onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “eating disorders”

28 Sep 2012

Does Lady Gaga understand that revolutions are complicated?…and usually bloody…

I really thought I was gonna stay away from talking about Lady Gaga, and stick with my own story. But it was either this or talk about how my love is a burden and no one is ever going to want it…So Lady Gaga it is!

If you don’t already know, Lady Gaga has come out about struggling with anorexia and bulimia since she was 15. She said she did it to “inspire bravery. and BREED some m$therf—ing COMPASSION.” She wants to start a “Body Revolution” of self acceptance.

Um…Yay? I feel like I should be psyched. Because she’s bringing light to the conversation I want to bring into the light. So why does it feel so yucky to me? Am I really jealous of a superstar? Not for her money, fame, or status, but because she has a built in audience and she’s talking about “my thing”? Really, Kate?
Or is it maybe that she posted “fat” (?) pictures of herself in her underwear and she doesn’t have a single stretch mark, while I am covered in them. And she does have a flat stomach, while I have a big round belly and flaps of skin that embarrass me. Maybe it’s because I look at her stick-it-to-the-man, 25 lbs-heavier-than-her-usual-Hollywood-standard photos and note that her body is still so much closer to the American standard of beauty than my own. And really, is still within the perimeter of that standard. Maybe blurs the edges. But just barely. And that made me feel even worse about myself. When I have already been dealing with my body image issues for weeks. If Lady Gaga’s “fat” body isn’t good enough, mine is a disgusting blob of ugly. Who would ever love that?
Yes I understand that she was feeling shamed by the media for gaining 25 lbs. And that she was making a point. I am willing to believe that it was meant as an act of bravery. Defiance of “the system.” And yes, I think it is gross, wrong, and even evil to express opinions about another person’s body. Even if you are in the media and she is in the public eye. Yes, I know she’s there by choice. It doesn’t matter to me. She’s a human being. That body is her only vehicle. And it belongs to her alone. It should be respected.
But I have a hard time forgetting that her practically naked image has been shaming women for years. Regular women in regular bodies. Me, by the way. She has been shaming me. Hasn’t she been selling skinny as sexy for the past several years? Am I supposed to forget that she has been part of the money-making, ideal-woman-image machine? She is certainly a victim. I won’t begrudge her that. But isn’t she also a perpetrator?
Or maybe I’m feeling jealous and yucky because she’s selling a “quick fix” to an issue that has complicated my entire life. Not only is she talking about my issue, but she’s totally half-assing it.
Does she really think we can just “out” our perceived body flaws and as a human collective we will stop judging one another? And stop hating ourselves? Will we also stop photoshopping the hell out of women in ads to sell an impossible image? And will we stop buying that image? And stop buying it for our daughters? Will we join hands around the world and sing “What the World Needs Now Is Love” too?
And will Lady Gaga declare that her body is beautiful exactly the way it is and be able to believe it? I mean really believe it. Will she stop starving herself (if she does that)? Will she stop making herself throw up (if she does that)? My point is, she’s claiming some serious eating and body disorders. So whatever her issues are, will she stop engaging in the behaviors that make up her personal brand of disordered eating? And will she be able to share that with her community so that they can find some relief? And peace?
I know that eating disorders are no joke. I know that anorexics and bulimics suffer. And that must include Lady Gaga, for all of her money and fame. That it is not about what one looks like on the outside. Or what one has. Or has accomplished. I know that eating disorders are equal opportunity destroyers. That it is the head and heart that go crazy. I know the kind of self-hatred that you have to experience to torture yourself with food. And starvation. And all of the other awful things there are to do to oneself. I know because I have tried a bunch of them personally. And that in many ways, it is this kind of eating disorder that is more damaging than run of the mill, get fat, compulsive eating/binge eating.
At least it was for me. Being fat was hard. Not being able to stop eating was deeply humiliating. And living in a big body was shameful and exhausting. But the exhaustion of the body was nothing compared to the exhaustion of acting on the whims of the bulimic girl in my head. The scheming and worrying. The hiding. I lived in constant action and panic. It was imperative that nobody should ever find out my secret. That I am a fat girl. That I have no will power. That I can’t stop eating. That I am unworthy of love and I will never be good enough. That I am an utter and detestable failure as a human being. My fat girl let it all be out in the open. But my bulimic girl wanted to hide it. She would go to any lengths. To her, my life was a lie, and every day I lived in a socially acceptable body was one more day she managed to fool the world into thinking I had any value as a person.
I have had my eating, as well as my eating disorders, under control for over six years now. I have more peace and freedom than I ever had in my life. My worst day living within my food boundaries is better than my best day with no boundaries and my eating out of control. But none of it is solved for me. I have to cultivate it. I have to honor myself every day. I have to have integrity in my life. I have to have integrity around eating. It remains intensely complicated in spite of all that I have accomplished around peace, self-love and food.
Yes I had to learn to love myself so that I could get some peace and love around my food and my body. But part of that love is in actions of self-care and honor. Actions! Every single day! And it’s still f*cking hard to love myself!
So yes. Declare your self-love to the world. Yes, out yourself for your stretch marks. Or that your breasts are two different sizes. Or that your thighs rub together. Or that you make yourself throw up your food. But what are you going to do to take care of yourself? What are you going to do to hold the demons at bay every day? What are you going to do to not fall into the hole of punishment and torture and despair? How are you going to let go of self-hatred? Because that f*cker is sneaky. And regardless of where it originates, it does not live outside of the self. As much as I would like to blame the beauty and fashion industries. Advertising and society. Self-hatred lives in the boys and girls (men and women) who are taking drastic, dangerous, and harmful actions just to feel worthy of showing up in the world.
I really don’t want to be a hater. But I’m angry. Because today’s publicity opp is not going to stop anorexia and bulimia from living on in actual human beings (who don’t have millions of fans). I want to know what comes next for them. What do you say to the girl who wants to love herself, but can’t. And feels like a failure? And are you willing to be honest about the actual struggle? Because it’s hard to be honest about the actual struggle, Lady Gaga! It can be deeply embarrassing. And shockingly unglamourous. I know. I’ve been doing it for about 10 months. And it’s scary!
I will say that I am grateful that somebody has brought about a call for self-acceptance and love. But I would like it to be a responsible, empowering, honest call. Maybe sh*t’s about to get real. But I think I could handle that. I could be on board. In fact, if that’s the case, I say Viva la Revolucion!
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22 Sep 2012

When you say womanly, you mean hot not fat, right?

