onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “body image”

19 Jul 2026

I’ve been down that path. It sucked…

I heard recently that there is link between telling girls they are fat and them becoming fat. Not girls who were already big or trending toward weight gain. Girls across the body spectrum were 60% more likely to become fat if they were told they were fat as children. And NOT because of their diet. It is through a cortisol path. Hormones. That the shame of being told this *literally* instructs the body to store energy as fat. 

It is a self fulfilling prophecy that we blame the girls/women for.

I actually had heard about this many years ago from Gary Taubes, who wrote The Case Against Sugar. He said that “calories in calories out” isn’t true because some foods affect our hormones, and fat storage is essentially a job for hormones. He also noted that sugar, especially processed sugar, affects our hormones as much as it nourishes. This of course made perfect sense to me. Because after I stopped eating compulsively and quit sugar and grains, and I lost a lot of weight, those calories never added up. I ate SO MUCH FOOD! High calorie and decadent. And I was a skinny!

And then I quit smoking and gained 30 pounds eating less and lower calorie. Quantifiably less. (Remember, I weigh all of my food.) And the answer was that smoking also affects your hormones. 

We have used weight as a moral issue for decades; centuries. By insisting it’s the actions of the individual alone that create fatness, without any understanding of why or how our bodies work. And we have brought it into being by shaming girls, any girl.

There is an uptick in anti-fat sentiment that promotes disordered eating right now. There is woman who posted a few months ago that if you weigh more than 160 pounds you don’t have the right to give her attitude. Ma’am, if I’m going to give you attitude, your opinion about my body is irrelevant to me. My attitude isn’t based on the holy vessel of another being. For you, it would be because you’re an ass. 

(Also HOW BIG DOES THIS WOMAN THINK 160 POUNDS IS???? And any height? Like if she’s 6’ does that count? Where did she get this number? Is she 157????)

Then I saw a MAN get on the internet to say that size 14 is plus sized. Bitc- ahem, Sir! You are not part of this conversation. This is for women to decide where to shop. Not for you to morally dehumanize and degrade the majority of post-pubescent women. If your ideal partner had body is of a teen girl…well, there’s a term for that….

So here is your reminder that weight is not an indicator of health. That you cannot see what a person eats by the size or shape of their body. And that EVEN IF THEY ARE UNHEALTHY people still have the right to exist in peace and love in their beautiful fat bodies. 

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
12 Jul 2026

No stoop for you

My threshold for settling or pivoting or accommodating is rapidly diminishing. 

A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to some painters and only one guy got back to me. And then he proceeded to be out of contact for a week. By the time he got back to me, I still didn’t have a painter. But I knew my painter wasn’t him. (I have since gotten my apartment painted by someone else and I love it!)

Then I needed someone to do a repair on the house we are selling. Since my husband and I live on the road in a different town, I had my sister-in-law let a handyman from a service in and ask him to call me so I could get explain exactly what the job entailed. He never called. He wrote up an estimate of “what he would do if it were his house.” 

At first I blamed myself for not traveling all the way there to talk to him in person. My sister-in-law then called me apologizing telling me she tried to get him to call me. That she wrote my number down and handed it to him.

That was when it occurred to me that there were two 40 something women apologizing for not making it possible for this man to do his job. A job he easily could have done if he had just followed directions. The first step was just to call me.

Needless to say, I didn’t even look at the estimate. If I can’t trust someone to listen I should not give them the job. I texted them that I would not be using them. 

But this was scary! Because this company is so well respected in our suburb. These are the 5 star people. So who am I to say they are not for me?

Anyway I have a different guy coming tomorrow to start taking out my bathroom sink and wall. 

Even my husband has felt this change. We were looking at air fresheners the other day, and he picked one and said, if we don’t like it we can change it. So I said ok. But then we got like 5 steps and I said to myself, Kate, you hate that brand and you most definitely don’t like “Ocean” scented stuff.  So I said sorry. Nope. Can’t do it. 

I want to be clear that I am very good at going with the flow. And marriage has taught me that I only need to have an opinion when I really have an opinion. If my husband had picked something tropical, which is not my favorite, but is lovely and is one we can both agree on, I could have not had an opinion. I wouldn’t need to say that I would prefer something more floral. It would have been fine and I would been content.

But I hate ocean. Why does it smell like the worst of the 90s???

I don’t need to settle for something that is just going to make me unhappy. I don’t need to be annoyed when I can just opt out. 

Resentment is poison for me. And it almost always happens because I knew better and I didn’t listen to myself. 

20 years of weighing my food and abstaining from my drug foods, like processed sugar and carbohydrates, has taught me to be my most authentic self. Every day I don’t eat compulsively, or eat to get high, is a day I have a clearer path to my truest heart. 

So every time I see that clear path and choose something else to please someone else, I get resentful. 

The truth is I have always been resentful. It’s just that having my eating under control lets me see that it’s not actually anyone else’s fault. That my resentment is a lack of responsibility. 

I take responsibility every time I say “no, that’s not for me.” And I end up getting what I want with out a bunch of extra steps.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Jun 2026

I can’t have my cake and condo too

As I get close to the end of my home saga, and everything changes, little by little until it’s one giant completed new chapter, I am so grateful that I am not shoving food in my face. Because this whole experience has been and continues to be *uncomfortable!*

If I were eating sugar and eating compulsively, I would be an absolute wreck. This whole process may have gotten done. But it would have come with costly mistakes, important things falling through the cracks, and my very bad attitude making everything worse and more difficult and frustrating and scary. 

And I would have been miserable. And even when the whole thing was done, it would have been filled with shameful memories of ways I behaved. 

