onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “body image”

22 Mar 2026

Available for connection

Last night I went to a party with a dozen or so awesome ladies, about half new to me. And it was a delicious delight. (And I didn’t even eat the party food!)

There was so much laughter, candor, humor, insight, and love. There was a spirit of mutual respect and appreciation. There was the desire to support each other.

A few years ago I made the deliberate choice to cultivate my friendships. Especially with women. I felt like I had lost my connections to people who liked me, and whom I liked. Not for any other reason than grown up life doesn’t have a lot of built in structures for relationship that aren’t partner and kids. As an individual, one has to make it a priority. Or not as the case may be.

13 years ago, I moved away from my friends when I left New York City to be with my husband. And we were all already grownups. Navigating partnerships and parenting while we were in the same city was hard enough. From long distance, it takes even more. And I am inconsistent. And so are my long distance friends. This is not a judgement. It’s an observation. Life gets lifey fast and sudden.  

So when I noticed the lack of everyday friendships in my life, I took actions to change that. To reach out to old friends. To make new friends. To be an asset to communities. To find new people that I like, that like me back.

When I was heavy in my addiction and depression, I would isolate for long periods of time. I would hide away in my room and binge eat and avoid my friends. And then when I was better or lonely or ready to be back in the world, I would have to go mend the friendships I had harmed. And that made friendships feel like a kind of burden. And it made me feel bad about myself. And all of those feelings led me to want to isolate more, eat more, hate myself more. 

By keeping my food boundaries and bringing my own food to this party, I looked a little weird at first. But I got to be authentic and funny and fully present. And that is when I can be part of the community. That is where I can make a difference. Just by being there, available for connection. 

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15 Mar 2026

No Super For Me

I have been what I considered a little sick lately. But over a couple of doctor appointments these past couple of weeks, my doctors and I discussed the fact that I was much more sick than I thought, and also that I am not good at knowing when my lungs are constricted. I basically can’t tell when I can’t breathe.

Here is the deal. I am a person who pushes through. For as ashamed as I have been of my feelings of inadequacy and laziness, the honest-to-god truth is that if I decide to do something I will do it, even if I have to barrel down toward it at full speed.

I also come from a family of people who push through. I can think of at least one uncle who found out he had a heart attack months after the fact. The kind of people doctors say things to like “I can’t believe you walked in here in that much pain.”

But also also, I grew up fat in a fat family. 

When I was a kid I was bad at most kinds of exercise. But I was fat. So it was just assumed that I was out of shape. And I would continue to be bad at exercise my whole life, but in my 20s I pushed through as a form of bulimia to work off what I ate and be skinny. It did not make me skinny. And then in my mid 30s I started a perfectly reasonable workout routine. A slow 2 miles a day 5 days a week. But it was hard. And I eventually got better and faster. I pushed through. 

And then in my 40s, when I got adult onset asthma, I realized that I had had exercise induced asthma my whole life. That I may or may not have been out of shape. But I *couldn’t breathe* because I had asthma. And that could have been treated young if my fatness were not always a “concern.”

I taught myself how to ignore my body. I taught myself how to push through. And now I literally don’t know when I can’t breathe. 

And there is a part of me that doesn’t want to let that go! As if there is some sort of virtue in pushing through at the expense of my body and my life. Which I suppose I have been taught. If it can’t be beautiful at least it’s useful. As if I have to be either a superhero or a supermodel. Those are my only acceptable options. There is a part of me that says that it is that self-flagellation that is saving me.

From what? I don’t know.

I am not a superwoman. I do not want to be. I believe in knowing what and when to sacrifice. I believe there is a time to dig deep into myself to give more than I think I can. But that I don’t want my body to be the sacrificial lamb. I don’t want to view not respecting myself as a virtue. I want to give freely and authentically as a gift to others, not an abasement of myself.

As to the practical application of this, I guess I will find out as I go…?

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22 Feb 2026

I probably won’t stop, but I can learn

My husband and kitten and I all packed ourselves into the truck for an hour and a half yesterday, to spend less than 24 hours at our house, and then drive an hour and a half back to our apartment this morning. 

