onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “blogging”

15 Dec 2019

If you don’t like Lizzo, don’t look.

One thing about writing a blog that is so personal is that sometimes I need to stew on things for a while. I need to sort my feelings and my thoughts. A lot of things, as they relate to fatness or society’s view of fatness, can be particularly loaded for me.

I have some things brewing in my head that I have not gotten a handle on. Things that are so emotional for me that I don’t want to write about them this week. Things around what it means to *choose* to lose weight in a fat phobic society. And how it reflects on fatness to love having lost weight. To have zero regrets about not just having my eating under control, but to also be in a smaller, easier, more comfortable, and more socially acceptable body.

But then this week, while I was trying to sort out these very personal feelings, about some very personal choices, I ended up hearing Joe Rogan and Michelle Wolf talk about Lizzo on his podcast and I was reminded again how being fat is vilified in this society. And how the argument for vilifying it is that it *isn’t* vilified, or at least not enough. 

Lizzo, of course, is a fat, black rap artist who has had a year very much in the spotlight. She regularly dresses provocatively, dances in sexy and suggestive ways, and enjoys herself and her body. She has fat, black backup dancers who also dress and dance provocatively and enjoy themselves and their bodies. In other words, she is unapologetically fat and black and encourages fat blackness. And while this clearly speaks to a lot of people, as her popularity suggests, there is a lot of backlash.

On his podcast, Joe Rogan asks (in all seriousness, which would make me laugh if it weren’t so angering) why Lizzo is allowed to show her butt, while thin women (women *he* would actually want to see) are not allowed to. I would like to know where this magical land where Mr. Rogan resides is, that loves it when fat women show off their bodies and doesn’t like it when thin women do. Because I want to go there and be worshipped as the goddess that I am! 

This idea that thin women are not loved and admired for being thin is ridiculous. It’s blatantly false. Look at any tv show, magazine ad, calendar, literally anything depicting women, and tell me that half-naked to naked thin women are looked at with scorn. How many people have been upset by Victoria’s Secret fashion shows with skinny women’s butts on display. 

And then Joe Rogan made the comparison of Lizzo showing her butt to a baboon showing its butt. I wonder if he has ever made the same comparison when a thin woman has shown her butt. Is he comparing Victoria’s Secret models to animals? I’m going to guess not.

And the other thing that makes me angry is this idea of “confidence” as a code word when dealing with the discussion of fat bodies. Confidence, when used in this context, really means “nobody actually wants to see that so you must be confident if you’re going to show it anyway.”

And that seems to be the general through line. Certain groups (I’m looking at you straight men) have decided that what they want to see, or at least what they claim they want to see, is the most important thing. That they are the valid voice of truth and beauty. But the actual truth is that lots of people want to see that. All sorts of people. 

So here is the thing for me. When I was fat, there were lots of straight men who were attracted to me. Lots of classically good looking, thin men. And they pretended they weren’t in public, and treated me like shit, because they were embarrassed to be attracted to me. So I am going to guess that there are a lot of straight men who are attracted to Lizzo. Not by her “confidence,” but by her actual body. The one she’s using to dance and sing and be joyful.

And here’s another thing. Straight men are not the only people whose attraction counts. Many of the people who are attracted to Lizzo are going to be women. Lesbians count. They have opinions and tastes. They have money to buy the things that are being sold. And many are going to be straight women who have been told that they are not sexy. But they look at Lizzo and they think she’s sexy. So they can maybe start to look at their own sexiness. They count too. 

Here’s the deal. Everyone counts. And just like I do when I see underwear models that I find too skinny, too filled with silicone and botox, and too plastic, Joe Rogan, and all of the dudes who don’t want to see, and all of the women who are shocked and appalled, can turn it off, change the channel, not look.

I am still unpacking a lot of thoughts and feelings about where I fit in a fat phobic society when I go to great lengths to both have my eating under control, and keep my weight at a place that is comfortable for me. But do not tell me that thin women have somehow gotten a raw deal because one fat black woman is unapologetically loving her fatness. I will not be buying what you are selling.  

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Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Apr 2019

Not a special kind of fat

I forgot I had to write a blog today. That, my friends, is what the alarm is for. I have an alarm that goes off on Sunday morning, asking if I posted a blog. Today, the answer was no. Actually, the answer was a lot of profanity, because I was just about to cook for the week. Anyway, time to write.

