onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “food addiction”

10 Jan 2015

Not looking for a new normal

Only 10 days in, and 2015 is already normal.

It’s funny to think how normal things can become. How quickly. How seemingly permanently. And I think that works in all directions. Not just in neutral ways, like the changing of the year. Or in positive ways, like drinking 64 ounces of water every day. I think it works in whatever way it works. In whatever direction we push it.

This week I got into a heated argument. I was angry, hurt and scared. It was a big deal. I was crawl-out-of-my-skin unhappy. So in the 6 degree weather with snow freezing on the ground, I bundled myself up, pulled on my boots and went for a walk.

I was freezing. It was uncomfortable. But I needed to release some of those stress hormones making me unbearably emotionally itchy. So I walked.

There is a 24 hour big chain grocery store about 15 minutes from my house. I was going to walk there. Just as a destination. Just to have somewhere to walk to. It would be warm in there. But something in me said not to. Said it was risky. Said I was too upset to walk into a grocery store and know with certainty that I would come out with my eating boundaries in tact and my eating disorders under control.

There was another part of me, yes. The part that said, You got this, Kate. You don’t have to worry about going to the grocery store. You go to the grocery store several times a week. All alone. You don’t even want to eat sugar. You just celebrated your 9 year anniversary for God’s sake. You’re not going to throw it all away after 9 years. I mean, come on. NINE. YEARS.

But in the end, I decided not to go to the grocery store. I just walked and then looped around and headed home.

Because 9 years is a long time, it’s true. And that undeniably makes having eating boundaries and not having sugar my current normal. But it’s not a guarantee. And I know that one wrong bite, and I could be bingeing, and 300 lbs, or even more than 300lbs. And that could get really normal really quickly. And that scares me.

Not a lot. Not enough to never go into a grocery store again. I need my fruits and veggies, after all. And my herbal tea, and my artificial sweetener. And butter and bacon and all of the delicious things I eat within my glorious, life-saving, life-giving food boundaries. But enough not to go barging into one when I am emotionally distressed. Enough to know not to test my own strength when I am vulnerable.

God knows that life will test me whenever it will, vulnerable or strong. And I guess I’d like to save my strength for when I really need it.

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03 Jan 2015
4 Comments

Happy other birthday to me

It is that time of year again. The New Year. And January 2nd is a special day for me. It is my double anniversary. My favorite day besides my biological birthday. My other birthday.

Nine years ago on January 1st, I was hopeless and desperate. And I had been in the death grip of my eating disorders. They were relatively new at the time. I had beed morbidly obese for most of my life at that point, but around 2004/2005, I had started a series of diets and workout regimes. I was going to get control of my body! I was going to lose weight! So I got coaches and trainers and started taking classes and counting calories. And I lost so much weight. But there was something wrong. Seriously wrong. The thinner I got, the crazier I got. I was irrational. I was reckless. And most importantly, I was terrified. And I couldn’t even identify that I was terrified.

Maintaining that new, thinner body was exhausting. And I didn’t understand it at the time, but what had me terrified was the unconscious understanding that I was never going to maintain that body. Because sugar ruled my life.

I have sometimes explained it like this: When I was fat, I was high on sugar. When I was dieting and exercising, I was high on losing weight. But being a certain size for any period of time is not exciting. You cannot get high on staying thin. And I wanted my drug back.

Check that. I wanted my drug back, but I wanted it in this new body. I wanted my drug back without consequences. I wanted to have done the work once so that the work would be done. Once and for all. I wanted to defy the laws of nature.

And I started eating again. Binge eating. Eating constantly. Mostly sugar and grains and starchy things. And I starting exercising in excess. Classes and running. Every day. Twice a day. I went all raw. No fat. Only green juice. And I started taking laxatives. Drinking castor oil. Administering enemas. And I started sticking toothbrushes down my throat.

And I was still gaining weight. And I was insane. Just trying to hold off a little bit longer before I gained back all of the weight and I was 300 lbs again. Before everyone would see it written all over me that I was a shameful, unworthy, unlovable blob. Before the clock struck midnight and I turned back into a pumpkin.

And then around November of 2005, I told the truth. About all of it. And somebody said that I had to start treating myself like an addict.