The other day I packed all of my food for those next meals. Then I packed the cat’s toys and food. The cat’s water fountain. Then my clothes. Craft stuff. 

I could have literally just packed my food and Harlow’s cat fountain. (When I type it out even that seems a little overkill. No I will not stop bringing her fountain.) 

We were barely there to need anything. I never opened the suitcase. I never made anything. Food or craft wise. I went from one home to another and anything I brought to one was already in the other one.

Really I just hung out with family and ate the meals I brought. Then we left this morning. After repacking all of the cat stuff. And dragging the kitten out from under furniture…

But even though I can see that I’m a little obsessive, I know I feel better when I am prepared. For eventualities. I feel better when I know I have taken care of my own comfort, peace and happiness. It keeps me from being mad, at myself or anyone else, if things DO go pear shaped. When I am prepared I know I did what I could, so I can just shrug and say “that’s life,” and do what I can to fix it. 

So I will still probably over pack two weeks from now when we go back for less than a day. 

But also. I can learn. That I don’t need to bring two outfits a pair of pajamas, and 4 pairs of underwear for 20 hours at home….

Harlow Gold on the road in her harness giving me the ears
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08 Feb 2026

Maybe someone else will get suckered into loving themselves too

I’m on the cover of Woman’s World magazine this week. I’m in the top right corner. It’s exciting!

Mostly.

Actually I have had a lot of thoughts about it. Mixed feelings. Because over the past 20 years of quitting sugar and having my eating under control, I have learned to separate my feelings about my body from my feelings about food. I have learned to love my body for all that it is and does. And to be able to love it and call it beautiful on my own terms. And to also know simultaneously that there are foods that I am addicted to. That when I eat grains and processed sugars and even some high sugar and starch whole foods, my body craves more. And those cravings are painfully intense. And that even if I don’t have to hate being fat, I can hate the way those foods make me feel.

I think all the time about how I got basically suckered into getting my eating under control. 20 years ago I had a life coach who told me I just had to get 90 days and then I would prove that I was not a food addict. (HA!) And then I thought it was going to keep me skinny. (HA HA!) I mean it did for years. But even having my eating under control, when I quit smoking almost 14 years ago, I gained weight seemingly indiscriminately. Weighing all of my food. Cutting my portions. Gaining weight anyway.

And I still kept my eating under control. Because even though I was terrified to gain weight again, and be fat again, I was more afraid of the insanity of eating compulsively.

I had to learn to honor my body at any weight. 

But magazines don’t sell that. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of joy. Or freedom. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of “I hated myself here, and here I love myself.” 

But an extreme weight loss? That is an easy thing to show.

And I should remember that I started doing what I do with food exclusively to lose weight. And it was only a series of (un)fortunate events that led me to loving my body unconditionally, and keeping my eating boundaries in all circumstances. Not to be thin, but to be grounded, nourished, and sane. 

So if Woman’s World selling weight loss through me lets someone find a solution to their eating problems, that’s another person who may get suckered into loving themselves unconditionally too.

Photo and makeup by Holly Michelle Makeup and Beauty
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11 Jan 2026

A 20 year wish come true

I had my photo shoot for that magazine this week and one thing it reminded me of is how comfortable I am in my body. Just really IN it, as opposed to trying to see what others see and judge as I think they are judging. Which was my experience the first 28 years of my life.

The photographer sent me a pic for myself to keep that will not be used in the magazine, and you can see the outline of my belly in my clothes. Not my favorite, but not emotionally devastating.

But when I was posing, I was not thinking about my belly. Or my chins. Or my arms. I was not thinking about anything but following directions. Or maybe that I am pretty. And when it was done I sent that picture with the belly to a couple of people. Because I did not feel the need to hide it or hate it. (Ok I didn’t and wouldn’t send it to everyone…a girl still needs to know her audience and hold her boundaries.) But I did not hate my body for having a belly. And that is a miracle. 