I have been thinking a lot about the fact that this blog has changed significantly over the years. And as I have gotten healthier, spiritually and emotionally, it has become less compelling.
I am not saying that I don’t have a compelling blog occasionally, but compared to the kinds of things I was writing 7 years ago, when I was working through a lot of leftover stuff from growing up fat, my writing has been…I don’t know. Maybe just less compelling. 
I am not yet ready to hang up my keyboard on this. Not yet, anyway. The act of writing every week makes a difference in my life. It helps me remember that I am a compulsive eating sugar addict every day. Even when it all seems like regular old life. It helps me remember that there are still people out there suffering who should know that if they are unhappy in the life they are in, and the body they are in, and the mind they are in, that there is a solution. One that works.  Not just “for a time” but for months. Years. Over a decade! Who would have thought it? 
When I think about the fact that I spent the entire decade of my 30s with my food under control, that seems like a miracle. Quite frankly, it was a miracle. When I think about the fact that my 40s have me as a person who works out 5 days a week, like a practice, that also is a miracle. 
I was a person who shunned things like caring about my body because I thought they were impossible for me. I thought I was a special kind of fat. The kind that could not be changed. So I hated people who could maintain a healthy weight. I hated people who could and did work out. In my head I ridiculed them. For being shallow. For being obnoxious. For being “normal.” 
But the longer I grow into a person who honors self-care, the more I see that people who care for their bodies are not “normal.” That they are rare. And ever rarer. They are the ones making a difference for themselves and for others.
I am not skinny. I talk about this a lot. Especially lately, while I am getting older and holding more fat on my body. And because I don’t eat low calorie foods in order to maintain a lower weight. It also helps that in my happily married (not so) old age, I don’t have to judge my body through the eyes of some imagined future partner. And that has changed my perception of self-care. I work out because I love my body. I don’t eat sugar because I love my freedom from food addiction. I don’t worry about the weight of my self. I worry about the weight of my protein at each meal. I weigh that out exactly. I weigh all of my food. I follow rules. And by doing that I can let my body be what it is.
So perhaps this is not as compelling as when I was working out my past in front of all of you. But I am currently particularly grateful that I am here, being the proof that even the most “specially fat” of us has hope. And that even the most steadfastly “anti-health”-on-principle of us can have a change of heart and a workout routine.
And yes. I did my workout my 5 days this week. Outside. With the big ol’ hill. And it felt great to keep my commitment.
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26 Aug 2018

Even if I don’t use my whole ass

Welcome to this week’s blog post. It’s goin to be half-assed because I forgot about it until my alarm went off just now asking if I wrote one this week.

Yikes!!!!!

I have this alarm for exactly this reason. Because sometimes I forget that I have to write a blog every week. And I have a commitment to post. Even when I don’t know what to say. Even when I “don’t have time.”

Not having time is usually the reason I forget. I have a lot going on. And sometimes I need more rest time. I need more down time. I need a break and a breather. This week is one of those weeks.

But that doesn’t mean I skip it. It may, however, mean I half-ass it. I am allowed to do the bare minimum. What I am not allowed to do is make up excuses for when it’s OK to break a commitment.

I have genuinely forgotten once or twice. And I don’t have to wear a hair shirt or give myself 50 lashes. But I have to make amends to myself. I have to write as soon as I realize. I can’t let it be “no big deal.” The big deal is that I make promises to myself and I have to keep them. If I don’t, I don’t like myself, I don’t trust myself, and I don’t feel good.

A family member on Facebook wrote the other day that he gets down on himself when he has “a shit workout.” I don’t worry about how my workout went. I worry about whether or not it got done. Everything else is gravy. (Metaphorically speaking. I don’t eat flour or cornstarch.) I find a lot of relief in putting the emphasis on the doing, the practice, over the results.

But I will say this. Even in putting practice over results, I get results. Because if one does something long enough and with consistency, one will get results, even if that is nor the goal. Even if occasionally one doesn’t use one’s whole ass.

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03 Jan 2015
4 Comments

Happy other birthday to me

It is that time of year again. The New Year. And January 2nd is a special day for me. It is my double anniversary. My favorite day besides my biological birthday. My other birthday.

Nine years ago on January 1st, I was hopeless and desperate. And I had been in the death grip of my eating disorders. They were relatively new at the time. I had beed morbidly obese for most of my life at that point, but around 2004/2005, I had started a series of diets and workout regimes. I was going to get control of my body! I was going to lose weight! So I got coaches and trainers and started taking classes and counting calories. And I lost so much weight. But there was something wrong. Seriously wrong. The thinner I got, the crazier I got. I was irrational. I was reckless. And most importantly, I was terrified. And I couldn’t even identify that I was terrified.