So I ate myself through the end of the year. No holds barred. It was a sad time for me. A time of self-disgust and resignation. Years later some friends would remind me that they saw me in that time and that I had said point blank, “I can’t stop eating.”

But on January 2, 2006, I met for the first time with a group of people who identified as sugar addicts and compulsive eaters. They had given up sugar, grains and starches, and put boundaries around their eating. And I started to do what they did.

I didn’t really believe it was going to work for me. I didn’t believe anything could work for me. I was utterly hopeless.

But maybe the best thing was for me to be so hopeless. Maybe my desperation was the reason it did work. Because it did. Since that day, I have not eaten sugar. I have kept boundaries around my eating. I have slowly changed the way I think about myself and life.

I am addicted to sugar. And when I was eating sugar, I could not stop. For years now, I have not had sugar in my body. So my body doesn’t crave it. But I could only get to this place with help. I think that’s important. It wasn’t willpower that brought me here. It wasn’t stick–to–itiveness. I don’t have those things around food. What I have is support. And willingness to take suggestions from people who have gone before me. And the opportunity to support others in their journey around food recovery.

A lot of life happens in 9 years. That doesn’t change because you get sober. But for me, no matter what happened – births, deaths, fights, reunions, vacations, vacation debacles, parties and partings – January 2nd is a day of celebration. I get to celebrate 9 years of freedom. That is 9 years of discovering who I really am, and sharing her with the world.

And January 2, 2015 was also the 3 year anniversary of this blog. Another big deal in my life.

Every week, I write a post here about being a woman living with eating disorders. I do it even when I think I have nothing interesting to say. I do it because I said I would. And this blog has been a chance for me to change my life.

I get to put ideas out in the world. I get to bounce them off of reality. I get to raise them up the flag pole and see who salutes. I get to see what gets bigger and more robust. And I get to see what floats away like dust. I believe this blog has sped up the natural pace of change in my life. I could not have made these changes if I were not sober from sugar and compulsive eating. But the writing, and the candid revealing, and the truth telling that have gone on here have made for a dynamic trajectory of growth and maturation in my life that sobriety alone could not have given me.

Anniversaries are about commitment. Nine years ago I made a commitment to myself about my eating. Three years ago I made a commitment to myself about sharing my experiences through writing. Commitments change the direction of one’s life. It is the natural order of things. And I believe that just the act of committing makes me a better person.

So I love January 2nd. It is a day that I celebrate myself. Because years ago, it was the day that I chose to honor myself. Twice. And because I continue to cultivate that honor.

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21 Dec 2014

A crazy trust exercise

More of the same this week. I’m so ready for the Holidays to be over.

I’m also now having a hard time. I’m pretty actively unhappy lately. And I’m at a loss for what to do or how to fix it.

If I were a friend, I know what I would say to me. That I have to trust. That I have to trust that life is working the way it’s supposed to. That not only will it get better than it is, but it will be better than it has been before. Better than I think it can be.

That is always the way it has been since I got my eating under control. What I learned (very slowly) when I stopped eating sugar was that I didn’t so much have an eating problem, or even so much a sugar problem, as I had a living problem. Yes, sugar is a physical addiction for me. And eating it sets up an insatiable craving for it. And yes I have eating disorders. But those things are the ways I used to deal with being bad at life. I have heard other addicts call it “trying to fill a God-sized hole.” I ate to fill a hole. I eventually learned that that hole could only be filled by a combination of integrity, trusting life and trusting my heart.

When I look at why I am unhappy, (an issue I am not ready to talk about yet) I can’t imagine how it could get better. At least not any time soon. It feels like I should expect at least a year of this frustration. And frankly, maybe longer.

And this is where I am supposed to trust.

The truth is that since I have gotten my eating under control, I have never had a permanent downgrade. I have had to let go of some ideas I had about what I thought I wanted. I have had to stop being a martyr. I have had to give up a certain amount of self-righteousness, and the right to complain without trying to make it right. And I have certainly had minor, temporary setbacks. But never once have I ended up worse than when I started. In any aspect of my life. So why would I expect it to happen now?

I might need to start having conversations. I might need to take some actions. I am going to have to listen to myself and trust my heart.

