onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “eating disorders”

08 Dec 2024
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I can go back to crocheting now

I’m over here crocheting and I forgot I have a blog to write.

I was thinking recently that I haven’t made a lot of really time consuming dishes in a while. I used to spend a lot of time making sugar free versions of things I wanted. A picture of a soy flour Dutch baby (pancake) just came up in my social media memories. From EIGHT years ago. I can’t remember making one since. But it would be amazing with baked apples and cinnamon. And I have plenty of apples slowing going bad in my crisper because I have found *bigger* apples to eat fresh. So I could cook them up and either top the Dutch baby with them or put them in the 10% milk fat Greek yogurt I have, and make myself truly decadent French apple yogurt.

But honestly, I would rather crochet or weave or knit or embroider. And I would rather learn a knew aspect or skill of one of my fiber crafts. And fresh apples are delicious just as they are…

Frankly, that is a miracle. That food is not the most important thing for me to make. That I think there is the possibility of as much, if not more, joy and contentment in something that is not food.

Please don’t get me wrong! I am still obsessed with eating. Especially at my actual meal times! And I called the liquor store in my Chicago suburb to tell them I will be in town for a few days for Christmas and would they order me 3 cases of my pork rinds?!? (I’m going to mail them to my SLC apartment!!! I’m a genius!)  Because I am out of them here and I want them!

But there was a time, even after I put boundaries around my eating and got my sugar addiction under control, when all of my waking hours were still dedicated to the times I would be eating. Planning and making fancy recipes. Batch cooking and freezing. Or just *not* eating. And yes. For some of us “not eating” is an action. 

Now, 18 years and 11 months into not eating compulsively, I can have a life between my meals. And it doesn’t have to revolve around food. So I can go back to crocheting now.

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01 Dec 2024

Skills issue

I have been making friendship bracelets, which is a kind of macrame. It’s one of those crafts that is easy to do but it takes patience and a kind of precision to do it well. And it also has a range of complexities. The number of colors, the intricacies of the particular pattern. From simple to mind bending. 

And it’s exciting. All of these ideas buzzing around, thoughts about the different ways to use these techniques on a different scale. My brain is coming up with all of these fun, half formed, colorful ideas. Big abstract weird ideas. I could do X! I could do Y!!! 

And now is that part where I remind myself that I can’t do X or Y until I do the ABCs. 


My creative eyes have always been too big for my practical abilities. When I first got back into crochet as an adult with my eating under control, I decided I wanted to crochet a dress. I knew how to crochet a square or a rectangle and decided it would be easy enough to just try my hand at a dress. Not a dress pattern. Just a freehand dress.

Needless to say, I did not have the skills. And I never actually did crochet myself a dress, but I absolutely could now. Yes even free hand. And I have free-handed some really spectacular doll dresses. Because I learned to do complicated things one step at a time. Over years. I needed to do a bunch of skill building. And that comes in steps. First things first.

I have written before that getting my eating under control taught me to be patient. Gave me enough clarity to learn. Taught me to understand how I learn best (symbol charts are usually the best way for me to understand what I am looking at when I am first learning a new craft.) Gave me the time to do something in between my meals. 

But it also made it possible for me to enjoy the doing, in the moment. The undoing the imperfections. The perfecting. The getting it right.

I’m not a perfectionist. I even love a lot of the imperfections in my works when I knit and crochet. But as the beginner of this new craft, I want to KNOW it. And part of that for me is at least some period of doing it over and over and/or undoing and redoing it until it is perfect. 

That level of attention and presence is more important to me as a maker and artist now than it ever was before I got my eating under control. And that presence and peace is only there because I am not thinking about my drug foods all of the time.

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24 Nov 2024

You can break my cable (I broke the cable) but you will never break my spirit! (Again, it was me who broke the cable)

I broke my fancy stepper. (Again.) Not broke broke. I sheered off a(nother) bolt. And the last time I did it, when I reassembled it, the nut was too tight so when it broke this time, the cable broke too. 

So it was 5 am on a Wednesday and 3 minutes into my workout, the steps collapsed and I was just standing there.

What happened next probably only happened because I have my eating under control. Because I was calm and unruffled and entirely unbothered about the situation, which is the direct result of 18+ years of experience that it’s all gonna work out for the best as long as I don’t get high on sugar. 

I went online on my phone to order a new cable. Less than $35. My husband told me to get 2, because it was worth it to have a spare. (Have I mentioned I have broken several steppers, and sheered off several bolts of my fancy stepper? Anyway…) And we agreed I should buy another cheap stepper while we waited for my replacement part.

But my order for the parts wouldn’t go through. I wrote to customer service. I ordered a new cheap stepper to be delivered. And then eventually I had the idea to order my replacement parts on my desktop. That went through!

So I got my cheap replacement stepper that morning. Did my workout and then got an email from the company selling the replacement parts for my fancy stepper. They were giving me an (unrequested) refund. They were giving me a refund for partial shipping and only charging me for one cable. The lady from customer service wrote back to me to say that the broken one was covered under warranty. 

For everything that went “wrong” NOTHING actually went wrong!

I think so much of it is how I look at the world while I have my eating under control. I am always trying to be looking for the gifts. I am always trying to be looking for the lesson. I am always trying to be looking for the ways it can go right. 

I am not always good at it! But I can actually DO it because when I got my eating under control, I could start to hear my real thoughts, feel my real feelings, get to know the real me. And then I could be the real me. And there is so much freedom in that. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that the more I like myself, the less I need to control the world around me. And the more authentic I am, the more I like myself. 

People think my rules about eating are restrictive. And they are. But there’s a thing that comes with rules and following rules. A lack of guilt. So I am not ashamed of my eating (or my inability to stop eating) and I like myself and I love my body and treat it with love, respect and kindness. 

When you are that secure, there is no need to worry about a little thing like a broken cable. And when you don’t have to worry, you can stay out of the way and let Life do its thing.

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17 Nov 2024

Love for my present, clarity about my past

When I got my eating under control in January 2006 (January 2nd, because I will absolutely “start next year”) I wanted to lose weight. More, I wanted to be able to control my weight. I wanted to be able to tell my body what to do and how to do it. And I wanted to tell it to be skinny. 

The joke, of course, is that while I have had my eating under control for over 18 years, I have never been able to “control” my weight. My body does what it does. And while I have never been exactly fat again since I quit sugar, I have been many sizes from a 4 US to a 14 US. That is with my eating under control! That is with me sane and nourished and eating 3 portion controlled meals a day. 

I have noticed several things in my 18+ years in a group of mostly women with their sugar addiction arrested. Many women’s bodies do not fluctuate the way mine does. They lose their weight and they just sort of live in that body for the rest of their lives as long as they keep our eating boundaries. I think it doesn’t occur to them that not all bodies behave that way. The way I once assumed all bodies processed sugar the same way…

Also, I want to say that I can see that I had a truly “easy time” getting my eating under control when compared to other people’s stories. And mine was still awful. I mean BRUTAL! But I did not have the kind of internal struggle that many people do. I did not have to start over repeatedly. I was on autopilot in the beginning, and I rode that wave for a long time before it got difficult. And logistically I was single, no kids, living alone. And I had never cared about fitting in. I was a nonconformist from childhood. Being the weirdo with her own food meant NOTHING to me. 

I was literally just desperate to stop hating myself. And I though that being fat was why I hated myself, so I was desperate to stop being *that.*

But here’s the thing. When I first started with my food program, they explained to me that I have a disease and an allergy, and that it is not a moral issue. I wasn’t fat because I was bad. I was addicted to sugar and simple carbohydrates, and when I put them in my body, they set up a cycle of craving. And knowing that made it possible to stop hating myself and shaming myself. And not hating myself made it possible for me to not NEED to be numb.

But there is still this underlying idea that the “good” thing, the “right” thing is for people to do what we do with food. Fat people I mean. There is still so much moral judgement about bodies based on aesthetics, rather than an eye for helping people not hate themselves.

It took so many years to untangle my fat phobia from my self hatred and sugar addiction. I know some time in the first few years of this blog I admitted how I judged and didn’t like being around fat people. And I spent years picking apart the whys. And they turned out to be because I still hated that poor sugar addicted fat girl I was growing up.

Now I have so much room for her. She really was doing the best she could. She really did need all that numb for her childhood. And she really was not as awful and evil as I (and she) thought she was. 

But I could never have seen that except in giving up sugar, getting my compulsive eating under control, and liking and loving the person I am now. It’s in having love for my present that I can have some clarity about my past.

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10 Nov 2024

My body. My choice. In all things.

When I got my eating under control, I acquired a new level of responsibility for my body. I was purposefully aware of everything that went into it. And as time went on, I took on various commitments to take practical actions toward caring for my vessel. And by practical I mean specific, quantifiable, measurable steps. What a workout looks like and how many days a week I will do that. How much water I will drink a day. How much sleep I will get and what that means about getting to bed. How many journal pages I will write every day. How many minutes I will meditate. Whatever I need to put in place to consistently take care of myself.

Before that, I didn’t know what went into my body because I did not want to know. I didn’t know how my time was spent because I didn’t want to know how much time I wasted. I didn’t want to look. And I didn’t want to see the results. 

But not knowing makes everything worse. The stories in my head vacillated wildly from a total lack of consequences, to a fate worse than anything imaginable. My head is a dangerous neighborhood.

Not looking never did me any good. 

And looking always let me see that my list of problems is truly finite. There is an end. And (so far anyway) my issues are all surmountable through attention and action. 

After all, I never thought I would be able to stop eating compulsively, and here we are, 18+ years later, and sugar doesn’t control me anymore. 

I am reminded this week that it’s more important than ever that I be aware of and responsible for my body. Fully. And unapologetically. My body. My choice. In all things. 

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03 Nov 2024

A grocery date and the joys of eating

The other day my husband  asked me if I wanted to go on a date. To try out a new grocery store.

If this doesn’t sound romantic to you, you are clearly not food obsessed or married to someone food obsessed. I am obsessed. He knows me.

This is real romance, people. Take notes.

And to top it off, this grocery store ended up being magical. I went back today for my weekly shopping. There is everything I need to keep my eating boundaries. Great meats and fresh fish. Sugar free bacons and sausages! Yes, even Italian sausage!!! Wheat germ. The condiments I need. So many varieties. And the persnickety things I want. The c4 pre workout in the sizes and flavors I want. The paper towels I want in the sizes I want. 

But also there is a real life swear to god jewelry store. A clothing store (I haven’t even stepped in there yet.) Furniture. Home decor. Art supplies. YARN AND CRAFTING TOOLS! (Be proud of me. I did not buy any today!) It’s like a Walmart but so much nicer! And really first it’s a grocery store!!! My first love! Food! 

Feeling like I am eating like a queen is the best way for me to feel at home. And I have been so happy with my food. It absolutely makes up for all of the things I don’t really love here.

My new cucumber salad is spectacular. Ice cream made with my favorite yogurt that I can’t even find in Chicago is beyond words! Plus trying new breakfasts. Cold hard boiled eggs instead of fried. Delicious. And different. Also, I have not made bacon once yet!!! (Don’t worry. I will. It’s in the fridge. I’m just sayin…it’s a long time for me.)

There’s that saying, “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” When I was eating compulsively and in active sugar addiction, my addiction *was* in charge. And if she wasn’t happy, my life was in ruins and I was going to ruin everyone else’s life for the moment too. And it’s hard to be happy when you alway need more.

Since I got my eating under control, my eating life is content. Always. Momma is calm and has been for years. But I have also never stopped experiencing the joys of eating. And so far, eating here has been particularly joyful. And for that I am grateful.

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20 Oct 2024

The Gold is in the Practice not the Product

I very much live my life by routine. Certain things happen at certain times of the day. But because of that, when things are out of routine, I can forget the most basic things. So I have alarms set. Multiple alarms for multiple reminders. And AGAIN today, for the second time this month, my alarm went off asking if I had written a blog for the week, and I had completely forgotten.

Tomorrow is the first of two, count them (2), 10 hour drives to move to a new city for 6 months to a year. I have plenty of audiobooks cued up. This is definitely not my first rodeo. I was in the process of making and packing my meals for the next few days when that alarm went off. I am grateful it did. But annoyed too. One more thing on my list.

I am often so good at going with the flow that I don’t necessarily see how stressed I am until a hiccup. And then I have to have my moment of freaking out before I can move on.

So much about what has made my life so much better after I got my eating under control was my ability to shift. To gain a different perspective. To move through a paralyzing feeling onto a different feeling that didn’t hamper my abilities. To be able to think through my feelings and put them in their proper place, as teachers, and sign posts. “This is your authentic self, Kate, and that is not.” And to DO what there is to do, no matter how I FEEL about it.

And I can only do that because I am not eating my feelings. I am living with them. And taking actions without the cloud of sugar fog. 

Actions like stopping what I am doing to fulfill one of my commitments, and the clarity of knowing that the true gold is in the practice and the consistency, not the product.

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13 Oct 2024

The trust process

For the first time in years, my husband and I are going on the road for his job. And I am super excited!

We are headed to Salt Lake City. Where I have never been. I am ready for some mountains! And I have loved living all over the U.S.! It has been a privilege to get to do it these past 11 years. (Though, honestly, it has been a joy to be in our own home for the last 2 too.)

But I will say we are pretty good at moving quickly and efficiently with little notice by this point. We have our apartment there already settled and our furniture delivery scheduled. We have a week to get our home in order and then we drive for 2 days.

There is a saying that how you do anything is how you do everything. 

Before I got my sugar addiction and compulsive eating under control I did everything half-assed, lazily and last minute. It made for a lot of stress and anxiety. But it seemed easier than doing the work which was so scary and overwhelming. 

When I got my eating under control, I got clarity of mind from literally not being high all the time anymore. And I got the practice of taking actions to take care of my life. Like weighing my food. Like abstaining from drug foods. Like calling someone and asking for help when I needed it. 

And I got to learn those lessons for all things. How to anticipate my needs and do my best to take care of them. I plan. I prepare.

But also, trust. How I do everything now is to trust that it’s working out the way it is supposed to. All of it. 18 + years ago I had to trust that changing my eating was worth it. While I went through withdrawal. While my digestive system had to literally learn how to process whole foods. While I was groggy and cranky and out of it. I had to trust in Life in the face of all that for the year and a half that it took me to come fully out of withdrawal. And the truth is, it was absolutely worth every awful, painful, scary, embarrassing moment. 

So if I can trust in Life through that, I can trust that I can manage the process of getting an apartment and some rental furniture.

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06 Oct 2024

Changing the shape of my commitments

My workout was rough on Friday. And I suppose in retrospect most of the week. I can remember several times that I tried to convince myself that “just this once” I didn’t have to do my 3 rd set of floor exercises (Tuesday), or my squats and lunges (Thursday), or any of my squats and lunges OR my floor exercises (Friday.)

I was tired. I was bored. Time felt like slogging through jello.

I did convince myself to do them all. But it took something. I was so internally whiny about it. AND I FELT IT! I suffered through every moment like a bratty toddler forced to eat her broccoli. And I will admit I am grateful. 

But even that gratitude is grudging. I’m annoyed it feels so good to honor a commitment to myself. 

Here is the deal. I definitely (theoretically) know the difference between when not doing something is good for me (keeping me from getting injured) and when I don’t wanna. And this week I didn’t wanna. 

Getting a case of the fuck-its is not a terminal condition for me anymore, the way it was when I was in the food. I can skip a workout once and not immediately accidentally tumble into a robe and fall onto a couch with a bag of chips, but the truth is that sometimes those moments of I don’t wanna really do change the shape of a commitment. And I have been pushing hard against my own boundary this week. Maybe I should be asking myself why.

My commitments have given me a life beyond my wildest dreams. For me it started with the food. But it has grown into a kind of tending to my life through consistency.

In the past 18+ years, I have never been sorry that I didn’t eat the cake. Never. I have never been sorry because I woke up still liking and loving myself. And every day this week, I was not sorry I did the whole workout. In fact, looking back I think I’m a badass.

I did not have that kind of discipline when I was eating compulsively. But getting my eating under control taught me that discipline is a muscle. The more you work it, the stronger it gets. And that changes the shape of a commitment too.

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29 Sep 2024

A little lesson

Today was a day of several minor annoyances, featuring the ATM at my bank being out of service, a slow and mildly frustrating grocery experience (complete with dropping 1 of my reusable grocery bags in the wet parking lot) and totally forgetting I had to write a blog today until I was in the store and my “did you write a blog?” alarm went off. 

But I was not that bothered. Which is so nice. Such a relief.

What was I going to do about it? Nothing. So I got to not be mad about it. 

It’s honestly a blessing to not have to be upset all the time. 

To be responsible for my food, for my eating, for the ingredients and the cooking/preparation, was such a practical lesson in how being responsible meant I could get a say in the outcome. That I could prepare and set it up to go the way I wanted. Almost all the time. Almost. 

And that was the other lesson. Circumstances happen. Not every time. But sometimes, for everyone. 

With food, that’s when I call a friend who does what I do and get help in the moment. Or in life, I take the time and go out of my way and go to another ATM without having to feel like it was a personal attack. Or wait it out in the checkout line with a smile and good attitude for the very nice people who work at my grocery store. 

Before I had my eating under control, I was very interested in the Zen Buddhist idea that there was no “should have” or “would have” or “could have.” That there is only ever one way a moment could have gone and that is the way it went. That if there were any other way for it to go, it would have gone that way. 

I was desperate to understand this at the time. But I know now it was impossible for me to accept this idea before I got my eating under control. Because I was positive that everything was supposed to be a different way for me. I hated my life! Surely there was another me somewhere that got all of the wonderful things I deserved!!!!

But when I got my eating under control I understood that every moment was right for me. That I just had never been learning the lessons. I had been trying to learn how to get life to bend to my will. Instead of learning to see what life was offering. Today’s offering, peace is already inside me. 

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