Maintaining that new, thinner body was exhausting. And I didn’t understand it at the time, but what had me terrified was the unconscious understanding that I was never going to maintain that body. Because sugar ruled my life.

I have sometimes explained it like this: When I was fat, I was high on sugar. When I was dieting and exercising, I was high on losing weight. But being a certain size for any period of time is not exciting. You cannot get high on staying thin. And I wanted my drug back.

Check that. I wanted my drug back, but I wanted it in this new body. I wanted my drug back without consequences. I wanted to have done the work once so that the work would be done. Once and for all. I wanted to defy the laws of nature.

And I started eating again. Binge eating. Eating constantly. Mostly sugar and grains and starchy things. And I starting exercising in excess. Classes and running. Every day. Twice a day. I went all raw. No fat. Only green juice. And I started taking laxatives. Drinking castor oil. Administering enemas. And I started sticking toothbrushes down my throat.

And I was still gaining weight. And I was insane. Just trying to hold off a little bit longer before I gained back all of the weight and I was 300 lbs again. Before everyone would see it written all over me that I was a shameful, unworthy, unlovable blob. Before the clock struck midnight and I turned back into a pumpkin.

And then around November of 2005, I told the truth. About all of it. And somebody said that I had to start treating myself like an addict.

So I ate myself through the end of the year. No holds barred. It was a sad time for me. A time of self-disgust and resignation. Years later some friends would remind me that they saw me in that time and that I had said point blank, “I can’t stop eating.”

But on January 2, 2006, I met for the first time with a group of people who identified as sugar addicts and compulsive eaters. They had given up sugar, grains and starches, and put boundaries around their eating. And I started to do what they did.

I didn’t really believe it was going to work for me. I didn’t believe anything could work for me. I was utterly hopeless.

But maybe the best thing was for me to be so hopeless. Maybe my desperation was the reason it did work. Because it did. Since that day, I have not eaten sugar. I have kept boundaries around my eating. I have slowly changed the way I think about myself and life.

I am addicted to sugar. And when I was eating sugar, I could not stop. For years now, I have not had sugar in my body. So my body doesn’t crave it. But I could only get to this place with help. I think that’s important. It wasn’t willpower that brought me here. It wasn’t stick–to–itiveness. I don’t have those things around food. What I have is support. And willingness to take suggestions from people who have gone before me. And the opportunity to support others in their journey around food recovery.

A lot of life happens in 9 years. That doesn’t change because you get sober. But for me, no matter what happened – births, deaths, fights, reunions, vacations, vacation debacles, parties and partings – January 2nd is a day of celebration. I get to celebrate 9 years of freedom. That is 9 years of discovering who I really am, and sharing her with the world.

And January 2, 2015 was also the 3 year anniversary of this blog. Another big deal in my life.

Every week, I write a post here about being a woman living with eating disorders. I do it even when I think I have nothing interesting to say. I do it because I said I would. And this blog has been a chance for me to change my life.

I get to put ideas out in the world. I get to bounce them off of reality. I get to raise them up the flag pole and see who salutes. I get to see what gets bigger and more robust. And I get to see what floats away like dust. I believe this blog has sped up the natural pace of change in my life. I could not have made these changes if I were not sober from sugar and compulsive eating. But the writing, and the candid revealing, and the truth telling that have gone on here have made for a dynamic trajectory of growth and maturation in my life that sobriety alone could not have given me.

Anniversaries are about commitment. Nine years ago I made a commitment to myself about my eating. Three years ago I made a commitment to myself about sharing my experiences through writing. Commitments change the direction of one’s life. It is the natural order of things. And I believe that just the act of committing makes me a better person.

So I love January 2nd. It is a day that I celebrate myself. Because years ago, it was the day that I chose to honor myself. Twice. And because I continue to cultivate that honor.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , ,
11 Jan 2014
1 Comment

I write every week because I write every week

Oy vey, I did not want to write a blog this week.

No, there is no problem. All is perfectly lovely. In fact, I did not want to write a post this week because there are other things I would rather be doing.

I am working on a super fun crochet project right now. The closest thing to clothes I have ever made. And it is going really well!

And I have to read and critique a writing sample. Which I want to do for several reasons. To read something new. To help out a friend. To show gratitude for the honor of being thought worthy of such a request. But really, I have to because I said I would. There was a time in my life that I would have said I would do it, and would not have followed through. And I would have shrugged that off, like breaking my word was not a big deal.

Plus there are plenty of things to do around the house. I managed to change the sheets, straighten up the kitchen and load and run the dishwasher. But there is always laundry, and cooking that could get done.