Yesterday I spent much of the day in bed. Crying. Because I hated my body.
Today, I put on a sexy dress and some knee-high boots and went into the city to meet some people. I didn’t hate my body so much today. I wasn’t in love with it, like I have been before. But I could see that to an outside observer, I am really lovely.
My dismorphia has been coming in waves. And I have just been trying to keep my head above water and not get swept away in the current.
I have been comparing myself to me a year ago. I keep thinking that being 12 lbs heavier than I was before I quit smoking means that I’m 12 points (units? notches?) uglier than I was then. But friends and strangers keep complimenting me. One of my neighbors actually asked if I had started working out because I look so good. So healthy. A friend of mine said that she could see that I had gained a bit of weight. But that she thought it made me look more beautiful. Less drawn. More womanly.
That’s the consensus. Healthy. Womanly. I am a sensuous woman. I like the idea of being round, soft and warm. It fits nicely with the kind of wife and partner I would like to be someday. Nurturing, loving, empowering. And I know that I am beautiful, and sexy. These are traits I learned to own when I got my food under control. Well nourished, well rested, with strong integrity and a good amount of genetic luck.
So why am I having such a hard time with my dismorphia lately? I think a lot of it is that I am not in control right now. And that scares me. I have no idea when the weight gain will stop. I have no idea how much more weight I could gain. I don’t know how long it could be before I feel happy and comfortable in my body again. 3 months? 6 months? A year? (Oh dear God, please don’t let it take a year!) I don’t get a say about my body right now. I am in free fall. And I am having a hard time trusting that this will end well.
Maybe it’s just because I spent my first 28 years in a body that I hated. I have a lot more experience thinking I am ugly than I do knowing that I am beautiful. I have been experiencing a lot of those same old feelings of body shame lately. I noticed today that when I am out in public, I have not been breathing. That I have been keeping my neck and shoulders rigid. I am waiting for someone to make a comment about my body. I’m waiting for someone to tell me I’m fat.
I, of course, am not at all fat. There is nothing unhealthy about my weight. At 145, I fall well within the normal range for a woman my height. (5′ 6.5″) My 12 lb weight gain comes from doing something very healthy. Quitting smoking. Plus all signs point to much of the weight being temporary. I have gone up one pants size. Now an 8 fits me comfortably. A 9 in juniors sizes. This is a normal size.
I wish I felt like a normal woman in a normal body. I wish I knew for certain that I would stay a normal size. I wish I had some idea of when the weight gain would stop and I would get some measure of control back. I wish I knew how long before I stopped being uncomfortable in my own skin.
I’ll be honest, if I had known that this was going to happen, I would not have quit smoking. But what’s done is done. I’m no fool. I can see that there is no turning back now. I’m already in it. At this point, the only way to the other side is through.
Here’s another thing. I have a reputation among certain people I know for being non-judgmental. The one who accepts herself, and therefore them. The person people can come to and tell their secrets and failures, without fear of being shamed. I am the woman who teaches people to love themselves by example. Because I learned to love myself. And here I am hating myself. Being ashamed of my body. And I feel like I am letting everyone down. Like I’m letting you down. And I am embarrassed to admit that. I want to be better than that. I want to be stronger than that. I thought I was made of better stuff…
And maybe the most difficult part of this whole experience is not knowing what the lesson is. Or if there is a lesson. Maybe I’m supposed to have some room for the self-hatred. To let it in so it can flow back out again. Maybe I need to stop resisting hating my body. Maybe I just need to hate it until I love it again. Not hurt it or abuse it. But hate it. Think it’s ugly and let that be ok.
Or maybe I should ignore it. Perhaps I need to stop caring about what I look like for a while. Stop looking in the mirror. Stop dressing to be cute. Stop worrying about whether or not men find me attractive. Because I do worry about it. Which is kind of ridiculous, since I have not been dating for a very long time now.
Or maybe the lesson here is that I just have to keep doing what I am doing. Longer. Just keep managing my self-hatred. Keep putting it down. Keep finding some way to love myself one day at a time.
And there is one more possibility that has occurred to me. And it’s that I have had this self-hatred for my whole life. And that I ate it. And when I stopped eating it, I smoked it. And now that I am not smoking it, all there is to do is feel it. And maybe if I feel it for as long as it takes, I will move through it. And I will be able to love my body because it is mine. Not because it used to be fat and unhealthy and now it is thin and healthy. And not because I managed to make it a shape that I think the world will find appealing. But simply because it is the only vehicle for the life that belongs to me. Because it is me. And I am worth loving.
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15 Sep 2012

Even the angry, destructive side of me likes sexy pants

I have multiple eating disorders, hence I have a whole cast of messed up characters that live in my head when it comes to food, eating, my body, and my emotional life.

I talk a lot about my fat girl. She’s relatively easy for me to talk about. She’s lived in my head for almost the longest. (The girl who is a burden has lived in my head the absolute longest. We’re not going there today…) And in many ways, I think my fat girl is the easiest for you to process and handle (unless you have an eating disorder of your own). She’s sad and a coward. She couldn’t stop eating. She hopes I’ll go back to being a coward so she can have her cake back. That’s about the extent of her. Don’t get me wrong. She’d kill me if she got the chance. But it would be a slow death. Diabetes and heart disease. Death by chocolate, if you will. Which I bet sounds great to you if it’s not actually a possibility for you like it is for me.

But there is also a bulimic girl who lives in my head. And she’s the scary one. The one that is the most dangerous. And damaging. The kinds of things I was doing to myself because of my bulimic girl scared me into quitting sugar entirely. She is the reason I keep such strict boundaries around my food. She would rather see me dead than fat. She is angry and obsessive and cruel. And she’s excessively vain. Not a healthy, see-how-I-take-care-of-myself kind of vanity. A seven deadly sins kind of vanity. She has no peace and no love. Nothing is ever ever good enough for her. Especially not me.

My bulimic girl has a tag line. A particular thought. Get it out. Actually it’s more like Get it out. Getitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitout Get. It. OUT! NOW! (And this is said through clenched teeth.)

It was this thinking that had me abuse laxatives, drink castor oil, run 14 miles a day and eventually make myself throw up my food. My bulimic girl was full of hair-brained schemes to deal with the aftermath of my fat girl and her binge eating. If it were humorous, it might be a version of The Odd Couple. A grotesque murderous version…

Since I quit smoking 3 months ago, I keep gaining weight. I have gained 12 lbs since June 1st. It has been hard for me to deal with. (This may be my understatement of the year.) I put on a pair of jeans the other day, and they were tight. This was especially embarrassing and sad for me. In February, they were comically big. They had to be held up by a belt and sagged around my butt. I wore them to babysit when I expected to get dirty. Feeling these jeans pressed up against me was incredibly uncomfortable. Emotionally. Because it was a reminder that I feel incredibly fat. And I know there is nothing for me to do about it. It is not about calories. When I first quit smoking, I didn’t change my eating at all and I gained 3 lbs. The next month, I ate lighter than usual, (more salad, less cooking in butter) and I gained 4 more lbs. So it is not that I have been doing it wrong. It is not something I can control. My body is changing. I don’t get a say.
Guess who hates this? Any thoughts? My bulimic girl. This is killing her. She insists that there must be something I can do. At least don’t get fried onions this week. At least chill out on the full fat yogurt. At least walk a couple more miles a day. Do SOMETHING! Do you WANT to be this fat? GET IT OUT!
So my fat girl wants to give up and eat cake (not like she’s popped up this week – she just always wants to give up and eat cake), and my bulimic girl wants to resist and starve me. I decided not to give up or resist. I decided to accept. My body is what it is. Right now. And I don’t know for how long. And I don’t get a say. There is nothing for me to do.
But that is not true. There was one thing for me to do. And I did it. I went out and bought bigger pants. I bought pants I feel sexy in. Because maybe the hardest part of this weight gain is that I have been feeling incredibly unsexy. And sexy has been a very important part of my life for years now. It is a part of my personality. It is one of the things that I love about myself and my life.
And buying sexy pants that fit my body the way it is right now has shut my bulimic girl up. For now. I’m sure she’ll be back. Just like my fat girl, and my burden, and my good girl. But today, because I have my eating under control, none of them get to run my life.
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08 Sep 2012
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She’s not hungry, she’s my fat girl

As a person with eating disorders, I don’t really know what hunger is. That evolutionary trigger that says “you need fuel or you will die” does not function properly for me. So when I’m “hungry”, I can’t always judge if that feeling is a physical feeling or an emotional upset. And when I was eating compulsively, I promise, it was never a physical feeling. If you can imagine how much and how often a person has to eat in order to maintain a morbidly obese body, then you can imagine that at no point was my body in danger of starvation.

Knowing this about myself is important. Because I have eliminated “hunger” from my reasons to eat. There is actually only one reason for me to eat now. Because it is time to eat. That is part of my food boundaries. There’s a time to eat. Not just one. Three of them every day, in fact. Big, beautiful, abundant meals. And then that’s it. If I have eaten lunch and I am “hungry” I just “be hungry” until dinner. Being hungry for a few hours is not the most horrible thing in the world. Especially for someone as well fed as I am. So far, I have not died from it.

A few weeks ago I may have actually been hungry. When I quit smoking, my metabolism changed. Is still changing. And I was not feeling satisfied after my meals. So when it was time to eat, I made some different choices about what I ate. Giant cantaloupes. Less salad, more vegetables cooked in butter. And that hungry feeling went away and my body started feeling full and fed and content again. So it could be that that was real hunger. The truth is, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Real hunger, emotional cravings. As long as my eating is within my boundaries, it’s basically none of my business. I don’t have to care. I don’t even have to wonder. (it’s very freeing, frankly.)

But this week, I have been feeling “hungry” and it is definitely not a physical hunger. I have been feeling this “hunger” even though my meals have been incredibly decadent and filling. Even when I have just finished a huge, gorgeous meal, and my body is stuffed, I have been “hungry”.

Even knowing that I am stuffed is something that only came to me after I had my eating under control for a while. When I was eating compulsively, I was basically disconnected from my body. Not only did my thoughts tell me that I was “hungry”, but they kept me from ever feeling the sensation of “full”. All of those feelings that lived in my mind and my thinking that occurred to me as hunger trumped any actual physical sensation. I didn’t (still don’t?) have that thing that regular people have that tells them they have had enough. All of the discomfort and shame and pain (and joy – any intense feeling is hard for me to deal with) registered as hunger. And I fed them.

But now, because I have boundaries, and therefore some clarity (not to mention sanity) I can look at feelings of “hunger”. And I have a shot at distinguishing what they really are. And I think I understand what this week’s “hunger” is about.

Right now, there are some areas of my life that are up in the air. There are some things that are not settled. And it’s not time for them to be settled. I don’t know what is going to happen. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I don’t know when I’ll know what the next right action is. I don’t even know what the next right action is supposed to lead to. So I have to wait. And be still. And I have been getting impatient. I don’t want to wait. I want to know. I don’t want to be still. I want to move. Now! And the not knowing and the not moving are making me uncomfortable. And that discomfort registers as a kind of emptiness. Like there’s something missing. Like there is a hole in my life. And the fat girl who lives in my head wants to fill that hole with food.

Here’s what I already know: There is not enough food in the whole world to fill that void.
I am grateful that I don’t have to eat compulsively today. The clarity that I have has not only let me see that impatience is the real feeling behind the illusory hunger I’ve been feeling this week, but it lets me see that it really isn’t time for me to act yet. And then it will also allow me to be alert and know when it is time to move. And to know what to do when that time finally comes. Not a rash decision and a drastic action. Rational. Honorable. Honest. Maybe not perfect, but definitely not shameful. All that for being “hungry” for a few hours every once in a while. Yeah, not a bad deal…
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18 Aug 2012

Being committed: It’s not just for institutions anymore

I’ve been a little blocked about what to post this week. Because with only subtle differences, this week is much like last week. Doing that dance with myself. Worrying about my weight. Eating well anyway. Trying to remember that my value is not the size of my body. Forgetting. Waiting it out. Waiting for my body to adjust to quitting smoking. Waiting for what it looks like to be a non-issue again. Waiting for my eating disorder brain to quiet down. And it will. This too shall pass. There’s nothing to do but live my life in between my meals.

But then what am I going to write about? Because I have a commitment to post every week. Even if I have nothing to say. So I have decided to write about that. That kind of commitment. Because that kind of commitment is how I keep my eating under control. And I apply it to other things too. Like my daily meditation. And this blog. And being committed has changed my life.

I didn’t know anything about commitment when I was eating compulsively. I knew about excuses. Sometimes I just didn’t “feel like” doing something I was supposed to do. Or I did “feel like” doing something I wasn’t. But I knew that the right excuse, a strong enough excuse, would “make it ok” in the eyes of “the world”. Whatever “it” was. Whoever “the world” was. If I could get a “who could blame you?” kind of response, then whatever I had done or failed to do was “made right”. And I could move on. This was how I thought, and therefore how I lived.

What I never understood, of course, was that I couldn’t move on. Or at least that I wasn’t moving on. Sure, my feet weren’t being held to the fire by humans with authority anymore, but my conscience actually didn’t give a shit about authority. I didn’t even understand that my conscience was my conscience. All I knew was that I was incredibly hungry. Starving! I didn’t know that that feeling was shame and not hunger. Because food made it go away for a while. I didn’t know that was numb, not fed. So I just kept making excuses and eating. Getting bigger and bigger and never ever being satisfied.

My conscience still doesn’t care about authority, by the way. Its only authority is my word. My truth. My commitments.

When I put boundaries around my food, I had a kind of epiphany. I understood that I had to keep those boundaries no matter how I felt about it. What I “wanted” was taken out of the equation. What I “felt like” eating was irrelevant. Gratification ceased to be an option. There were more important things. Honor and commitment.

In a way, of course, my boundaries are about what I want. Because the big picture is that I “want” to be thin and peaceful and sane. And not be fat, or crazy, or sticking toothbrushes down my throat to make myself vomit. But at any given moment, whether I like the way I eat, or want a piece of cake, or feel like keeping my boundaries, has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I keep them. I just do. That’s it. No discussion. No negotiation.

And what I learned from eliminating the idea of “feel like it” from my eating, is that there is value in doing things because I do them, regardless of how I feel about doing them at any given moment on any given day. That gratification is a trap. That commitment makes my life better all around. It doesn’t even matter what the commitment is.

So like I said, I have a commitment to post every week. And I don’t even know who it’s to. Myself? God? You? I just know that I do it. There are no excuses. Circumstances don’t matter. Because I almost never “feel like” writing a post. I can think of a million excuses not to post on any given week.

Unless some glaringly obvious eating disorder thing comes up in my life, I always think there is nothing to tell you. And yet I manage to get something up every week. And most of the time I think it’s somewhere between not bad and pretty good. And every time I respect myself for doing it. Respect myself that I did it simply because it is something I do.

But I’ll admit that this commitment often feels like a burden before the post is written. I’m regularly afraid to write. Because I want to wow you! Every time! And that’s not how it works. And that’s not how life works. And that’s the best way to crash and burn and never write another entry again, let alone another entry I’m proud of. Or impressed by. (Because sometimes I do impress myself.)
Needing to top myself every time would be the best way to come to hate this blog. And myself. Not posting an entry one week because it’s not up to par would be an excellent first step in letting this blog end. More like disappear. Because it’s not good enough. And I’m not good enough. Will never be good enough.
So I write every week, even if I have nothing to say. And I post every week, even if it’s not so particularly good. And I keep in mind that to make greatness a requirement for sharing my writing is like killing the Golden Goose. Cutting open it’s belly looking for the gold inside. Forgetting that the gold comes from the magic that lives in the goose. And from the time in between laying the eggs. That there’s more gold. If I don’t get greedy. For pride. And praise.
And wisdom too. Because sometimes what I want most of all is to be the best person I can ever possibly be right now, instead of wanting to just be the best person I can be right now right now.
So here’s this week’s post. I wrote it even though I didn’t feel like it, and was afraid it would come out mediocre. And now that it’s up, I am relieved. And feeling pretty good about my level of honor and commitment. And sure, I do hope you like it. But mostly I just like that it’s done.
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04 Aug 2012
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How a giant cantaloupe saved me from the evil vortex