When I got my eating under control, I had been volunteering in a self help seminar, and the leader asked me what I wanted to get out of the seminar. And I said “for my body to stop being an issue.” And literally 20 years later I live every day in a body that is not an issue.

The problem when I was eating compulsively was that I made my body my enemy for a long time. I didn’t give it what it needed and I expected it to give me what I wanted. And instead it gave me what I needed. And I was ungrateful. 

Food saved me when I needed it. I could not manage my feelings and emotions as a small child. I really thought they might kill me. That is not an exaggeration. I was terrified of not being capable of living with so much pain. And food got me through. Right up until it started to kill me. 

Now I give my body what it needs. Not as an ultimatum. Not like training an animal. Like nurturing a plant. Water and light. Exercise for strength and mobility. Good food for both energy and pleasure. Rest. Learning.

No where in there is anything about my weight. I am perfectly comfortable in this body. Happy to make it bigger with muscles. Not worried about making it bigger with fat. 

So I am grateful to have the shoot over and done. It was more thinking about my body than I like. But I am even more grateful that I got to experience myself just being, even when the focus *was* on my body.

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28 Dec 2025

Twenty years ago and a lifetime ago

Twenty years ago today I was pretty miserable. 

I don’t think about it much at all now. Not even as my anniversaries approach year by year. 

But someone said something to me recently that reminded me that 20 years ago right now, I was 28 years old, I was an exercise bulimic and a regular old stick a toothbrush down your throat bulimic, I had gained 30 pounds since Halloween two months earlier, and I was terrified because I could not see a way out. 

But also, it was good for me. A kind of shock to my system. I had hit a bottom. 

Once I started trying to make myself throw up, I could not pretend that I didn’t have a problem. We had reached After School Special levels of not okay.

As I approach my 20th anniversary this week, I get to really remember the excruciating pain of existing in the food. I could not stop eating. I could not stop punishing my body for it. With laxatives, with bulimia, with exercise to the point of and past injury, with harming myself any way I thought I had to so I could be in a different body. BUT STILL I COULD NOT STOP EATING!

So yes, it basically comes down to the fact that I am grateful for the ability to stop eating. Food thoughts don’t plague me. All of my eating is guilt free. I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I have the ability to live a life between my meals. And love my meals 3 times a day. 

These boundaries are freedom. This freedom is liking, loving, and trusting myself. This is nearly two decades of increasing peace.

So here’s to my gratitude for the past almost 20 years and here’s to a lifetime more. 

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21 Dec 2025

The least interesting thing about the whole thing

I have been thinking about my body a lot lately. Because people are probably coming to take my photo for a magazine. It is to accompany an article about a book that talks about addictive eating. And I am an example of someone who successfully changed my eating lifestyle. 

Right around the time I had just turned 28, I was doing a self help seminar and the instructor asked me what I wanted to get out of it. And my answer was “for my body to stop being an issue.” 

By the end of that seminar I was no longer eating sugar and grains and I was weighing and measuring my food. My body didn’t stop being an issue at that very moment, but it was the first step in a long and continuing journey. And it worked. 

In getting my eating under control I started to think of my body as myself. I started to think of my body as a wonderful vessel that provided all of my abilities! I started to think of my body as sacred and undeserving of being judged. ESPECIALLY for its size and shape and “perceived beauty.” I started this blog to really start to dismantle all of the ways I lived small. And hating my body was one of my biggest obstacles.

The way I think about my body and my weight has slowly but entirely shifted in the past almost 20 years. But here is a situation where it is in someone else’s best interest to “show off” my body in a certain way. In a certain light.

And it’s making me feel insecure. What if I don’t look thin enough? What if I don’t impress everyone the way this magazine wants me to?

Which makes me a little mad at myself. And a little ashamed. Because I don’t want to feel insecure about my amazing body. And I don’t want to reduce getting my eating under control to “weight loss.” Because losing weight is the least important or interesting thing about getting control of my sugar addiction.

But I also know that I only started to get my eating under control because I wanted to stop hating my body. And what I hated at the time was being fat. And I don’t think I could have found myself all the way over here honoring all bodies and dismantling my anti-fatness if I hadn’t been desperate to stop being fat.

What I have been reminding myself is that I am not selling anything. And that I am not invested in having my picture in a magazine. But I am VERY invested in sharing the message that if you can’t stop eating and it’s making you miserable, there is a solution. 

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14 Dec 2025

An almost 20 year head start

I got my eating under control at 28. And that is a miracle. For me. But also, it’s not common. 

Most people (definitely not all) who come into food recovery are women. And most women come in about my age now. I’m 48. Essentially, when their hormones are changing. And when that need to please is greatly reduced.

I heard a woman say that society calls menopause “The Change” because that’s what it is for men. Their wives and mothers change. The women they relied on for everything are no longer as reliable, and some of the wives just LEAVE! (Can you imagine????) 

The older I get, and the less “reliable” my body gets, the MORE reliable my heart and soul and passion are. The more creative I am. The more proud I am of the time I spend learning and making and the product of my work. The more inspired and excited I am.

And I have all of this because in January of 2006 I decided that my sugar addiction had such a hold on me, that it would be better to give up all of my joy (I really thought that food was my only joy) than to live the rest of my life with the compulsion to eat and all of the shame that came with it.

A thing I hear a lot now is “I love your energy.” And they are right! I have great energy. I know I do because I WORK at it. And it’s a product of a lot of things that most people don’t actually like when it’s happening to them. 

You love my energy? I say NO to things that drain my energy. I limit my interactions with negativity and greed. I limit my interactions with drama. Even if I like you. Even if I love you. I say NO! I protect myself first, my family second, my friends third. 

And all of this is cumulative. I am just weeks shy of 20 years of taking care of my eating and letting that be the first step in taking care of the rest of my life. All of the rest of my life. So I have an almost 20 year head start of loving my body, of choosing my own peace and my own path, of living without resentment for the way I failed to measure up to someone else’s standards. An almost 20 year head start on so many women addicted to food, to sugar, to the idea of a perfect woman and the perfect body, or at least a “better body” that someone wants to sell us all. And I refuse to take that for granted. 

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31 Aug 2025

I can want with clarity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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03 Aug 2025

Strong over skinny.

Ilona Maher, the Olympic medalist in women’s rugby turned social media star did a cute little video where she makes fun of the old saying that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And she says, she thinks feeling strong feels better and also have you tried tiramisu?

Obviously I don’t eat tiramisu anymore, because sugar is poison for me, but I will not give up my yogurt with 10% milk fat, my salt and vinegar pork rinds, or my crunchy cheese to be smaller. Smaller for what? For whom? 

And when I really thought about it, I NEVER felt comfortable, confident, or content when I was skinny. 

I didn’t even KNOW I was skinny! I was struggling with my body every moment. Even after I had stopped struggling with my food.

I was trying to figure out how to be the most beautiful woman I could be. And I thought it had to do with what I projected rather than what I was *being.* And I was absolutely positive it had to do with being small and also shaped like a supermodel. Or fooling the world around me into thinking I was that.

In fact, it was the uncontrollable weight gain that happened after I quit smoking, the worst emotional pain of my life since I had gotten my eating under control, that forced me to stop striving for skinny as a goal. At all. I was eating less food, fewer calories, and moving more. And I just gained weight. There was nothing left but to give my weight to the Universe and say, welp, I guess this is your problem now.

BUT! That didn’t really happen the way I wanted it to for another 10 years. I got more and more comfortable in my skin, but I would not really give up on “smaller” as the goal until I started to focus on muscle. On strength. On balance and flexibility. On what my body could DO!

So I concur. Feeing strong feels better than feeling skinny. Because skinny is illusive. It has a slippery definition, and it is tied, culturally, to “perfection” and “true beauty.” And it does not serve anyone. But strength is easy to see and understand, and to use to the benefit of our friends, ourselves and those we would offer it to. 

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