So why am I posting this, albeit short and late, offering tonight?

The short and simple answer is because it’s what I do.

The longer answer, though still pretty darn simple, is that I have this delicious, rich, full life, filled with too many amazing options and opportunities to get to them all, because I keep commitments. Like posting a blog every week.

I have other commitments too. Meditation every morning. Flossing every day. Drinking 64 oz. of water a day. Just to name a few. And of course, the most important is keeping my eating disorders under control by putting boundaries around my eating. No matter what.

As with all promises, it is not really about making these commitments, but about keeping them. I am sure I made them to look and feel better. But I could think of a million reasons on any given day not to do any one of these things. (Well, not the food one. I’m pretty clear that there is never a reason to eat outside of my boundaries…) But I do them anyway.

I don’t do them for my health. I don’t even do them for vanity (which I personally find to be the great motivator.) I do them because I do them. I do them because they are what I do. That is the thing about commitment for me. I don’t keep it for a “reason.” If I did, it wouldn’t be a commitment. If I needed a reason, then there could be a reason not to. And then I’d never floss, or drink water.

Honoring my word, doing what I say I’m going to do, makes my life better. I don’t even know why. I just know that when I make and keep promises, my life gets bigger and better.

So here it is. My commitment to post a blog this week. Hey, I never said it had to be genius. Just done. Amen.

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , ,
04 Jan 2014
1 Comment

My head is midnight in a dangerous neighborhood

Well, there’s another year gone. And I don’t mean 2013. Though, that too, obviously.

January 2nd is my double anniversary. 8 years ago I stopped eating sugar, grains and starches and put boundaries around my eating. And 2 years ago I started writing this blog. So there are 2 things I want to talk about. But the theme is getting out of my head.

First, writing. And this blog. And how my life has seemed to change at warp speed since I started writing it.

I love the saying “I’m only as sick as my secrets.” Secrets are burdens. They are shame. They have this magic power. But it’s black magic. Dark magic. Secrets take my worries and doubts and fears, and amplify them. Secrets limit my options and play every story through to the worst possible conclusion. Secrets make the worst possible conclusion the only possible conclusion. Secrets make the thoughts that live in my head as real and inescapable as the chair I’m sitting on to write this. Secrets cause me to manifest the very things I am most terrified of. I know this. I have known this for a long time.

But then 2 years ago I started this blog. And I started to realize that there have been things that have lived in my head, and festered and swelled, that I didn’t even think of as secrets. That I didn’t know had grown toxic. Septic. I thought they were simply things I would rather not say out loud.

But it is, of course, the saying out loud that shifts everything. That gives me proper perspective and makes everything right-sized again. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I was an actor for a while. And a singer. I could get up on stage in front of a packed theater and not think twice about being nervous. But my knees often shake if I go up to sing karaoke in a neighborhood bar. In other words, I am better in front of a big crowd.

This blog has been about performing in front of a big crowd. I’m not telling my family or my friends something (though they are reading it too), I am telling nameless, faceless strangers.

Two years ago I made a decision. That I would tell a bunch of nameless, faceless strangers a bunch of things I would rather not say out loud. And the course of my life has shifted more drastically than I could ever have imagined. I have changed the way I thought about myself, my love, and my worth. And I have continually taken risks that I never would have taken on December 31, 2011. And the rewards have been beyond my wildest dreams. Love, adventure, travel, freedom, security. That is what has happened just from getting the ideas out of my head and on a page.

But then there’s 8 years of dealing with the food. And the importance of the actual boundaries. And what they mean in practical terms.

See there’s this thing that I have heard that upsets me deeply. That it is “normal” for people with eating disorders to have relapses. (I’m looking at you, “Psychology Today.”) And I have even heard that it is inevitable. And it upsets me for 2 reasons. The first is for myself. It fills me with a sense of fear and dread. What don’t I know that will send me into a tail-spin? What is my future going to be like if I relapse? Will I lose everything? My self-respect? My relationship? Not to mention the body…

But then I also fear that hearing that will give people who are suffering from eating disorders a serious case of the f***-its. I don’t want to spread the message that it’s normal or inevitable to relapse into bingeing or purging. I want to spread the message that there are ways to keep your eating under control. That while I don’t believe there is a cure for eating disorders, there is hope. That there are ways to keep them on a short leash.

And now, I’m not dead yet, so I don’t know what will happen in the future, but for 8 consecutive years, I have maintained control over my eating. And I am very much interested in continuing this streak. I do not want to go into relapse. And I work every day, in small but significant ways, to remember that I have eating disorders, and to renew my commitment to keep them under control.

When I hear that relapse is normal, and I start to feel anxious and frightened about the unforeseeable future and what will happen to me “when” I have a relapse, I remember that I have boundaries around my eating. That one meal at a time, I can maintain those boundaries. That people have maintained boundaries around their eating for multiple decades. That I don’t have to believe everything I read about eating disorders. Even if it comes from a respected, major journal.

My boundaries are not wishy-washy concepts and ideas about “moderation” and “satisfaction.” I’m talking about clearly defined rules. I’m talking about definitions. I’m talking about quantifiable, measurable, and specific. I am either within my boundaries or I am not. There are very few times when I have to “use my judgment” to figure out if something is within my boundaries. There are times, but they are rare. And I have a friend I get to ask if I feel uncomfortable about making the decision myself.

If you are wondering why I would possibly feel uncomfortable about making a decision about food for myself, let me explain (or remind you) that I weighed 300 lbs at 19 years old. My judgment about food and eating is…well, just plain bad. This is why I have rules and boundaries.

I also want to clarify that I am certainly not implying that there is shame in relapse. Everybody has their own story. Their own life. Their own journey. I am sick when it comes to food too. I am not immune to relapse. If I were, this idea of it being normal would not scare the bajeezus out of me, like it does. I just don’t think it’s fair to those of us who are suffering from eating disorders to hear that we are hopeless. That hurting and punishing ourselves with food is “normal.” Because that is what we do when we act out with food. We hurt ourselves.

Now in this past 8 years, there have been things that have happened in my head that might be considered “relapse.” For example, I have had spells of overwhelming body-dismorphia. Where I look at myself in the mirror and I see a hugely fat woman. And my rational brain cannot comprehend the truth. That I am in a healthy, smaller than average body. Or I have become “afraid” of certain foods that are well within my eating boundaries. And I have stopped eating them because the thought of them made me nauseous. Or sometimes literally made my cry.

But that was in my head. It had nothing to do with how or when or how much I ate. The food has been under control the whole time. And I know that it has. I’m clear that it has. Because all I have to do is ask myself if I have broken my rules or stepped out of my boundaries. And the answer is no. No I have not.

For me, relapse is about the food. Because the food is the one thing that I can control. My actions. When, where, and how my hand goes to my mouth. I cannot make my eating disorders disappear. I cannot just eat like a “normal” person. I have made the decision to accept that I am not now, and never will be normal around food. But I don’t have to binge. Or starve. Or restrict. Or vomit. Or use laxatives. Because I have a definition for “binge.” And one for “starve.” And “restrict.” Because these things are not gray areas for me. These are not merely ideas. I make sure they have strict grounding in reality.

In other words, I make sure these things don’t just live in my head. That like my secrets and the things I would rather not say out loud, that what goes on with my food sees the light of day. My head can be midnight in a dangerous neighborhood. I make sure not to wander off alone.

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14 Dec 2013

Don’t make me double dog dare you, 2014

I know that I am outspoken about not loving the holiday season, but there is something I do love about this time of year. I love the New Year. And I don’t just mean the parties. (Though there are aspects of New Year’s parties that contribute to it being one of my favorite holidays. Getting dressed up and dancing, traditional staples for New Year’s festivities, are two of my favorite things ever in the whole world ever.)

But what I really love is the opportunity to look back. To remember and reflect. And I love the opportunity to look forward. To anticipate and plan.

And I love when we choose to do this. That we do it around winter solstice. (Historically, the New Year has been celebrated either around the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, or around winter solstice, the first day of winter.) There is something beautiful to me about having the year end just after the darkest days are done. To make a new beginning just as the days begin to get longer again. We begin as it’s getting better. Waxing.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how different this time of reflection is for me since I got my eating under control. I was trying to remember which were the great years for me before 2006. And I thought about the fact that I don’t remember looking back on any year before then with fondness.

Not because they were all bad, I realize. But because I was a whiney, whiney complainer. Because I was always unhappy. Because I hated myself. And I hated life. And I was sure that God was out to get me. When I look back at my life, the things that I accomplished and the opportunities I was given, I can see that some of those years were pretty great. Exciting things happened for me. But I didn’t have any gratitude for them.

And then I started to think about the past 8 years and how wonderful they have been. But then I realized that they were not necessarily wonderful. They were certainly not all light, easy and fun. I realized that I had occasionally had some crazy, or terrible or painful things happen to me. But that my attitude about any particular year was never that it was all bad.

In 2007, I lost my Grandfather. He was the first grandparent I lost. I was also evicted from my apartment. I couch surfed for months before I got back on my feet. I had some incredibly generous and amazing friends come through for me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. It was scary and difficult and stressful. But I also loved that year. I got a whole new appreciation for my own capabilities. And I went through that whole period keeping boundaries around my eating. I never said screw it. I honored my commitment even though I’m sure nobody would have “blamed me” if I had numbed my fear and anxiety with food. It was also the year I came out of my sugar-withdrawal fog. For the previous year and a half, I had been walking around in a daze. I had been high on sugar so consistently and for so long that being sober made me feel high. I was scared, but I was so grateful to feel empowered and in control. And loved.

2010 was particularly hard. I lost my grandmother and my aunt that year, two women who were incredibly important to me. I spent a lot of time crying. And I was not sorry to move on to 2011. But I didn’t write the whole year off as awful. I wasn’t miserable. I was sad. That’s all. Just sad. And not only sad. When I look back on it, I can remember that 2010 was a year when I gained a whole new level of confidence in my beauty and my worth. It was a year I went on a whole bunch of dates. And I went on those dates looking for a man who would deserve me, not for one who would “take me” or “put up with me.” I still had a lot of things to work through on that front. I wouldn’t even start this blog until January of 2012. But I liked myself in 2010. And I loved life. And I didn’t take the hard stuff personally. I had gratitude for all of the good stuff. That the women I lost had loved me and I loved them. That I was growing as a woman. That I had hope.

And in 2012 I fell into a depression after quitting smoking. Because it made me stop producing important brain chemicals. And because it affected my metabolism and I gained a bunch of weight. Which is hard on a woman with eating and body image disorders. But it was not a bad year. I also started writing this blog that year. And I took some risks in terms of love and relationships. And I took some new actions in terms of work and money. And depressed or not, I had quit smoking. I did a lot of growing that year. I changed a lot. For the better. And I was grateful for it.

That is one of the many things that getting my eating under control has afforded me. Gratitude. For life. It has taught me to be grateful for the gifts and the miracles. And to remember that the bummers and the upsets are not God pushing me down. They are not personal. They are life. Not just mine, either. Everybody’s life. And that they are also opportunities to be better if I want to use them.

So when I look back on this past year, and I see that it has been gift after gift, it brings tears to my eyes. I came out of that depression from quitting smoking this year. I found a love beyond my wildest dreams this year. I jumped with both feet into a new life and a new lifestyle of travel and excitement. Even though I was nervous and anxious. And I found that I love it. And just yesterday, I started a new job.

I could have found plenty to be grateful for this year. Even without love and adventure. Because I am so grateful to be in a body I love, free from my obsession with food, with my integrity intact. But 2013 has been the best year I can ever remember having. Ever. In my whole life. And while I don’t expect that every year will necessarily be so filled with so many extraordinary life altering joyous events, or so devoid of losses and pains and hardships, I can’t imagine that I’ve hit my peak yet. I fully expect for life to continue to get better.

How could life get better than this? I don’t know. But 2014, feel free to consider this a dare.

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23 Nov 2013

As in life, so in crochet

Yesterday I finished crocheting a new small throw blanket. And there is a story about this throw. And the story is an analogy.

Several months ago, I made a baby blanket for a specific baby. (Unlike my tendency to make things, including baby blankets, for no one in particular.) And when I was done, I had quite a bit of extra yarn in a shade of pink that I loved.

Around early September, I learned how to crochet squares with flowers in the middle. And around that time, I found a light shade of green yarn that I liked a lot. So I made a bunch of pink and green flower squares. And they were lovely. But I didn’t know what to do with them. And I didn’t really have enough of either color of yarn to make much.

Plus, I had just purchased some fancy (superwash cotton and wool blend) yarn at a specialty yarn store. Needless to say, I was very excited to make something with the fancy yarn. So I put the pink and green aside and I completed a project with my fancy yarn. And then it was done. And it was time to do another project.

So I went back to my pink and green flowers and decided I would make it a 3 color blanket. I went to the store and I bought a bunch of skeins of another shade of green. I brought them home, held them all up next to each other and thought, “Ugh. This is not right. This is going to look terrible together.”

But this was the yarn that I had. So I decided to move ahead with the project. And I kept telling myself, “Just do the next thing.” And I kept crocheting.

And I kept stopping. “This can’t be right. Should I quit? Should I just give it up before I put a bunch of wasted work into it? Should I go online and order more of the light green and the pink? Well, for now just do a few more squares. Just do the next thing.”

So I crocheted. And stopped. And crocheted. And scrunched up my face wondering if this was going to end up a complete fiasco. “This really can’t be right.”

But it was something to do. And even with all of the stopping, I had already gone pretty far. So I kept just doing the next thing.

And it went on like this for the whole project. Right up until the very end. “I should just stop now. This can’t be right. Ugh, just be quiet and do the next part.”

I think that this turned out to be one of the most amazing pieces I have ever made. It is maybe my favorite.

pink green throw

IMG-20131123-00822

pink green throw 1

And I could never, ever EVER have planned it. Because it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be right the whole way through.

I see life this way. It starts out with something I love or I want. But I don’t know what to do about it. So I don’t do anything. I just go about my business. And then opportunities arise. And they turn out not to be what I expected. Or what I thought they should be. Or what I would have chosen as the best option for my happiness. But they are what I have. So I do the next right thing. And I stop. And I make false starts. And think, “Are you sure? Really? This can’t be right.” But I keep doing the next thing. In bitty baby steps.

This happened for me with food. (Give up sugar? Forever?!?! That can’t be right.) And it happened with writing this blog. (Write every week about being fat? Or bulimic? Tell people personal things about myself and my eating disorders?! That can’t be right.) And it happened for me with falling in love. (Leave New York City? With my childhood friend? To travel Small Town America in a pickup truck?!?! That can’t be right.)

And in the end, these turned out to be the greatest decisions I have ever made in my life.

I am limited. I can’t imagine anything outside of my own experiential frame of reference making me happy. But I have this amazing tool. Willingness. Surrender. To go along. To not seek too far into the future. To just do the next right thing right now. And to trust. That life knows better than I do. About blankets and yarn and blog writing and love and food. And anything else that I am willing to be open to.

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
06 Oct 2013
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With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Last week, I learned about the existence of something that I found deeply upsetting. (This is gross hyperbole, by the way.) And I had to decide if I wanted to write about it here. Because I didn’t want to give it publicity. Or help steer people toward it.

But I realized pretty quickly that I needed to write about it. Because it exists. And my responsibility is to tell my truth. Not to shield others from reality.

This thing I’m referring to is something called Pro-Ana. As in pro-anorexia. As in “all for starving yourself as a means to be as thin as possible in order to be beautiful.” There are people who refer to anorexia as Ana, and often personify the disease. Like I’m hanging out with my friend Ana. She’s the only one who understands me.

Obviously, this creates a visceral reaction in me. When I looked into it, I immediately became an unsettling mix of angry, nauseous, and down-right terrified. And that kind of knee-jerk response makes me want to spout off. It makes me want to say cruel, sick things. It makes me want to lash out at these people, and verbally attack them where they are weakest. Because I know where they are weakest. It is where I, too, am weakest, and most afraid.

But I’m not going to do that today. Today, I am going to talk about disease. I am going to talk about the ways eating disorders affected my spirit and my mind. The way they ruined my life. Until I found out how to deal with them. I figured out how to control my eating disorders. Not “myself”, or my weight, or my eating. I did eventually get control of all of those things. But first I had to get control of the disease. The spiritual, mental and emotional sickness.

I’m not going to spout about health and beauty. Because to focus (attack) on health and beauty is to imply that I would like to deny people their own standards and opinions, their own choices, and their own rights to live as they want to live.

And the terrified girl inside me does want that. Wants to say that pro-ana should not be allowed. Wants to vilify the people who are creating blogs and websites promoting eating disorders, giving tips and tricks for how to be better at starving and/or purging, and glorifying extreme weight-loss with pictures and stories.

But I don’t get on my high horse when it comes to smoking, or drinking alcohol, or drug use. I have respect for healthy people’s life choices, and sympathy for people living in addiction.

But eating disorders revolve around obsession. They eliminate even the opportunity for satisfaction. And they lead to deeper and deeper self-involvement that leads, not to self-love, but to self-loathing.

I have been morbidly obese. But I have also been a bulimic, an exercise-bulimic, and a laxative abuser, among other things. I have less experience with anorexia, but I have some. I have gone through short periods of starvation. And I have gone through periods where I restricted to the point of shutting down my body. Eating only egg whites and raw vegetables. Not eating any fat. So that I stopped getting my period. And ended up so bloated that people started asking me if I were pregnant.

I went to a gynecologist when my period didn’t come for 3 or 4 months. She asked me how and what I was eating. I was secretive and dishonest. I wanted my period to come back. I wanted her to fix me. Even though I knew that the problem was the way I was and wasn’t eating.

She could never understand. I had been so fat. I could never go back there again. I needed to lose more weight. I just needed her to make me start menstruating again. It was none of her business what I was or wasn’t eating.

She put me on birth control pills. That made me get my period again. But it didn’t stop the bloating. And it didn’t stop me from feeling out of control, and crazy. It didn’t bring me the peace I wanted. I wanted my period to come back because I wanted to be assured that I was ok. But I was not ok.

So then I went on a 6 day green juice fast. I had nothing to eat for 6 days. I drank 3 green vegetable juices a day from a juice bar. That made me feel fantastic! It made me feel powerful, and in control and like master of my weight and body. It made me lose all of the water that I had been carrying in my belly. I think I lost over 15 lbs in those 6 days. And that triumph was followed by the darkest period of my life so far.

It led to uncontrollable bingeing. It led to the most damaging bulimic acts I would ever commit. It lead to the deepest self-hatred I have ever experienced. It lead to self-enforced isolation. It lead me to distrust everyone. I was delusional and crazy. I was miserable.

And I felt trapped. I couldn’t see any way out. I felt doomed. Either to perpetuate this horror of bingeing and purging and exercising and starving and striving. Or just plain giving up and gaining back the 150 lbs I had lost. And living in shame for the rest of my life.

One thing that my eating disorders did was allow me to convince myself that a certain weight would bring peace and happiness.

Of course, I might reach that goal. I did. A few times. And I would be happy. Maybe even satisfied. For a moment. But then I would either want more, or I would be tortured trying to maintain what I had accomplished. I’m saying it was never enough. I was never good enough. I was looking for perfection. And I was positive that if I were only good, better, worthy, I would attain it.

That is what my eating disorders did to me.

I can’t go on anymore today. It’s too big a topic for me to be able to handle in one post. Even having had this week to think about it. I’m feeling how scrunched up my face is at this moment. This has been painful for me. But important. I’m glad I got to write it. And I will probably write about it again in the future. But for this week, put a fork in me. I’m done.

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
13 Jul 2013
2 Comments

I never thought I was boring…but I may have been wrong

I am definitely at a loss for what to write this week. And I would be lying if I said that didn’t scare me. I am all too afraid of failure. And that I had a good run. But now the well is dry.

I have to remember that I have been here before. More than once in the past year and a half. And that there has always been more to write about. Eventually…

And it’s probably that I don’t have much to write about because I’m bored.

My boyfriend’s job is requiring more and more of his time. Which means I get less and less of it.

And I don’t have any friends here.

And there are no sidewalks here. And I don’t drive. I came from New York City. Who needed to drive?

And I don’t have a job here.

And there is only so much cooking and cleaning a girl can do. I mean, there are only 2 of us.

So maybe the big news is that I am more bored for more time than I can remember being, and I’m not eating compulsively. And when I consider that objectively, that’s a pretty big deal.

If you are a person who relates well to your body, knows when you are hungry and eats, knows when you are satisfied and stops, this may not seem like anything extraordinary to you.

But I am a compulsive eater. Until I got my eating under control, boredom seemed like one of the better reasons to eat. They were all good reasons – celebration, mourning, worry, stress, excitement, anxiety, good news, bad news, wanting some particular food item, wanting to get some particular food item before somebody else got it instead – but boredom was like a perfect package. I need something to do, and I love to eat. Hey! Eating is doing something!

So it is a miracle that I am not eating compulsively.

It’s not hard. I don’t mean that. I’m not tempted. Thank God. Temptation was lifted a long time ago. Occasionally, it pops up for a second or two. But I know how to stamp out a spark before it catches fire. I know not to romanticize food. Not to entertain, foster, and certainly never nurture thoughts about food. I change my mind. I cultivate my thinking. I remind myself that the truth is that eating outside of my boundaries is poison. Death and insanity. So no, not eating compulsively is not difficult.

But it is still a miracle that I am still me, and I don’t compulsively eat out of boredom. Or for any reason at all. I don’t eat compulsively. Period. That’s the miracle. That there is never a good reason to eat outside of my boundaries. Who knew?!?

We will probably be leaving here soon. Going where, we’re not sure. What comes next for my boyfriend is up to his company. And what town I live in next is up to his company too.

But as for what is next for me, well, I don’t know yet. And in the meantime, a little boredom won’t kill me. And keeping my food under control will mean I’m ready for the next thing when I figure out what that is. And trusting that life is always right will keep me peaceful, knowing that there is a next thing, and that I don’t need to force it. It will show up at the exactly right time.

Just like everything else has since I got my eating under control.

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , ,

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