I was not fat! That I was pretty. (Spoiler alert: I was both!!!) For so many people fat is never ok. It has connotations of laziness, incompetence, dirtiness, and general lack of self control.

My husband does not like to use the word. And I have to say he regularly makes me cringe with his euphemisms of choice. 

I watched an American woman on social media talk about plus size stores in Japan and how they all have “fat” in the store name. And that it was clearly an insult. (The truth is, it probably is? But that is Japan.) We’re here in the USA and she was only willing to say “plus sized.” And made it very clear that in her world, the word fat is a rude slight. 

And then in a conversation with a friend on social media about the woman who was denied a Lyft ride, he very specifically chose not to use the word fat. And said so when I did use it. Because of the connotations. Because he was trying to keep it neutral.

The United States has a problem with fatness. We hate it as a culture. And the truth is, the refusal to use the word makes all of the euphemisms just reinforce the fact that we are being “delicate” about a thing we find shameful. When someone tells us we’re not fat we’re pretty, they are making sure we know we’re “one of the good ones.”

Once I made the choice to accept my body as the holy vessel it is, I do not judge bodies. And if I say that I was, or someone else is fat, it only means that their beautiful and unique vessel is bigger and has more fat than other beautiful unique vessels. Not that I have a judgement on their beauty or heart or their humanity.

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26 Jan 2025

Not the same person anymore anyway

I recently started doing my meditation practice as a walking meditation with a mantra. The mantra is Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

I made the change because I felt like my mind was wandering during sitting meditation. It has definitely been a good experience so far. My mind doesn’t wander nearly as much. Plus I am getting an interesting look at how many “programs” I have running at the same time in my head.

I don’t know if changing my meditation will change anything else, but my experience is that small changes *can* cause huge unexpected transformations. 

When I got sick in early 2022 I got adult onset asthma. But I didn’t know because I hated doctors. And I am deeply stubborn.

I couldn’t breathe to jog, but I had a commitment to workout 5 days a week. A COMMITMENT! I take that shit seriously. So for as long as I could I still jogged. And it was brutal. I was making myself sick and dizzy regularly. And then like NINE MONTHS LATER I started walking stairs instead of jogging. 

Stairs changed so many things for me. First by butt. I started to have a butt. Which changed my entire outlook on skinny. Because I *wanted* a butt. I was actively trying to get bigger not smaller for the first time in my life. For anyone who was ever a fat girl, you know this is monumental. And my daily cardio is still stairs, though now on a fancy stepper where I regularly step a 10 minute mile which both makes me deeply proud and keeps my butt getting bigger!

And somewhere in there, yes also with the desperate pleas of my husband who likes me very much it would seem, I even waded my way through first using urgent care, then getting myself a doctor and actually taking care of my asthma and the rest of my health. Like blood work and mammograms and the whole nine. Decades of terror and trauma dealt with in less than a year. 

How??? I don’t know. But I wasn’t the same person anymore anyway. 

I don’t know if walking meditation will change anything. But I can’t say that it won’t. The truth is I am ready for change. And I’m telling Life by making some changes of my own in my time. 

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19 Jan 2025

Worth every boring moment

I made another very cool pouch! A Taco Pouch, with a zipper and a taco fabric lining. It’s amazing! I love it!

But on Wednesday this past week I did not love where I was. All of the creative part was done. All that was left to do was assembly. So lots of detail work. 

My husband is a kind of construction worker, and he runs jobs where they build and install machines. And we sometimes talk about “show steel” which is the part of the job that looks impressive. Like if yesterday there was nothing but an empty space there and now there’s a bunch of machine standing up all over the factory. But for the next few days, the work will be detail work. It will be tightening bolts and putting up handrail, etc. Which still needs to be done, but doesn’t look like anything. And it doesn’t impress anyone.

So all I had left on Wednesday was detail work. And I had a great new idea for a cheeseburger pouch! So I didn’t *want* to iron fabric and make and cut out patterns on graph paper, and impale myself on straight pins while trying to cut and sew. 

But I did. Because crafting is not only about the creative part. For me it’s about details. About my own fastidiousness. About craft. About my understanding that a job worth my time and energy is worth utmost care and attention.

And I’m so glad I did. Because it’s a real masterpiece. I am so proud of it!

And then about 1/3 of the way through the cheeseburger, I needed a break. I had exhausted my creativity. 

So for the past few days I have been not creating. I’ve been cleaning. Doing mindless knitting that is all hands and rhythm and no brain.

I think if I had not finished Taco Pouch, I would not be able to. It would have been lost in the creative void with the pieces of a bunny and the head and body of a discarded character doll and a handful of other projects.

But I did complete it. And now when I am filled up again creatively and ready to make again, I can get back to my cheeseburger. And know that I have a history of completing these pouches, even when I am at the boring part. 

There is pride in knowing I will do what it takes to make something to completion. It doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s something I have had to cultivate. And it’s worth every boring needle pricked moment.

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05 Jan 2025

I didn’t even want to be here

Honestly, I don’t even want to be here. There is a super ambitious (for me) project I’m working on. I’m cloth lining a crochet pouch and adding a zipper.

My first cloth lining. My first adding a zipper. I made my own pattern on graph paper. The piece, currently in progress, has gross imperfections that I will have to come up with better techniques for to make more in the future. But I always have a kind of deep knowing that I am good at making. And that I love it. That even the dissatisfaction is its own kind of satisfaction.

But I have the life I have because I take self care seriously and treat it methodically. 

I write this blog every week because I am committed to writing about my life as a recovering sugar addict. It’s self care like journaling, meditation, and exercise. Once I got my eating under control I could see that commitment was life changing. And that talking openly regularly about sugar addiction was a way I wanted to change my life. And it worked.

So here I am writing when I would rather be accidentally stabbing myself with needles and pins…(ok, I do actually hate that part. But I want to get back to it nonetheless.)

I could burn myself out on making. I want to. The addict in me absolutely wants to. I want to binge it the way I used to binge chocolate. Forget about my commitments. Just zone out.

And I used to make that way. Crazy up all night sugar fueled binges of compulsive creating. Too emotional to have the time or patience to actually care about craft. 

Being forced to stop to take care of my commitments, like eating my 3 meals, doing each of my weekly workouts, sleeping 8 hours a night, has made it possible for me to make more patiently. To take care of the details. There is no rush. 

It often felt like inspiration would go away if I didn’t finish. And sometimes it did go away. And sometimes it still does. 

But in the end, when I stop even when I don’t want to, to do things I know I need to, I get further, I learn more, and I make better. 

Now that this commitment is done I can make a little more. 

Until lunch.

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29 Dec 2024

The sanity, but also really, the vanity.

This week a young person mistook me for a fellow young person. (Cue that Steve Buscemi gif.) And when she asked for my skin care routine, I told her. (Cosrx hyaluronic acid serum and moisturizer. Sunscreen every day.) But I also really felt the need to say that it *really* is the no sugar no alcohol. 

When people come to do what I do with food, almost all of them come to get skinny. They come for intentional weight loss. It’s why I came in January of 2006.

But it’s kind of a trap. A nice, gentle trap. Because I have not been skinny the whole time I have had my eating under control. But I have always been peaceful. A kind of peace I have never had before quitting sugar and putting boundaries around my eating. 

We call it “coming for the vanity and staying for the sanity.”

But here is the other thing. We are GORGEOUS! We are stunners all the way into our 60s, 70s and 80s!!!! I’m talking about women I know personally. Women who lived fast and wild in their youth! Women who ate themselves into wheelchairs before quitting sugar and becoming beautiful. Giving up sugar and alcohol is a kind of fountain of youth. 

I don’t miss sugar. I don’t miss alcohol. I don’t miss worrying about becoming diabetic because I can’t stop eating. And I don’t miss worrying about and hating my looks!

I spent the first 28 years of my life constantly simultaneously hating myself and worrying about what other people were thinking about my body. And now I don’t think about my looks except to assume that everyone thinks I am beautiful. It’s never on my mind. That’s so much extra room to do things that make me happy!

It’s a miracle. It’s the vanity and the sanity. 

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22 Dec 2024

No void to fill this Christmas

I am in Chicago for a few days for some pre-holiday celebrating. But not actual holiday. We are headed back to our apartment in SLC on Christmas Eve, and we will celebrate Christmas by not really doing much of anything. Yay!

‘Cause I don’t really care about Christmas.

Here’s part of it: I love my life every day. I’m not anxiously anticipating a special day. I like my regular days. And in fact, these special days are often exhausting if you do the bells and whistles. 

So I don’t do the bells and whistles. And I don’t want to. And I thankfully married a man who doesn’t want to either. 

Having my eating under control makes it possible to be unapologetically myself. I don’t feel pressured to do things to please others. Or to meet other’s’ expectations. (And the truth is half the time I was just meeting what I assumed others’ expectations would be.) But instead now I already like myself. I don’t need to try to make everyone happy to fill that void. 

So this year we are keeping holidays low key. Seeing family. Spending time. Enjoying company. And then leaving and enjoying peace and quiet.

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17 Nov 2024

Love for my present, clarity about my past

When I got my eating under control in January 2006 (January 2nd, because I will absolutely “start next year”) I wanted to lose weight. More, I wanted to be able to control my weight. I wanted to be able to tell my body what to do and how to do it. And I wanted to tell it to be skinny. 

The joke, of course, is that while I have had my eating under control for over 18 years, I have never been able to “control” my weight. My body does what it does. And while I have never been exactly fat again since I quit sugar, I have been many sizes from a 4 US to a 14 US. That is with my eating under control! That is with me sane and nourished and eating 3 portion controlled meals a day. 

I have noticed several things in my 18+ years in a group of mostly women with their sugar addiction arrested. Many women’s bodies do not fluctuate the way mine does. They lose their weight and they just sort of live in that body for the rest of their lives as long as they keep our eating boundaries. I think it doesn’t occur to them that not all bodies behave that way. The way I once assumed all bodies processed sugar the same way…

Also, I want to say that I can see that I had a truly “easy time” getting my eating under control when compared to other people’s stories. And mine was still awful. I mean BRUTAL! But I did not have the kind of internal struggle that many people do. I did not have to start over repeatedly. I was on autopilot in the beginning, and I rode that wave for a long time before it got difficult. And logistically I was single, no kids, living alone. And I had never cared about fitting in. I was a nonconformist from childhood. Being the weirdo with her own food meant NOTHING to me. 

I was literally just desperate to stop hating myself. And I though that being fat was why I hated myself, so I was desperate to stop being *that.*

But here’s the thing. When I first started with my food program, they explained to me that I have a disease and an allergy, and that it is not a moral issue. I wasn’t fat because I was bad. I was addicted to sugar and simple carbohydrates, and when I put them in my body, they set up a cycle of craving. And knowing that made it possible to stop hating myself and shaming myself. And not hating myself made it possible for me to not NEED to be numb.

But there is still this underlying idea that the “good” thing, the “right” thing is for people to do what we do with food. Fat people I mean. There is still so much moral judgement about bodies based on aesthetics, rather than an eye for helping people not hate themselves.

It took so many years to untangle my fat phobia from my self hatred and sugar addiction. I know some time in the first few years of this blog I admitted how I judged and didn’t like being around fat people. And I spent years picking apart the whys. And they turned out to be because I still hated that poor sugar addicted fat girl I was growing up.

Now I have so much room for her. She really was doing the best she could. She really did need all that numb for her childhood. And she really was not as awful and evil as I (and she) thought she was. 

But I could never have seen that except in giving up sugar, getting my compulsive eating under control, and liking and loving the person I am now. It’s in having love for my present that I can have some clarity about my past.

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10 Nov 2024

My body. My choice. In all things.

When I got my eating under control, I acquired a new level of responsibility for my body. I was purposefully aware of everything that went into it. And as time went on, I took on various commitments to take practical actions toward caring for my vessel. And by practical I mean specific, quantifiable, measurable steps. What a workout looks like and how many days a week I will do that. How much water I will drink a day. How much sleep I will get and what that means about getting to bed. How many journal pages I will write every day. How many minutes I will meditate. Whatever I need to put in place to consistently take care of myself.

Before that, I didn’t know what went into my body because I did not want to know. I didn’t know how my time was spent because I didn’t want to know how much time I wasted. I didn’t want to look. And I didn’t want to see the results. 

But not knowing makes everything worse. The stories in my head vacillated wildly from a total lack of consequences, to a fate worse than anything imaginable. My head is a dangerous neighborhood.

Not looking never did me any good. 

And looking always let me see that my list of problems is truly finite. There is an end. And (so far anyway) my issues are all surmountable through attention and action. 

After all, I never thought I would be able to stop eating compulsively, and here we are, 18+ years later, and sugar doesn’t control me anymore. 

I am reminded this week that it’s more important than ever that I be aware of and responsible for my body. Fully. And unapologetically. My body. My choice. In all things. 

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03 Nov 2024

A grocery date and the joys of eating

The other day my husband  asked me if I wanted to go on a date. To try out a new grocery store.

If this doesn’t sound romantic to you, you are clearly not food obsessed or married to someone food obsessed. I am obsessed. He knows me.

This is real romance, people. Take notes.

And to top it off, this grocery store ended up being magical. I went back today for my weekly shopping. There is everything I need to keep my eating boundaries. Great meats and fresh fish. Sugar free bacons and sausages! Yes, even Italian sausage!!! Wheat germ. The condiments I need. So many varieties. And the persnickety things I want. The c4 pre workout in the sizes and flavors I want. The paper towels I want in the sizes I want. 

But also there is a real life swear to god jewelry store. A clothing store (I haven’t even stepped in there yet.) Furniture. Home decor. Art supplies. YARN AND CRAFTING TOOLS! (Be proud of me. I did not buy any today!) It’s like a Walmart but so much nicer! And really first it’s a grocery store!!! My first love! Food! 

Feeling like I am eating like a queen is the best way for me to feel at home. And I have been so happy with my food. It absolutely makes up for all of the things I don’t really love here.

My new cucumber salad is spectacular. Ice cream made with my favorite yogurt that I can’t even find in Chicago is beyond words! Plus trying new breakfasts. Cold hard boiled eggs instead of fried. Delicious. And different. Also, I have not made bacon once yet!!! (Don’t worry. I will. It’s in the fridge. I’m just sayin…it’s a long time for me.)

There’s that saying, “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” When I was eating compulsively and in active sugar addiction, my addiction *was* in charge. And if she wasn’t happy, my life was in ruins and I was going to ruin everyone else’s life for the moment too. And it’s hard to be happy when you alway need more.

Since I got my eating under control, my eating life is content. Always. Momma is calm and has been for years. But I have also never stopped experiencing the joys of eating. And so far, eating here has been particularly joyful. And for that I am grateful.

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