And all that time I would hate myself. Eating compulsively makes me hate myself.

I don’t hate fatness. And I could be fat and happy. By some standards, I AM fat and I am certainly happy. But I cannot eat compulsively, eat drug foods, eat addictively and be happy. So if I were to let myself eat the way I used to, while I stuffed cake in my mouth I would simultaneously feel better (high/numb) and worse (ashamed) and I would hate myself the entire time. 

It’s not the body. It’s the eating. 

So IF I had the kind of life where I manifested my dream home while I was eating compulsively (doubtful) I still would have been filled with dread. I still would have been filled with bad energy! 

As we get closer to selling our house, and moving exclusively to our smaller condo, I get scared all over again. About space. About downsizing. My body panicks pretty regularly. And if I were in the food, I would be filled with regrets. 

But I am not! I am clear headed, capable, even tempered, genuinely excited and joyful! I know that 80% of the hard part is done. And while I have not enjoyed every moment of the process, all in all it has been a time of wonder. A dream come true. 

(Oh, and also I have been giving away as much stuff as I can when I have a moment. So you know…taking action helps.) 

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
12 Apr 2026

Maybe all my childhood dreams will come true

I grew up fat in the 80s and 90s and there was not a market for clothes for people my age to be fat. So I wore what the plus size stores had to sell. And that was a lot of business casual in crepe.

So when I got my eating under control 20 years ago, I got “fashion” for the first time. I had a new body and I loved dressing it. So I tried all the styles. And I got to figure out what was mine. And I definitely went hyper feminine. And loved it. 

But now I wonder if I chose those styles or if those styles chose me….Because I had a very different body shape. 

I was a kid in the 80s. And I was obsessed with ads for Charlie perfume. Beautiful women wore feminized versions of men’s suits and looked unapologetic while the print said “She’s a Charlie Girl.” And I wanted to be a Charlie Girl so bad. Until I realized I did not have the body to be one. Those models were tall and skinny with long legs. They could be Charlie Girls because they were built that way and I was not.

The first 40+ years of my life, I had a specific body shape. Since my teen years, from the front, I have always looked like an hourglass. But my back side was flat and I carried all of my weight in my front. And that made certain cuts of clothing more flattering on me. A-line or empire waist dresses and tunic length tops accentuated my hips and covered my lack of a butt. 

And now I have an entirely different body shape and I look frumpy in these once so feminine outfits. 

And I need all my tops CROPPED! GASP!

I had the same thought you did just now. No I am not showing my belly. I am a 48-year-old woman. I have enough body temperature issues without adding clothes that ride up. 

Now, after years of stairs and squats and lunges, I have a big, muscular butt, and I need tops and sweaters that come to my waist, not half way down my hips or lower. I need pants and skirts that hit slightly above my (very low) waist. I need to buy bigger pants and cinch the waist for a better drape. I need belts. 

When I was fat, I thought the clothes were right and my body was the problem. A belief the fashion, fitness and beauty industries enjoy perpetuating. And then when I got my eating under control, I realized that I just had to find the clothes that were *my* clothes for *my* body. And now, at 48, with a whole new, not skinny or long-legged body, and low enough estrogen that I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I can wear a pair of pleated dress pants and a crisp white button down and vest and be a Charlie Girl if I so desire. 

I guess if I wait long enough, maybe all my childhood dreams will come true.

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
05 Apr 2026

Know what they’re selling so you don’t buy it.

It is now clear to me that we have entered another phase of pro-extreme-thinness in United States’ culture. People are admitting for their social media audiences to doing things like taking meth to stay as thin as possible. And they are framing it as if this is totally normal. 

 The early 2000s had this too. Both the culture extolling the virtues of taking up little space, and the common use of drugs to accomplish it. Or anything to accomplish it. As long as you got smaller. I knew a girl in those years who was both tall and already extremely thin, who was offered heroin by her modeling agency in case she wanted to lose a few pounds.

There is a scene in the original Zoolander movie (2001) where the beautiful but normal girl is talking to the male models and she ashamedly admits she used to be bulimic. And they both tell her that everyone does that. It’s a great way to keep your weight down. It’s meant to be funny because that mentality was alive and well then. 

And then we had Love Actually (2003) where a thinner than average woman is cast as a character who is repeatedly mocked as chubby and for having “thighs the size of tree trunks” and a sizable arse. This is blatantly false, but instead of believing my eyes, I believed those words.

There are so many more.

My point is we have been here before. And it is an ugly place to be. And the internet is only worse in the past 20 years. Not better. Once photoshop was the best tool for image manipulation. Now AI brings the game to a whole new level. The girls and boys who are exposed to this kind of cultural propaganda are less equipped than ever to understand what is being done to them. 

And that is the other thing: it is already established that KNOWING ALONE WILL NOT STOP IT. You really have to not see the propaganda. You have to know BEFORE hand and not be exposed. Because knowing it’s happening does not stop it from *working.*

I already limit my exposure to diet and thinness culture as much as possible, and I still can’t entirely eradicate it from my screens. I literally cannot. The algorithm will not let me.

And It’s not just social media and online influencers. It is and will be anyone in an audience facing job. This extreme thin bias will be noticeable in the actresses who get roles (and the ones who don’t), it will be in the headlines about a pop star’s weight gain presented as news from main stream news sources, it will be in some off handed remark by a weatherman on your local news about some woman’s “outfit.” It will be everywhere. And it will be sold as virtue.

Don’t buy it.

So I hope you are protecting yourself. But also, I hope we are all protecting the young people in our lives. And hey. Don’t talk about people’s bodies.

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

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
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…?

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

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries