onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “compulsive eating”

28 Jun 2014
3 Comments

Think before you google.

I did something today that I shouldn’t have done.

I googled.

If I were a friend of mine, I would give myself a good, stern talking-to. I even have a specific good friend whom I have (lovingly) made promise me that she will not google. Because no good can come of it.

Let’s face it, when you google, everything you see convinces you that all hope is lost. You have cancer. Or a sexually transmitted disease. Or dementia. Or whatever. But never anything good.

I googled: When will I lose the weight I gained from quitting smoking?

And all it did was piss me off.

Apparently I didn’t gain weight from quitting smoking. Or if I did, it’s because I ate too much. And there is nothing wrong with my metabolism. And quitting smoking didn’t change my body in any way except to make it healthier.

In other words, if I can’t lose weight, it’s my own damn fault.

This makes me feel like a big, fat loser. And rational thought doesn’t help. Because I will give you the rational low-down.

When I quit smoking, I had had boundaries around my food for 6 ½ years. I started gaining weight. First slowly, but then 10 lbs in a month. And then the weight gain slowed down again. But it didn’t stop until after about 10 months. So all together, I gained 30 lbs in 10 months.

I eat an exact amount of food. I had for 6 ½ years before I quit smoking. And I have for the 2+ years since I quit. And after I gained 10 lbs in a month, I (with the help of a sane and loving friend) significantly reduced the amount of food I eat every day. Still exact. Just less. And I continued to gain weight. Until it stopped.

And I have not lost the weight.

I suppose I could be extreme, even within my food boundaries, with the hope that I would lose weight. That I could choose skim milk and fat-free yogurt instead of 2%. That I could stop eating bacon once a week. That I could stop eating steak and carrots and squash. And eat steamed broccoli. And chicken. And lettuce. (I hate chicken. And lettuce.) With the hope that I might lose weight. But even in that there is no certainty. I went from full-fat to 2% and still gained weight. From bacon 3 times a week to once, and still gained weight. From full portions of carrots and squash, to half portions, and still gained weight. I went from cooking in fat, to fat on the side and still gained weight.

I did the smart and obvious things to lose weight. I did the science and math things. So it makes me angry to read that my truth is perceived as a lie. Or at least as a misguided and mistaken notion.

But why was I even googling in the first place? Why do I need to know if I can lose weight? If I will? When and where and why and how? Why do I need to be something I am not? Why do I need it to be different than it is?

And why still? Why, after a year and a half, am I still not content to live in this body? Why can’t I just be peaceful? Why can’t I just let it go?

When I read all of those posts that pissed me off, I did eventually get the message. The message from God to me. That I should mind my own business. That it is none of my business when, or how, or even if I lose weight ever again. That I should trust the way my life is going. That it’s a great life.

And it is a great life.

Of course the answer to why I googled today is Because I am a woman with eating and body image disorders. And I always will be. And just like I’m sick around food, I’m sick around my body and how I think and feel about it.

But it has occurred to me that there might be another reason. Maybe I needed to write my truth for the people like me who gained weight when they quit smoking, simply because they quit smoking. And are being told that they did not. That there is something that they are doing that is making them gain weight. And they feel crazy. And angry. And like nobody is seeing or hearing them.

Well, I do. I see you. I hear you. I believe you. Because in my heart, my head and my soul, I know my truth. And no amount of googling can make my truth false.

Though I’d still do better not to google in the first place.

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
07 Jun 2014
1 Comment

Do you want to be right, or do you not want to get scalded by boiling oil?

Welp, There’s another year.

All in all, one of the best I have ever had. As of yesterday, I am 37. Happy. Content. Not complacent, content. And isn’t that basically the Holy Grail? It is for me, anyway. Peace. Loving my life without it having to be perfect. Accepting it exactly the way it is.

I have been thinking about responsibility lately. What it actually means. What it actually looks like. And I can recognize that my peace is a byproduct of my responsibility.

I used to do a lot of what you might call self-help-y kinds of things. I read books and went to seminars and courses of varying sorts. In general, I didn’t get staggering breakthroughs those years that I was reading and taking seminars. I would eventually learn very many of the things I had been taught. I even mean that I learned them from those very courses and books. But years later, after I got control of my eating. Many of those teachings swam around in my head for all those years in the interim. Occasionally peeking out and popping up. Until I was ready and clear enough to learn them. And then they were just there. Obvious.

I was in a seminar once, I don’t remember what the theme was. Maybe creativity. Maybe designing your life. It doesn’t matter. The woman leading the seminar was talking about responsibility. She said something like If you are standing on the sidewalk, and you look up and notice that somebody on the 8th floor directly above you (I lived in New York City at the time) is pouring a pot of boiling oil down on where you stand, it is your responsibility to at least TRY to jump out of the way. If you are scalded and grievously injured, you can blame the person who poured the oil. You can even sue them. And I’m not saying that you would not be entitled to compensation for that. But in the end, you will be one who has to live in that burned body. You will be the one who has to suffer the pain. So do you want to shake your fist at this person on the 8th floor, and be righteously angry, and yell at them for doing something so dangerous, while the oil comes down on your head? Or do you want to jump out of the way and try to save yourself?

Now perhaps this is obvious to you. But for me at 23 or whatever age I was, this was a little epiphany. I had spent my life up until then incredibly certain about the way things “should be.” And deeply interested in complaining about the things that “shouldn’t have” happened to me, that did. And instead of dealing with them the way they were, I wanted to be righteously indignant about the general unfairness of life. And continue to expect life to be the way it “should be” in the future. But even after this little epiphany, I still had a hard time applying this idea of responsibility to the specific situations in my life. Probably because I didn’t have any personal frame of reference.

The first real responsibility I ever took in my life was getting my eating under control at 28. It was actual responsibility. No, it wasn’t fair that I couldn’t eat sugar like a “normal” person, but there it was. It didn’t matter if I thought it “shouldn’t be” that way. That was the way it was. The boiling oil was falling out of the 8th story window directly over my head. So I made a commitment to jump out of the way. I chose to follow some specific rules about food.

I didn’t only do it when it was easy and convenient. I didn’t only do it when people approved and were supportive. I didn’t only do it when grocers and wait staff and family members did everything the way it “should be” done according to my new food boundaries. I did it all the time. No matter what.

If somebody made it more difficult to do what I needed to do, I did the more difficult thing to meet my own needs. If waiters gave me food prepared or served in a way I could not eat it, I sent it back. If food companies changed their recipes so that a food I loved was no longer within my food boundaries, I gave it up. If people insisted on either my eating something they offered, or their taking great offense, I let them be offended.

And since then, slowly over the years, I have learned to apply that same lesson to other aspects of my life. I have learned to look at decisions I’m making and actions I am taking. And to decide if I want to change those decisions and actions, or find peace with their outcomes.

See, now that my addiction is under control, I have big girl problems. Problems that don’t have obvious fixes or black and white solutions. Life is full of unfair circumstances and hard choices. It always has been. For everybody. You might even say that as a middle class woman in 2014 in the United States, I’m living cushier and easier than most people anywhere ever before. So who am I to curse the oil coming down if I am not even willing to jump aside?

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , ,
01 Jun 2014
3 Comments

I didn’t know where I was going, but I got there in the end.

This week was a mixed bag.

At work, I spilled coffee on my computer while some IT guy was setting up a remote file sharing system for me. So I now have a remote file sharing system set up on a computer that I can’t use. I am waiting for the main office to send me a new computer. And in the mean time I am using a really crappy computer that is difficult to maneuver, saving all of my work on a flash drive so I can print from a printer in another room of the office, and file sharing by emailing my work to my colleagues.

It was upsetting to break my computer. It felt shameful. I was embarrassed. And then all of the inconvenience that resulted was a moment to moment reminder that the cause was my “stupidity” or “failure” or “inadequacy.”

There is a joke that I find particularly funny. When a normal person goes to their car and sees they have a flat tire, they call AAA. When an addict goes to their car and sees that they have a flat tire, they call a suicide help line.

The problem is that I have a lifetime of abusing myself for mistakes. As if natural consequences were not punishment enough. It’s a habit that is hard to break. My body and my brain are very familiar with the knee-jerk reaction of thinking I’m terrible and worthless, and feeling ashamed and humiliated.

The simple truth is that if you spill coffee on your computer, it will not work. And you will have to make do with other, less convenient, means of doing what you had done before. That is all. And it’s enough.

But I have a default setting of thinking everything is a moral issue. It’s like I’m living in the Middle Ages. My sinful existence has angered God and I am being punished with faulty electronics.

But then yesterday, I had a group of friends come over. All of them women who put boundaries around their eating. And that was wonderful. I got to spend time with people whose company I enjoy, and laugh and talk and tell stories and hear stories. And I also got to talk about the way my life has changed over the past 8 ½ years.

9 years ago, breaking my computer would have been the end of the world. Of course I would have eaten a chocolate cake over it. But back then I was going to eat that chocolate cake no matter what. I was at a point where I didn’t need a particular excuse to eat. Life was enough. And that particular chocolate cake that I had eaten after that particular incident would have let me be paralyzed in relative comfort. I would have been high enough that I wouldn’t have worried about what to do next. Until I came down. And then that end of the world would be even bigger and scarier because I wouldn’t have done anything and it would have been even later. So I would eat more cake. Or perhaps make a rash decision. Do something. Anything! Even if it was not logical or well thought out. Even if it just made everything worse and more complicated. And then I would eat more cake. And eventually life would move on. And it would drag me along with it.

I got dragged a lot for the first 27 years of my life.

The sad thing is that there might not have even been something to “do next.” I had a habit of making uncomfortable situations into all out problems. By not looking straight at them. Or making rash decisions without thinking about them.

And as I write this, it occurs to me that I have been making decisions too quickly lately. Not necessarily rashly. But without giving them the kind of time I would prefer. Because people want answers now. And I have been wanting to please.

I have forgotten that I am allowed to ask for time to think. I have forgotten that I am allowed to take time to think. Even if the person asking doesn’t want to give it to me. I have forgotten that I am a slow processor. That I need time to figure out what I want and need. That I need time to make decisions about what I should do next. And that nobody else has to like it. That I can be myself. That I don’t need anybody else’s permission.

I guess that’s the lesson of this blog, even though I didn’t know it when I started writing it. Even though as I look back at how it started, it seems like a complete non sequitur.

I suppose it doesn’t matter how I got here. It’s where I ended up. And it feels right.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
17 May 2014

Not My Normal

I don’t usually remember my dreams. But when I do they are often using dreams. I had a using dream this week. And it happened to be the most gruesome using dream I have had in the past 8 ½ years. In other words, ever.

For those of you who don’t know, a using dream is a dream addicts who have given up their substance have of getting high. For me they are about sugar.

They are totally normal. They don’t mean anything. In the beginning I was afraid they meant that I was going to have a relapse. But it soon became clear that there was no reason as to why or when I would have them. And it also became clear that every addict I knew who had given up their substance had them.

Up until this week, my using dreams have always been short and simple. In my dream I somehow get to a point that I realize I have had a bite of something that I don’t eat, like a muffin or a cookie. Sometimes the dream even starts after I have already taken the bite. The dream itself is usually about the aftermath. The panic. What I am going to do. Who I am going to tell. If I am going to tell anybody. If I can, or will, rationalize it. If I’m going to be honest or if I am going to lie. And it is always in the context of the fact that I do not eat the thing I have just eaten. It’s not like I don’t have food boundaries in my dream. The point of the dream is that I don’t eat sugar and I just ate sugar.

This particular dream was long and drawn out. It was specifically about eating licorice. (Yes, black licorice. Licorice licorice.) Which was a nostalgic food for me. I used to eat it with my Italian grandma. It’s what we would eat after dinner. This dream was not just about eating it, but then going out to find more. And the specific brand my grandma used to buy. It was about chasing it.

I was telling a coworker about this the other day and he said to me, “Was it great to eat it again? Were you thinking, ’Mmmm. Wow, this is so good?’” I looked at him surprised. I said, “No. It was a nightmare.”

The main feeling of the dream was the dual terror that I was going to eat more and that I was not going to get to eat more. It was the feeling of how crazy eating sugar made me when I was an active addict.

The good thing about this dream is that it reminded me where I come from. Who I could be if I did have a relapse. It brought me back to what it was like to live in my head when I was crazy and in food hell. And it reminded me that I am a low-functioning addict. That when I was eating compulsively, I didn’t pay my bills. I didn’t clean my house. I would eat in bed, and then just push the garbage aside to go to sleep. I slept in a nest of my own garbage.

It is always a relief to wake up from a using dream. I think that may actually be what they are for. Especially when I am feeling normal and sane and happy in my life. That relief. That full body experience that reminds me that all of the inconvenience of shopping and preparing and reading labels and constant vigilance is actually worth it. Because I didn’t really eat that licorice or that muffin or that cookie. That the life with peace and calm and the ability to cope with every-day situations is not my normal. That there is another me out there who is totally cray-cray. But not today. For today it was just a dream.

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10 May 2014

Everyone else is already taken

My past few weeks have been about revisiting old lessons. This does not particularly surprise me. It has been clear to me for a long time that growing is circular and cyclical. Revisiting the same aspects of ourselves at different levels and different perspectives.

So first it was remembering that I can take steps to be the person I want to be in the midst of a culture of people I don’t want to be. And then it was remembering to mind my own business. And that being helpful does not always mean offering help. And then it was remembering that it’s ok to judge. That that is how I figure out what I want, how to get it, and if I am, in fact, getting it.

So this week has been about remembering that I have my own journey. That it is mine. That it is exactly the one I am supposed to have. And that it is as good as anyone else’s.

When I was eating compulsively, I had a lot of jealousy. A lot of anger at God. A lot of frustration at what it seemed everybody got that I did not.

Of course, first was my broken body. That I got a body that was fat and disgusting. That mark of my innate wrongness that God made visible to everyone. While everybody else got one that was normal and good.

But there were other things too, outside of the body itself.

There was a girl I went to grammar school with. She occurred to me as perfect. All of the teachers loved her. The principal. The office staff. The other mothers.

She was smart, and pretty. She was popular. (If the term popular can be applied to a small class in a small school in the suburbs.) And I was very jealous. Not that I didn’t like her. I did. Very much. She was extremely likable. But it seemed to me that she got a good life, and I got a bad one.

This kind of thing was common through my whole life. There were people like that in my family. In junior high and high school and college and at jobs and in social circles. Everybody had something I did not. Everybody was privy to things that were mysterious to me. I have described before that I thought that everybody got a life instruction manual that I did not get.

When I got my food under control and stopped being high on sugar all the time, I learned that a lot of what I didn’t understand about life came from my own insistence on numbing myself instead of feeling my feelings. And that part of it was also my lack of integrity. That willingness to lie, cheat and steal. That ability to numb the shame and guilt of lying cheating and stealing with chocolate cake. With my food under control I learned that life actually just works better when I honor my word. When I have integrity.

But there is something else I learned when I got control of my eating and my eating disorders. And it is that lesson I need a refresher course in this week. I learned that the life I got is beautiful and perfect. I learned that I have a place. And that it is a place that nobody else can fill. It is Kate’s place. And I need to fulfill Kate’s missions. Even if I don’t know what all of them are yet. Even if they are not worldly. Even if they don’t make me rich. Or famous. And even if they are and they do. That my life, however it twists and turns, whatever it looks like, is my gift from Life. And that it is also my gift back to life. And that I had better honor it. As it is.

Because this week, I read a book. A novel that made me ache with jealousy. For the first time in a very long time. It made me envious. And it made me pity myself. Poor me. I didn’t write that brilliant novel. And then came the (frankly ridiculous and unnatural conclusion) that I could never write something like that. That I got a bad life. That I got sub par talent.

And then I saw a girl in a perfect outfit. Simple and clean. Unobtrusive and yet stunningly fashionable. And then I realized that I could never wear that outfit. Because it was beautiful on her because she is thin and straight. And I am curvy.

I love fiction. And I have, several times in my life, attempted to write some fiction. I have written some that I thought was pretty good. But I have never gone very far with it. Certainly never all the way. And for most of my life I thought of myself as not worthy of being a writer. Because I never finished anything. Or I never polished what got finished. Because I never followed through.

And then I started this blog. And I made a commitment to write. And I have written. Regularly. And well. Granted I do not always impress myself. But sometimes I do! Sometimes I read something and I think, “Hot damn! Did that come out of me?”

And I know for sure that this is what I am supposed to be doing right now. That this is my mission at this moment. That this blog is Kate taking the gift from Life. And giving the gift to Life.

I also need to remember that this is the body I am in. And it is beautiful. And that I have a very specific style. And it is also beautiful. I have really gorgeous clothes that fit me body and soul. That I can admire somebody else’s style without needing to adopt it.

So maybe someday I will write a novel. But if I do, it will not be the novel I read this week. That one is already written. And maybe I will change my style someday. But it won’t be that girl’s style. That’s already hers.

I should remember Oscar Wilde’s perfect advice.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

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03 May 2014

Just call me Judgy McJudgerson

I have been thinking lately about judgment. About what it means to be a judgmental person. And about what it looks like to live and let live, while at the same time judging.

I have written before about the difficult relationship I have with obesity and judgment. (In this post right here.) And that turned out to be a very important exercise for my growth. It was the first step in my reconciliation with the girl I had been growing up. I did make peace with the person I had been and the body I had been in. And there have been some subtle changes in my thinking since then. But some things remain true. I have been fat and I hated it. And I hated myself. And it was so difficult and painful. So I pity. And pity is a kind of judgment. And I don’t ever want to be fat again. And that is a kind of judgment.

There is this thing I hear in some of my circles and on social media a lot. It’s this idea that nobody should be judged. With an unspoken yet clear undertone that says nobody except those who judge. And those who judge should be judged harshly.

Well I am going to tell you, I judge. And I have come to realize that I like it that way. And that I don’t have any intention or desire to change that.

First, some clarification. I don’t think it is ever ok to be unkind. I don’t think it is a favor to anybody to shame and humiliate them. Or anybody’s right to do so to another person. Also, judging does not mean vomiting my opinion all over the place. It does not mean unsolicited advice. It does not mean meddling. As I said in my last post, I am looking to focus on minding my own business. I believe in live and let live. I believe in keeping my eyes on my own plate and my own life. Not that I am perfect at it, but that is what I strive for.

Judging also does not mean liking or disliking people based on anything other than liking them. The truth is that there are people in my life whom I am judging about certain aspects of their lives, and I really like them. And there are people whom I do not like at all, but there are things about them that I cannot help but respect and admire. There are people I want to like, but I don’t. And people I do not want to like and I just can’t help it.

But I am a judger. I believe in judging. I believe in having a critical eye (tempered with a loving heart.) Because how else would I know what I want? And how else would I know who to ask to help me get it?

There is a saying that I love: If you want what I have, then do what I do.

When I was desperate to get my eating under control, I found people who had their eating under control. I asked them for help and support. I learned what they did and I did it. And it worked.

When I wanted to have a breakthrough in my love life, I went to a friend who had the kind of relationship I wanted and I asked for her to teach me. To point me in the right direction and show me the next step. She did. And it worked.

When I wanted inner peace, I went to the people whom I could see had peace. The ones who radiated self-love and serenity. Even when their lives were in turmoil. I asked them what I could do to have peace, and I followed their directions. And it worked.

If I hadn’t been judging, how was I supposed to choose what I wanted? If I hadn’t been judging, how could I have known if I was succeeding or not?

Now seriously, would you take fitness advice from an out-of-shape trainer? Would you take marriage advice from someone in a miserable marriage? Would you take dating advice from a single person? Would you take career advice from someone who hates their job? Would you take food advice from someone obese and unhealthy?

Here’s the thing, maybe you would. Maybe you do. It turns out that many people do. Maybe you think that it is wrong to judge. Maybe you think that anybody’s advice is as good as anybody else’s.

But I do not see it that way. Now I look for who has what I want. And to figure that out, I am out here judging. Looking around with honest and clear eyes. And a head that is not fogged up with sugar. Using my gift of discernment. I believe God gave it to me for a reason. To use it. Not to call people out. Not to shame and humiliate. To use it for myself. To make myself the person I want to be. And deciding who I want to be, and if I am that person, takes judgment too.

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27 Apr 2014

Keeping my eyes on my own plate

I feel sort of silly writing today. I am not feeling particularly qualified to inspire lately. I’m feeling a bit like I have regressed into some behaviors that I don’t particularly love.

No, not with food. With food, I am as committed and vigilant as ever. Thank God. Frankly, that’s the reason I can tell that I’m not behaving my best.

I am probably not behaving as badly as I fear I am. I can be a little blind to the reality of things. Especially when I am observing myself. I would do well to keep in mind that I am growing. And that growing is not a straight line. That there will be some regression. Some circling back. That just because I can see the person I want to be doesn’t mean it’s possible to just be that person. It takes time. And work. And a whole bunch of failing at it. That’s the way of it. And it always has been. I am without a doubt a better person than I was. I have grown and changed for the better in huge and fantastic ways over the years. But it has always been by baby steps. Why would I expect it to be any different now?

So what I am going to focus on for now is minding my own business. That is where I want to grow today. One baby step at a time.

Yesterday I had some good friends come to visit. While I was doing something else, one was refilling the coffee pot with water. She didn’t know that the part that holds water is removable, and was using a cup to pour water into it. I said “Oh, that comes off so you can refill it in the sink…” And then I stopped and said, “But that works too. Never mind. You’re doing great.” Because she was. What she was doing was working perfectly well. She was getting the job done. I was trying to be helpful. But in that moment, I recognized that what would have been even more helpful was to keep my mouth shut.

I did the same thing to my boyfriend while we were trying to find the place we lost in our audio book. I insisted on “helping.” But all I succeeded in doing was expressing that I didn’t think he was capable. (Which isn’t true, sweetheart!) And it clearly offended him. (Sorry!)

There is a saying I learned when I first got my eating under control. “Keep your eyes on your own plate. And keep your eyes on your own life.” It doesn’t matter what anybody else is eating. I only have to be concerned with what I am eating. It doesn’t matter what anybody else is doing. I only have to be concerned with what I am doing. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. Even about me.

And frankly, what a relief!

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12 Apr 2014
2 Comments

As every parent knows, “There’s nothing wrong with the one you’ve got.”

I’m in a funny place about my body lately. Not terrible. But not great either.

I have not been weighing myself for many months. And I am grateful for that. For some reason, numbers make me irrational. But I can tell I go up and down. In the way my clothes fit. And how big my butt is.

For whatever reason, a few weeks ago, I was up. And I can tell that I am in the process of going back down. And while I don’t know how much in terms of pounds, it is not a lot. I am not growing or shrinking out of my clothes.

But I am disappointed lately. Because I had hoped that I would have lost more weight by now.

If you don’t know, I quit smoking for my 35th Birthday. And I will turn 37 in less than 2 months. In the first 9 months of quitting, I gained 30 pounds. Not because I was eating to compensate. But simply because that was one of my side effects. I had others too. For the first 6 weeks I had open sores in my mouth and for about 10 months I was depressed. But it was the weight gain that was most devastating to me.

As a former fat girl, I have all sorts of eating and body image disorders. Sometimes they are dormant. And sometimes they are active. Though only in my head…When it comes to eating, starving, binging, purging, laxatives, over-exercising, and all other manner of acting out with food, I have the action part under control with strict rules and boundaries. And I have for over 8 years.

So gaining 30 lbs, especially with my eating under control, was triggering for me. It made me crazy. And unhappy. And it was hard to reconcile myself to it. I felt like I was being punished. And it was especially frustrating because I felt like I was being punished for quitting smoking. You know, no good deed goes unpunished, and so on.

But I felt like I could handle it, because I thought it would be temporary. I thought that after some time went by, I would lose that 30 lbs. Or at least the greater portion of it. And here I am almost 2 years later, and a full year since the excessive weight gain stopped, and I have not lost any weight.

There is something that I have told more than one person recently, and I would do well to remember it myself. When I was actively eating compulsively and eating sugar, my eating habits were surely the reason I weighed 300 lbs. (Duh.) But since I got my eating under control and stopped eating sugar, I have noticed that what I eat has generally had the least to do with my weight. The thinnest I ever was in my life was the time that followed the illness of my Dad’s mom, who was the first love of my life. In the months that led to her death, I must have dropped 15 lbs, and I was already thin. Then, and in the years following that time, it did not matter what I ate. Drenched in butter, deep-fried, bacon, full-fat dairy, huge portions. Every day. Just to maintain a tiny little body. And then I quit smoking. And even cutting portions in half, reducing fat content and limiting how often I ate certain foods, I still gained weight. I gained 30 lbs, eating less than half of what I had been eating before I gave up cigarettes.

I’m saying I don’t want to start worrying about what I eat. That I don’t want to start drinking skim milk and eating nonfat yogurt. I don’t want to start steaming my vegetables. I don’t want to stop eating roasted squash and carrots. In the (possibly vain) hope that I will lose 20 lbs. Because for years now, what I eat has not had nearly as great of an impact on my weight as all of the other things going on in my life. My stress, my sadness, my anxiety, my withdrawal, my unwillingness to let things go.

And I’m also saying I want to stop judging my “willpower” and my looks so harshly.

I know that my eyes are broken. And I can see that sometimes I think I look like women who are significantly bigger than I am. But also, the truth is that I am not particularly thin right now. And I don’t like it. And dammit! I don’t like that I don’t like it.

I really want to be comfortable in my own body. Exactly as it is. And I don’t want to feel like I should eat diet food. And I don’t want to judge myself on what I am eating. And I don’t want to feel like my worth is based on how “good” I can be. And I don’t want how “good” I am to be based on how much I can deprive myself, and how much I can suffer for a smaller body. And I don’t want to buy into the notion that a smallest possible body is always healthier, prettier, better.

Because that is the notion in modern Western culture, right? That any body bigger than tiny is fat. That the best body is the smallest one. That as a woman, that’s the one to strive for. And if you are not striving for the smallest possible body then you are somehow lacking. Lazy, or shameful, or ultimately unwomanly.

There is a kind of person that I want to be. And it involves having peace around what is so. And it involves trusting that I have exactly the body that I am supposed to have. And knowing that this body is beautiful. Because it is well cared for. Well fed. Well hydrated. Well maintained. Well used with out being abused.

And I want to be the kind of person who has some perspective about bodies. Specifically my own body, but also in general. Human bodies in the world. To have a realistic and sane outlook on them. To see that they aren’t all created to grow into doe-eyed, pouty, ectomorphs, if only their owners would behave properly. To understand that they all grow into different shapes and sizes. And at different rates. And that I got as good of one as anybody else. And you did too.

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
06 Apr 2014

This is me showing up

I’m home for the weekend. It’s a thing my boyfriend and I do every once in a while. We fly out on a Friday, then for two days we run around like crazy people seeing as many people as possible and running the errands that need to get run. And then we hop back on a plane on Monday. And as soon as I get back, I have to make sure I have enough food packed and prepped to start back to work on Tuesday.

Thank God I have my eating under control. So I can do the stuff that needs to be done. Or at least take the next right action. And I can be with all of the people I get to see. I can talk and catch up. I can play and dance with my boyfriend’s granddaughter. And she can get my full attention. I can be with people and actually be with them. Instead of eating. Or being high on food. Or thinking about food. Or planning how to get food. Or how to sneak it without being seen. And judged.

So this is my few minutes to write my blog. Because that’s something I am committed to doing. Before it’s time for lunch. And then off to see more family. And then back to the house to pack up clothes and food for tomorrow’s travel.

I’m saying I’m here. Doing what needs to be done. Because I have my eating under control. And that means that I’m too aware and awake not to do what needs to be done. And it means I am clear and confident enough to have the capability to do it. In other words, when I don’t eat compulsively I not not can show up, I have to.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
30 Mar 2014
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High on Learning? I think I saw an after school special on that…

I have been thinking lately about patience. The nature of patience. And how I learned patience from getting control of my eating.

I spent my life as a pleasure junkie. I don’t think it’s too uncommon. Food was my first drug of choice. Drama was probably my second. Then cigarettes. Marijuana. There are others. Some more benign. Reading and daydreaming are still pleasures I indulge in regularly.

There is something else that I love. That gives me a certain kind of pleasure. Learning something.

I started crocheting since I started this blog. I am pretty good at it. I have gotten significantly better in the past few months. I find that for me, there is a tipping point to learning. Or really a series of tipping points. I learn the basics. And I practice them. Then I learn something a little more advanced. And I practice it. And I mess up. And I forget some of the things I originally learned and I have to go back and relearn those parts. And I practice. And I learn a little more. And I get good at one something and I do it over and over until being good at it loses its novelty. And then I learn more. And at some point, all of this disjointed knowledge that has been teetering on the brink over my head tips over and cohesion cascades over me. Suddenly, how it all fits together makes perfect sense, and I have reached a new level of understanding and skill.

So I decided the other day that it was time to teach myself to knit. And this was kind of a big deal. Because I am already good at crochet. And I already get a lot of pleasure from it. And there is still plenty for me to learn. And when I do it, in the end I get a product I am proud of. And knitting was going to require patience. It was going to mean a lot of messing up. And frustration. And being bad. And ugly products. For now.

Now, I am good at certain things. There are things I naturally have a knack for. That I have since childhood. I have very good fine motor dexterity. (Hand-eye coordination for things like sports and video games is something else entirely. Um…yeah, that stuff not so much…) I am also good at understanding how things fit together to make up a whole. One example of this might be how loops of yarn interlock with other loops of yarn to form cloth. Or how to reverse engineer those loops.

So obviously, I am at an advantage when it comes to something like knitting. I am sure that being predisposed to be good at it made me want to do it. I don’t know that it would give me as much pleasure if I would only ever be mediocre at it. The plan is to one day excel.

But right now, at this very moment, I am one notch above sucking royally. And that is uncomfortable. But totally ok. Because I have patience. And I have patience because I got my eating under control.

Getting the hang of something sets off my pleasure centers. While the struggle before that happens can be frustrating. And sometimes it can make me doubt myself. Or be angry with myself. But that moment that something clicks, I get a nice little buzz. And that moment of greater understanding is positively blissful.

But lets face it, chocolate cake would give me that whole blissful experience in a matter of seconds without the year+ of toiling and learning and practicing and trying. With out all of that discomfort in between.

And that’s exactly what I would have done if I were still eating sugar. I would have been excited to learn something, because the prospect of learning is exciting. And then I would have tried. And sucked. And eaten a cake. And gotten that feeling. And stopped trying. And eaten more cake.

Of course cake was killing me. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. It left me depressed. Not to mention hugely fat. It made me hate myself. It took more and more, more and more often, to get that blissful feeling. And eventually, the feeling was not so much blissful as just “not in deep pain.”

Because blissing out, and then eventually just numbing out, all the time made any kind of discomfort into “deep pain.” And getting control of my eating slowly allowed my body and brain to re-regulate. Not eating over every feeling allowed that “deep pain” return to being regular old, bearable discomfort. And not eating feelings also taught me how to bear it. Not manage it. Not mask it or fix it. But just let it be there. And live with it.

And I will say that the experience of learning, the clicking and cascading, is better than “getting high.” It is worth the discomfort. I don’t know why exactly. But I’m sure it has something to do with those feelings being real. That I earned those feelings of pleasure. That I did not steal them. And that I do not expect them to be my constant state. That life, as it is, is enough for me. And maybe I’ll get a scarf out of it. Sure, an ugly scarf for now. But I’ll be patient. And eventually I will make something pretty.

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

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