Most of the time, since I got control of my eating, my eating disorder brain stays essentially dormant. I always have it, of course. But my issues are not necessarily prominent in my day-to-day life. My body stays basically the same. I eat basically the same. I’m not hungry or full. I eat 3 meals a day. Those meals are within my food boundaries. The rest of life goes along as it does. For the most part, since I no longer eat compulsively, food, eating, and my body are non-issues. But from time to time, my eating disorders move into the prime real estate in my head. And since I quit smoking and my body has been going through some big changes, my body image issues are reclining in a penthouse with an ocean view.
A few weeks ago I posted “Stupid mirror! I said fairest, not fattest!” That particular body image disorder attack was about looking at myself in the mirror and seeing a distorted image of myself.  Seeing myself as fat when I am not.
And then I realized last night that for several weeks now I have been having what I call “diet-head” issues. And I didn’t exactly realize that I was in my “diet-head”. Because my eating disorders are sneaky and subtle and disguise themselves in myriad ways.
Since I quit smoking, I have had two things come up that are a double whammy when they come at the same time. I have been hungry and I have been gaining weight.
At least that’s what the scale says. Which is a whole other issue between me and my eating disorder brain. Because I was shocked to hell. I was actually expecting to have lost weight before I got on the scale the other day. I have not been feeling fat. My clothes fit. My face, neck and collar area are looking as slender as ever. And my stomach has been getting smaller. Frankly, if I didn’t know what the number on the scale was, I would not have thought twice about being back in my “regular” body. But I did, indeed, see the number on the scale. It was 140.  (Yes! 140! Can you imagine how I freaked out!? I totally freaked out. Called my friend crying like a 3-year-old!) And it does not matter that I had been feeling thin and pretty and back to normal. The number on the scale trumps liking what’s in the mirror.  Eating disorders are a trip, right?

It is very rare that I get hungry. It happens maybe three or four times a year. I eat multiple pounds of fruits and vegetables every day. Plus eggs, dairy, olive oil, butter, and a few times a week, meat. But for many weeks now, I have been hungry. I don’t know if it is emotional or physical. But either way, I have been afraid to do anything about it because the scale says I’ve been gaining weight. And my body image disorder brain has a desperate fear of getting fat.

My food boundaries are just boundaries. There is a lot of room within them. For example, how often I eat meat, or how much fat I want in my dairy products is absolutely changeable. My boundaries are not about deprivation or “dieting”. I never eat sugar, starch or simple carbohydrates, but I have plenty of options. I have plenty of room with the foods that I do eat to make sure I do not feel like I’m being punished. There are ways to eat within my food boundaries that can compensate for being hungry or feeling like it’s too much. One of the ways I can do that is with the size of certain fruits and vegetables. And sometimes I forget this.

When I was first getting control of my eating, I ate positively ginormous fruits and vegetables. I would go from market to market in search of the biggest and the best.

As the years have gone by, I do that less. It eventually started to become too much food. (That’s crazy to me, by the way. That I have reached a point in my life where there is such a thing as too much food! I’m a food addicted compulsive eater. That’s a freaking miracle!) So I generally stick to the basic fruit and veggie quantity. Like I said, it’s still multiple pounds every day…

But I’ve been hungry for a while now. When I have finished my meals, I have not been feeling satisfied. But I have been afraid to go out and find the biggest and the best like I did in the beginning. Because I want to get back to being 133 lbs and not 140. And because I already eat huge meals. I have been feeling like I should be satisfied. Like it’s shameful to want more. Plus the whole thing has seemed damned unfair! I quit smoking and I get punished with both being hungry and gaining weight!?!? Ugh! How am I not supposed to take this personally, God?

And then a good friend said “Stop thinking about it. Forget about your weight and enjoy your food.” And I said yes. I agreed. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about enjoying fresh and delicious on the lighter side. Because good Lord, I weigh 140!

And then I was at the farmer’s market, and I saw giant cantaloupes. My body said, “Want! Want!” My terrified-of-getting-fat eating disorder brain went. “Tsk tsk. Better not. 140.” And then I heard my friend’s voice say “Enjoy your food!” And I bought a giant melon. Bigger than my head. Half for dinner last night and half for breakfast this morning.

And you know what? For the first time in weeks I felt satisfied. I went to bed with a smile on my face last night. I went to work today with a song in my heart. And I am not ashamed. And I am not afraid of getting fat. And last night, after dinner, I realized that for the first time in forever, I do not feel like I’m being punished. And that I do feel like I deserve. To enjoy my food. To enjoy my life. That I deserve to be satisfied. That I’m worth that!
I am starting to understand that deprivation feeds the idea that I don’t deserve, as much as feeling like I don’t deserve makes me deprive myself. That it is also circular, like the eating making me fat and ashamed, and shame making me eat. Basically, my eating disorder brain is like a giant, evil vortex. It swirls around and around and it will take starvation and deprivation as soon as gluttony and shame. It’s all the same as long as I am punished and miserable.
Let me be blunt. I’m walking a line here. I’m doing a dance with myself and my eating disorders. I am navigating food choices, emotional and physical comfort, self acceptance and body image. Food comforts me. Eating a giant cantaloupe made me feel better. Bacon and fried onions do too. There are things it would be dangerous for me to withhold from myself. Satisfaction in eating. Foods I enjoy. I need these things as much as I want them. For my sanity and my health. And at the same time, it would be dangerous to let myself actually gain more weight than I can be comfortable with. But I also know that I just quit smoking. And I need a little self-love. And some comfort. I don’t know what’s going on with my body. I’m just going to have to wait and see. But in the mean time, I am going to enjoy my food. Within my boundaries, of course. But there’s so much abundance and deliciousness withn those boundaries. So if keeping myself comfortable and cared for means that I am going to have to occasionally eat a cantaloupe bigger than my head…well so be it…
Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , ,
14 Jul 2012

Stupid Mirror! I said fairest, not fattest!

In my post several weeks ago I said that I was worried that quitting smoking would make me gain weight. And then I said that I was being a whiner. That 2 or even 5 lbs was not worth considering. Well since I quit smoking, I gained 3 lbs. And I’m going to admit it. I am upset. Not just upset. It’s making me crazy in the head.

It’s all mixed up with feeling fat, hence feeling ugly. With being obsessed with what I look like.  And with analyzing what I am eating to decide if it is making me fat. In other words, I am having a body image disorder attack.

I want to say that the 3 lbs is probably water retention. That is one of the side effects of quitting smoking. And the only part of my body that is noticeably bigger is my stomach. (I should say the only part noticeably bigger to me. Because I don’t know if anybody else has noticed. But in my head, everybody can tell. And they all think it’s disgusting…Because people have nothing better to do than take note of, and pass judgment on my body. Obviously.) If it is that I am bloated, it will go away. It has only been 6 weeks. I am trying to remember that that is not a long time. That my body is going to be adjusting for a while yet. That just because my brain has stopped thinking of me as a smoker, doesn’t mean my body is done dealing with the change.

I have had this “big belly” for about 6 weeks now. And it has annoyed me. But my face and skin look great, so in general I had been feeling pretty damn beautiful. Sure, I have been dressing in a way that I think hides my belly, because I have been a little embarrassed. And a week ago I told a friend over the phone that I look six months pregnant, and she laughed at me and said, “I’m sure you don’t. Your eyes are broken, sweetie. Remember?”
And she is right. My eyes are “broken”. From time to time, and to varying degrees, I cannot see myself clearly. Even when I am looking in the mirror. When I am having a body image disorder attack, my brain will distort how I see myself. For me, it’s one of the other issues that comes with having eating disorders. So that attack happened to be mild. And in that moment, I agreed that I probably didn’t actually look six months pregnant. And we laughed. And I remembered that, all things considered, even with the belly, I really was looking fantastic, and I went on with my life.

And then two days ago, it hit me that I am so incredibly fat. Grotesquely fat. Jabba the Hut fat. I have cried over how ugly I think I am. How distorted my body looks. How ashamed I am.

I am having a severe body image disorder attack. And when my body image disorders flare up, they often get tied up with food.

There is a restaurant here in New York City that makes deep-fried onions. No breading. Just onions cooked in the deep fryer. Totally within my boundaries. So incredibly satisfying and delicious. And a huge part of my food life. For years now I have gone there at least once a week. Often twice a week. And even occasionally, three times a week. For years!

I went there this week. I ended up bringing home some leftovers (again, a very common occurrence) and they started to make me crazy. I looked in the mirror and saw myself as a disgusting blob. And then I thought about the onions in the refrigerator, and I started to obsess over them. Wondering if they were the real reason I gained 3 lbs. Wondering if I would get fat from the leftovers. I couldn’t stop thinking about what eating them would do to me. To my body. To my stomach. So finally, I had to throw them away. I had to get them out of my house. I had to get them out of my head.

Let’s say for argument’s sake that I did, indeed, actually gain these 3 lbs because quitting smoking slowed my metabolism. Let’s say fried onions are the culprit in my weight gain, and not water retention. Perhaps you are thinking 3 lbs, Kate? Really? You used to weigh 300 lbs, and now being 136 instead of 133 is making you crazy?
Yes. The answer to that is absolutely yes. I am not saying it makes sense. The truth is, I have been 141 lbs and totally happy in my body. And I am 136 now and could not be more miserable. My brain gives rational the middle finger when it comes to weight and my body. There is no rhyme or reason to why I feel about my body the way I do. These bouts of body image disorder can come from out of nowhere.

Let me explain to you what rational Kate knows. I have not broken my food boundaries. I am not eating more or heavier within those boundaries than I have in the past. In fact, I am probably eating lighter these past few months than I have in a couple of years. There is no way that I will get fat from eating the way that I eat. Even if quitting smoking has slowed my metabolism. Even if I eat deep-fried onions and bacon twice a week. And I don’t even think it’s true that quitting has affected my metabolism! I really think it’s water. I really think it will pass in time. And I weigh 136 lbs and I am 5’6.5″. I am not fat. I am not even chubby. At absolute worst, I am just not skinny.

Now let me explain to you how knowing this rationally helps with my eating disorder brain.

IT DOESN’T! It doesn’t make me see myself clearly in the mirror. It doesn’t make me love my body. It doesn’t make me compare 136 to 300 and thank God. It does not help to know!

I feel like there is an expectation by society for an intelligent, beautiful woman to be able to see herself clearly. To be able to think critically and rationally and “snap out of it.” Or maybe that is just my projection. Maybe it’s that I think that I should just be able to snap out of it. But I can’t. I am sick. All I can do is sit tight and wait for it to pass.

If I give up control of my food and go back into my eating disorders, I can expect to live in this place where I think I am gargantuan, until I eat myself back to actually being gargantuan. But as long as I keep my food under control, I know that this will pass. I have been here before, and it has always passed. If I maintain my food boundaries, I will eventually go back to looking in the mirror and thinking I’m a knockout. And being so grateful that I am beautiful. And being vain. But for now, this sucks. And hurts. And it’s no fun. And there is nothing to do about it but wait…

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19 May 2012

I need to take this…it’s my calling calling

My life eating compulsively was like an extended childhood. Not in a good way. I didn’t have a particularly enjoyable childhood. What I mean is that I didn’t really start growing up until I got my eating under control. Sugar made it possible for me to let my life slip through the cracks for the first 28 years. That was why I used it. Not because it tasted good. But because it made me not have to feel my overwhelming feelings. That was useful when I was small and too vulnerable to process them. But as I got older, it became a detriment. It inhibited me. It allowed me to be numb enough that I could refuse to look at issues and responsibilities that needed to be dealt with. That I needed to deal with. Until they became emergencies. And then I dealt with them by throwing them into someone else’s lap. Someone who loved me. Usually my mother. But anyone would do.

And the truth is that I would become so incapacitated by the time something positively had to be dealt with, that people would feel sorry for me.  They would feel compelled to help me. Not help. That’s not the word. Because I ask for help now. In a healthy, responsible way. I love help! I am grateful for help. I can accomplish so much with help. But when I was eating compulsively and burying my head in the sand (really more like burying my face in a chocolate cake) other people were assuming responsibility for my failures and ineptitudes. And letting me off the hook without my having to live with the consequences of my actions, or inactions. At the time, this was a relief. Or it seemed like a relief. It wasn’t, really. It fed the thoughts that told me I wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t capable. It reinforced my ideas about my worthlessness. But I didn’t have any other context. Neglecting my life until the looming consequences left me in a state of paralyzed terror, and then having my cookies hauled out of the fire by somebody else, was all I knew. It took the immediate pressure off, but it never made me wise. First, because I was selfish and couldn’t have cared less that someone else was being deprived of something (time, money, resources) for my benefit. And second because I was numb. Getting high on sugar made it possible for me to never feel the impact of my choices. Sugar made it so that I never had to feel anything.

There was a strange paradox to my life when I was eating compulsively. I was simultaneously disgustingly arrogant and pathetically low on self-esteem. I felt totally entitled without feeling like I should have to honor my word or my commitments. Because I “couldn’t”. Because that required being worthwhile and able. Which I “obviously” wasn’t.

When I got a handle on my food, it became a necessity to start dealing with my responsibilities. Not being numb from sugar meant actually feeling the pressure to maintain my integrity. It meant caring about my future. About my reputation. About my relationships. Having clarity made me feel bad about hurting and abusing the people in my life. It made me want to be someone I respected and liked, because feeling like the asshole I was being made me uncomfortable. And there was no more cake to numb the discomfort. And besides, being someone I liked was suddenly an option. And then I discovered that I loved it! It wasn’t just a relief. It was joy.

I am slow. Not intellectually. But personally. I change slowly. I need a lot of time to adapt to new things. I need to sit with things for a long time before I can integrate them into my thinking and actions. Before I can get acclimated to them. What to do in a situation is rarely obvious to me. Maybe this is the result of living in fear and stagnation for the vast majority of my life. But it doesn’t matter why, really. It’s what is so. And I have learned to accept this about myself. I am learning to be patient with myself. To be still and present and listen to my inner voice. With its long silences and pauses. With its string of I-don’t-know-yets. (How ’bout now? Nope, not yet.) I am learning not to rush, or to judge myself. Because when I look back at where I was, (not just at 19 when I weighed 300 lbs, or 7 years ago when I was bulimic and food obsessed, but even 3 years ago, or 1 year ago, or 6 months ago) I can see that I do change. That I am changing. And that it’s ok that it takes years. I have learned that there will never be a “done”. So what’s the rush?

When I started writing this blog, I did it for me. I wanted to let my crazy out. I wanted to get the poison out. I wanted to say, out loud, that there were things about my past and my thinking that kept me living in fear and shame. Even though there was nothing to be afraid or ashamed of anymore. But recently, I’ve found that my inner voice, the one that speaks to me when I’m still and quiet, is telling me it’s time to think bigger. After years of simply dealing with my responsibilities and my integrity, one situation at a time, one moment at a time, it’s telling me that just honoring my word is not enough. It’s important. It’s huge. But it’s not enough. That there’s work for me to do. That this is my work. My story. My learning to honor myself and my body. My life, honest and uncensored. The sad and the joyful and (hopefully) the inspiring, on the page for you. That it’s time to hustle a little. To take some initiative in sharing it with the world. And what’s more, just as my inner voice started telling me it was time to expand my horizons, as if right on cue, life sent opportunities. And help. Information. Advice. Encouragement. Support. Reinforcements. So much love! And right now, you are participating in my work. You are witnessing my calling. So thank you. I am honored. I feel so blessed. I’m so incredibly grateful. I’m scared shitless, by the way…But grateful…

I am not clear yet where this will lead or what it will end up looking like in the future. That’s still another I-don’t-know-yet. But I can be with the I-don’t-know-yet. I can trust it. And honor it. I can listen for the next thing I’m supposed to do. I can wait patiently to find out what that is. But if you’d like to help me share my work, feel free to share this blog. Or follow me on twitter @onceafatgirl5

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15 Apr 2012

Does this blog make me look fat?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my body image disorders lately. Body image has been coming up in the media quite a bit, of course. But for me it has a weird extra layer, because I was so fat for so many years. Not just fat by Hollywood standards (which I still am, by the way…at a size 6. To which I say eeewwww.) But fat by any standards.

I very often don’t know what I look like when I am not standing in front of a mirror. I mean that in all seriousness. (It might be why I like looking in the mirror so much. I am incredibly vain!) Sometimes I will catch a glimpse of myself in a store window as I am walking down the street, and it will take me by surprise. Wait! That’s me!?!? It happens less as the years go by with me living in a little body. But it still happens pretty regularly.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I still think I look like I weigh 300 lbs. But that’s part of why it’s so sick. It’s subtle. It’s sneaky. It’s an interesting look at the ways I’m still messed up in the head. And heart.

“That man thinks your ass looks huge in those pants.” “That woman thinks you shouldn’t be wearing that dress.” “Everyone is looking at your stomach.” “That cute guy would never talk to you. You’re too fat for him.”

These are the kinds of thoughts I think all the time. I’m 5′ 6 1/2″. I weigh between 131 and 135 lbs on any given day. And I have plenty of muscle. These thoughts are ridiculous and irrational. But they are a part of my daily life. And they are between me and me.

I’m not a model, a dancer, or an actress. I don’t work in any industry where people are telling me I need to lose 5 pounds. Yes, I think that’s gross. Yes, it upsets all of my sensibilities. But it’s not the world I live in. In fact, I don’t even think about it terms of losing weight to “get thin”. In my mind, I both understand that I am thin, and conversely, that I will never get thin. There is a corner of my mind that holds the belief that I am fat. As a way of being. Not that Kate’s body is fat, but that Kate is fat. Like there’s nothing to do about it. It’s just the way it is.

It’s funny because I do know that I’m attractive. Ok, hot. (I should call it like I see it. False humility is ridiculous.) But, like many other aspects of my eating disorder brain, much of my thinking about my body and my self is warped. Knowing I’m thin and hot, and knowing I’m fat and unattractive live side by side. It doesn’t make rational sense. But it makes perfect sense to me.