It’s hard to trust that things will get better when I can’t even imagine a timely, happy resolution. But isn’t that what trust is? Believing in what is unknown and uncertain?

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07 Dec 2014

A terrible moment is a reasonable price for a peaceful lifetime.

I have mentioned before that it’s easy to forget what it was like before I got my eating under control. There is something about the human psyche that allows things to become “normal.” It occurs day to day like this person I am, who is honest and honorable and reliable, is who I have always been. But of course, if I look at it objectively, I was not any of those things. I may have wanted to be that way, and thought that any time I wasn’t, I was justified, but the real deal is that I was regularly dishonest, dishonorable, and unreliable. I acted out of fear, shame, and a misguided sense of self-preservation.

I would learn later, once I was sober from sugar and from acting out my eating disorders, that the best way to preserve one’s self is to take responsibility. But I spent many years trying to pawn responsibility for my mistakes, problems, and failures off on anyone else. It seemed like the best way to be free. But it simply made me feel bad about myself, led to more bad behavior, and more needing to numb myself. In other words, it fed my addiction.

And all of that escapes me in my day to day life. I am not haunted. I do not lie awake at night anymore, worrying about what I did or didn’t do. I don’t lose sleep over anything. It’s a nice perk of integrity.

And then every once in a while, I will get a flashback. Of what it felt like. It’s not intellectual. I think about it intellectually all the time. I write this blog every week. I remember what I did and how I behaved, but I don’t usually experience it. Viscerally.

And then sometimes I do. And it’s terrible. Terrifying. It happened to me a couple of times this week and it was awful. But, then again, not awful.

I don’t know where it comes from. But I am always grateful for it. Once I get my bearings again.

There is a distinction I have. This way I am now, as a person I genuinely like and respect, is the real me. It is who I am supposed to be. And it is my destiny, or my path or however you want to name it. It is more real than the addict in me. But it is not who I am naturally. It is not my default. It is not who I am when I’m not sober. And I have to work to keep sober. I have to work at being the real me. It’s not a romantic notion. But I find that many romantic notions are false. Or at least misleading.

I think that feeling of being healed may be the big problem with addiction. The person you become feels so real. Like you couldn’t ever go back to the way you were. Because now you know. What to do and what not to do. But the fact is that I have met so many people who believed that they had life figured out because they were sober for a while. So they went ahead and tried to be normal and and found that they were not only still addicts, but that going back into active addiction returned them to all of their former bad behavior and horrible feelings. It didn’t matter that they had been sane and well for months or years. They hadn’t learned anything really. At least not anything that helped them keep the sanity they got from staying sober.

So I am grateful to those people who did the research for me. So I didn’t have to do it myself. And I am grateful for those flashback experiences, where I remember what it felt like to be the “natural” me. Because I’d rather feel it for a terrible moment than live it for a terrible lifetime.

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09 Nov 2014

Otherwise how would I learn?

I’m on the road again today. To Kentucky for a bit. Maybe not more than a week. But I’m happy to be going.

My boyfriend and I were apart for 2 weeks. The longest since I moved in with him. And I didn’t like it.

It’s funny that when I lived in New York I used to fear/hate leaving home. Because food is easy at home. And now, I would rather be on the road with a cooler as long as I can be with him. My definition of home has changed. My definition of comfort too.

We will stay in an extended stay hotel so I can have a kitchenette. And there is a grocery store within walking distance. So it’s not as if I am flying by the seat of my pants with my food. And so far I haven’t had to. But I really think I could if it came to that. For a short stay in a small town.

But the other thing I get to do is not worry about that right now. That’s not what is going on right now. I only have to deal with now. I don’t have to figure out how to deal with vague possibilities in the distant and uncertain future.

When I was eating compulsively I would often give up before I started something. The fear of having to deal with hardships and discomforts that may or may not pop up was an excellent excuse to quit. And quitting gave me more time to get high on sugar.

But for today, right now, I am incredibly happy to have my eating under control, my food taken care of, and to be available for adventure. Or at least life in the form I chose it. Which happens to be rather adventurous.

I was not the kind of person who would have chosen a life of regular travel. I chose love, of course. And it happened to come in the form of wandering. But I have learned that life likes to give me things I don’t think I want. Otherwise how would I learn that I love them?

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19 Oct 2014

If you are looking for a warm fuzzy, this is not it.

So yeah. Really not looking forward to writing this particular post. In fact, thought about what else I could possibly write about. Anything. But nope. It’s this.

I have gained weight. My jeans still fit, but different. And my arms and belly are bigger.

I am still not weighing myself. And thank God. I don’t do well with numbers. I am bad at rational thought when it comes to my weight. I know that to some people (including myself in the not-so-distant past), knowing the number would be a chance to look reality square in the eye. This is not true for me anymore. When it comes to me and the number on the scale, I lose all sense of reality and it is all about shame. I am sick in the head about these things.

I want to be clear. I believe that knowing things is better than not knowing. I think that most people who are interested in managing their weight and their bodies should get on the scale every once in a while. Before I quit smoking, I got on once a month. And it was fine. Maybe not fun, but not an issue. But since my quit-smoking-weight-gain, getting on the scale has been a kind of torture. So I stopped.

I need to acknowledge that for over a year, I have been waiting to lose the weight I gained. I feel like I deserve it. I feel like it’s due me. I feel like it’s my right.

I am going to be honest. And the Good Girl inside me doesn’t want me to say this. But if I had known that this is what was going to happen to me, I never would have quit smoking.

Look. I quit. It’s done. I don’t have any intention of starting again. But my relationship with my body has suffered badly in the past 2 years. I feel ugly a lot of the time. I feel fat most of the time. And feel like the whole thing is completely unfair.

Perhaps if I really went back and inventoried all the benefits I personally received from quitting smoking, I would see that I would do it all again in a heartbeat. But when I think about how I was once, miraculously, for a time, at peace with my body and now I am regularly unhappy and sometimes deeply ashamed, it’s hard to be objective.

Having been a fat girl, I have always had a strained relationship with my body. It has always been an issue and it always will be. But having had that reprieve from 30 to 35, where my weight was not a constant torment, has made this past 2 years all the worse. Because I have the distinction, and I can’t seem to get back there.

The Good Girl is telling me that this is where I am supposed to tell you about how I am going to accept my body because it is the beautiful vessel for my soul. That as long as I honor myself by keeping my boundaries around my eating, I am honoring Life and the Universe, whatever my size. But the part of me that feels frustrated and cheated says that the Good Girl can go f*** herself.

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21 Sep 2014

Let’s get to the important stuff. What’s for lunch?

Short blog today.
What I really want to talk about today is food. And how I eat really well all the time.

The other day I was talking with a friend who also has her eating under control. She jokingly said to me. “It’s too bad you’re on a diet. I could never do what you do.” And then we laughed and laughed. Because we eat like queens.

I get that a lot. I could never do what you do. I could never be on a diet like you.

The other day I had bacon and eggs, coffee with milk and pineapple for breakfast, cabbage braised in butter, steamed broccoli and duck confit for lunch, and filet Mignon, and roasted butternut squash, a homemade sugar-free, grain-free spice cookie with sugar-free butter sesame frosting for dinner. That was all in one day.

It was not a cheat day. I don’t have cheat days. I could have that every day if I wanted. I eat food that I love every single day.

It occurs to me that some people who could “never” give up sugar, are talking about the high, not about the taste.

But I understand that if you think I’m on a “diet” you couldn’t do what you think I do.

“Diets” are deprivations. And they are meant to end once the goal is reached.

I don’t know anybody who could live in deprivation. Even if their life depended on it. I could never have kept my food under control for over 8 years on a “diet.” Even knowing that I’m an addict and it could kill me. For me, eating well is the best defense against eating the sugar that will certainly kill me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go figure out what exquisite deliciousness I am going to make myself for lunch.

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14 Sep 2014
1 Comment

This is where I don’t blink

So many things I want to get out and get off my chest. But this is not my diary. And you, as a collective, are not my friends. (Though obviously some of you are.)

I have to remind myself that this is a blog about living with eating disorders. And that can mean so many things for me, because my eating disorders touch every part of my life. But this is not a place to complain.

And even in those places that are places to complain, I try to do minimal complaining. Or at least minimal “all I’m doing about it is complaining.”

I am in a lot of pain lately. About circumstances. And life. And it is time to do that thing where I look at what is my responsibility, and what I can change and what I can’t, and what I have to let go of. And then let go.

And that is always wrapped up in my eating disorders. Partly because feelings are all wrapped up in my eating disorders. When I ate compulsively, pain is what I ate.

The correlation between an event and a feeling doesn’t even have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be some huge incident. It doesn’t have to be traumatic for me to be traumatized. So much of it is about feeling helpless.

This is a good lesson for me right now. I just had a little epiphany writing that. I don’t know if I have ever been able to pinpoint this feeling. I know its physical sensations. The intense tightness in my throat, like I am strangling myself with my own throat muscles. And the feeling in my arms and legs, hands and feet, like they don’t exist. Sort of the opposite of phantom limb syndrome. But I don’t know if up until this point I have ever been able to clearly note that it comes down to wanting something to be different that I have no power to change.

I don’t know the last time I had this feeling. It comes, and I let it go by trusting. By trusting that life is going the way it should. That whatever situation will be resolved and I, personally, will be better off with whatever the outcome. That has always been true, even though at the time it didn’t always seem to work out in my favor.

But the last time I remember this feeling being so terrible that it was practically unbearable, was about four years ago. I was a babysitter at the time and I could not stop thinking about the possibilities of the children I took care of getting hurt or dying. Especially when they were under my watch. I could not get these thoughts out of my head. Not matter how many times I tried to stop thinking them, they kept creeping in.

Now that I think about it, that was simply that I was overwhelmed by my lack of control over life. I was a fantastic child-care provider. I was not flighty or careless. I just knew in that moment that things happen in life, and people get hurt and it’s nobody’s fault. And I couldn’t control that. And it terrified me. And traumatized me. And it created the most intense pain.

That was when I started meditating. That was when I made an agreement with God, and then took time every morning to renew it. I agreed that I would honor what ever happened in a day as exactly what was supposed to happen. I didn’t have to like it. I didn’t have to put some spin on it. I just had to honor it. In other words, I had to trust.

That agreement doesn’t mean I always trust. It doesn’t stop this feeling from showing up. And it’s intense. But I will say that wading through it is so much better than eating it.

I used to eat all of my feelings. But I can think of growing up, and the times I felt the most crazy and out of control, and it all came down to this feeling, magnified times a thousand. Because I ate it. And then I ate it again. And again. Until eating it wasn’t going to work again. Until it had to come out. And when it did, it was all tied up in my worthlessness and my brokenness and the shameful things I had done and the shame in what I had failed to do. It was muddled and cloudy and I couldn’t see it clearly. And I couldn’t hold it in. I could eat as much cake as I wanted, but it was going to come out. And by that time it was so big and heavy and intense that it scared the shit out of me. There were times that I actually thought I might be going crazy.

There is something about using a substance that is ultimately lacking. If it weren’t, it would work. If I could have numbed my pain with food, and it had kept working, I would have done it. Eternally. Before I had love in my life, I would have gladly traded love for numb. I did, in fact trade love for numb for so many years. If only I could have stayed numb, I would have happily gotten fatter and fatter. I would have happily died of some obesity related illness. If only it had worked.

Thank God it didn’t. Now I would never trade love for numb. Even when this pain is so intense. And anyway, it passes, eventually. But first I have to let myself fall into the helplessness. I have to look my lack of control in the eye and not blink.

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30 Aug 2014

…But that’s none of my business…

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about what it looks like to let people be themselves. Make their own choices. Fight their own battles. Live their own lives.

It’s a hard thing. I know that it is hard for everybody. And I like to think it is something that I am relatively good at.

Relatively. I mean, it’s not easy. Especially when I love somebody. Or in my pride I think I know what would be best.

And maybe what I think other people should do really would make them happy, or give them peace, or just generally make things work out for the best. But none of that matters.

When I was growing up, a lot of people wanted me to lose weight. Doctors and family and friends. Not because they didn’t like or love me fat, but because they did. They wanted better for me. They wanted me to be healthier and happier. They didn’t want me to get obesity related illnesses. Or be made fun of. Or get hurt and rejected.