I wore a path in my mind with thoughts about the inevitability of my fatness. The undeniable “truth” of it. And wearing a new path of thinking of myself as thin, even having a beautiful body, often means wandering untrodden territory in my head. But I do it. Even though it can be scary and uncomfortable. Because I believe in the power of thoughts. Because I don’t want to think myself back into compulsive eating.

I want to note that I do not live in fear of being fat again. I know it’s possible, because my eating disorders and my sugar sensitivity are irreversible. (You may disagree about the nature of such things, but please, keep it to yourself. I have no shame in my weakness/sickness. I have no need to become “normal”. It gives me peace to surrender to the “forever” of my disorders.) But I don’t clutch at keeping my food under control with white knuckles. I have every intention and expectation of keeping a handle on my eating. I have peace around food. I do the work I need to do daily. The practical part, the emotional part, and the spiritual part. And one aspect of that work is to start thinking new thoughts about what it means to be Kate.

I’m telling you this because since I’ve been writing this blog, a lot of emotional and spiritual wounds that I have written about have healed inside me. Or have at least begun to heal. And I would like to heal this too. I would like to honor my body exactly the way it is. So it is best to acknowledge what is so. What is so is that I am thin. And there is no honor in clinging to obsolete thoughts of self-deprecation.

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27 Mar 2012
4 Comments

Why the f*** do you care so much about how I eat?

I just got back from a weekend with my great-aunt. She’s my late grandmother’s sister. My dad’s mom and I were incredibly close. Losing her was losing one of the great loves of my life. And having her sister is definitely comforting. Plus, this aunt is so much fun to hang out with, not to mention side-splittingly funny. But going to visit her this weekend turned out to be stressful for me. Because she doesn’t understand about my food issues. And worse, she cares about what I do with my food. And not in a supportive way. I spent my weekend defending myself, justifying the way I eat, and protecting my control over the food.

In case you don’t know, how I keep a handle on my food looks extreme to the outside observer. To me, it is not so extreme. It is not nearly as extreme as the obsession that it alleviates. My eating and body image disorders are grotesque. The things they compelled me to do created misery and insanity. So sure, I no longer get to participate in society’s food rituals. But participating in the society’s rituals in public had me creating my own sick, crazy rituals behind closed doors. When I was fat, I would eat an entire box of cookies and a pint of ice cream in one sitting. Not a day. A sitting. And then go out for more food when that was done. (Yes! More food. No! I was not full. No! I was not sick. Except in the head and heart.) And then I had more scary and destructive rituals when I was a normal weight but still eating compulsively. Drinking castor oil. Abusing laxatives. Making myself throw up. Running 7 miles in the morning and 7 at night, and binge eating in between. So much that I was still gaining weight. Running to the point that I was injuring myself. And then refusing to rest because I had to run off the food that I ate. Or was going to eat. And that’s not the whole list. That’s just a sample of how I harmed and tormented myself, just so you know. I could not stop eating. But I had lost so much weight and I never wanted to be fat again. I cared more about food than I did about my body or my life. Food was my life.

What I have noticed is that the people who have the strongest negative opinions about what I do with my food are the people who have food issues themselves. This aunt had been big when she was younger, and then lost 90 lbs on a well known commercial diet program. She never got “thin” on this program. Or not what I would consider thin. (She got down to a size 12.) But she was able to keep that 90 lbs off through her life. And, as she explained to me, she could still eat anything and do the things that everybody else does.

But here’s the other part. My aunt just got through cancer. Thank God! And after the chemo and radiation, she is now a size 8. And to hear her tell it, being an 8 is the greatest thing that ever happened to her. So why she can’t understand why I do what I do, if only for the sake of having a body I love, is frustrating for me. Of course, I don’t do what I do for the body alone. I do it for my sanity more than anything. But I would be lying if I said the body didn’t have anything to do with it. Having a body that I love, that I’m proud of, rather than ashamed of, is part of staying sane for me.

I kept control of my food while I was with my aunt. I maintained my rigid boundaries no matter what she said or how much of a “pain in the ass” she told me I was. That control is more important than anything else in my life. Literally anything. Since I found my solution, it has always been more important than any person, place or thing. So it is even more important than a 78-year-old, cancer-surviving, generous and hospitable family member’s feelings. Yes! That important! But having to protect myself against someone I love…well, it fucking sucks.

Since I started doing what I do with food, there is a litany of things I commonly hear. Why don’t you just have one? (Because I can’t stop after one.) That’s so inconvenient! I could never do what you do. (That’s ok. You don’t have to.) Don’t you ever wish you could eat like a regular/normal person? (Wishing won’t make it a reality.) Don’t you ever cheat a little? (No.) Don’t you ever take a day off? (No.) Not even for Christmas? (No.) Not even for your birthday? (No.) You’re going to eat all that?!?! (Yes. I eat between a pound and a pound and a half of vegetables at both lunch and dinner.) And my personal favorite…Don’t you have any willpower? The answer to that last one is a resounding NO! No, I have zero power over food.

Writing this right now is making me cry. Because most people don’t understand. They can’t. I’m sick in the extreme. I have no right to expect anyone else to comprehend it. But there is something I have come to expect. And I don’t always get it. Respect. Respect for the deeply personal choices I make about what I put into my body. And when. And how. And how much. And what I can handle. And what I need. For myself!

As I’ve said before, if I lose control of the food to accommodate someone else, they are not going to come into the bathroom with me and hold my hair back while I stick the toothbrush down my throat. They are not going to gain 165 lbs from my inability to stop eating. So I have to admit that, while I love my aunt so much, I dread the thought of going back to visit her. Because I will never bow to her ideas of what I “should” do. And standing my ground to take care of myself is exhausting. And painful. But it’s my own responsibility. And thank God. Because if I left it up to the rest of the world, I would weigh over 300 lbs. And be shamed regularly for not being able to eat just one.

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