But nothing those people wanted for me ever helped me. None of their opinions or advice ever landed as anything but judgment, cruelty, and conditional caring. I am not saying that that is what it was. I am not saying that it was not genuine love and concern. But it did not occur that way. It occurred as intrusion. And for the most part, it still does.

I love advice.

When I ask for it. Because I am choosy about whom I ask. I go to people who have something I want when I ask for advice. When I wanted peace around food, I went to people who had peace around food. I did what they did. Not people who were skinny. Not even people who had lost a lot of weight. I wanted food to stop being an issue. So I went to people for whom compulsive eating was no longer an issue. When I wanted to open my heart and find a powerful relationship, I asked for advice from people in the kinds of relationships I wanted. Not people who happened to be married. Not women who were trying to land a husband. It was about relationships. When I wanted to quit smoking, I went to people who had successfully quit smoking and were empowered by it. Not people who still had a puff every once in a while. Not people who had never had or wanted a cigarette. People who quit so that they could grow.

What I do around food is not for everybody. Plenty of people are not sick with sugar addiction or eating disorders, and can eat sugar and drink alcohol normally and without negative repercussions. Or have other food issues that would be exacerbated by what I do.

And no. Not everybody wants what I have. And I can understand that. I think most people can’t imagine how sweet and delicious my life is. I don’t think many people can fathom what it is like to have found a certain amount of peace. I bet they think that what I have is a dull as can be.

But even more, there are people who do, indeed, want what I have, but are unwilling to do what I do. Almost everybody wants to know how I live with the idea of never eating chocolate cake again. Or never having a glass of wine with dinner. Or they want to make sure that I know that they never could. So many people, when they hear my solution, decide that it’s too much. They want an easier, softer way. Not so hard. Not so extreme.

And who am I to tell them differently? Who am I to judge them for not doing what I do?

And it’s not just food. Food is just the most obvious example to me. My “amazing” weight loss transformation that is written all over my body. (Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know that I put amazing in quotes because I happen to know that my weight was the symptom of my eating disorders. That what’s really amazing to me is the gift of having my eating under control, which takes care of my weight issues. And that more than amazing, it’s work and dedication and giving myself over to grace.) Who am I to offer advice about any choice. Who am I to tell anybody anything? Who am I to tell another person how to live. Or what happiness is. Or where to find it?

Unless you want to ask me. And then I would love to tell you what works for me. And even then, I give it as a gift. With no strings. To do with what you will. Because your life is yours. And you get to live it for yourself.

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23 Aug 2014

I might go through hell, but I don’t need to live there

So I wrote a blog yesterday that I was going to post today, but yesterday was so insane that I decided it was better to write a whole new blog. So here goes.

Yesterday my boyfriend and I were set to travel to Florida. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Tampa, where we were going to connect to a flight to Ft. Lauderdale where we would arrive around 3. Then we would drive two hours down to the Keys. We’d hit the grocery store first to stock up the kitchenette we were renting, then head to a bar we like walking distance from the hotel so we could relax with beer for him and diet coke for me.

But then our flight to Tampa was so delayed that we were not going to make our connecting flight. So the airline did their best and managed to get us redirected. We would get into Ft. Lauderdale at 9:45 at night. By way of Kansas City. And then Nashville. No joke.

Now this is annoying. And while things were not settled, and we didn’t know how or if we would get to Florida, it was very stressful. And for about half an hour, I was really upset. But I kept reminding myself to breathe. I had all the food I needed, because I travel prepared. And my boyfriend called the hotel and told them we would miss check in. They said they would hide our key and we could check in in the morning. Plus, I was with my boyfriend, so it was all fine. We laughed about it a lot. Even as it was going on. We were both able to take it in stride and make the best of it.

So we finally get to Ft. Lauderdale after 8 hours of numb butt cheeks. We rent a really nice car for a good deal. We drive the 2 hours. I buy an apple at a rest stop and I have some protein packed in my bag so I have breakfast for the morning so we don’t have to run to the grocery store first thing in the morning. All is well. We’re exhausted. But the day is done.

Or so we think.

We get in about midnight, find our hidden room key, and go to the room. I open the door and the first thing I see is a mountain of garbage. Pizza boxes. Water bottles. A banana peel. There is a pile of towels on the floor. I turn on the lights (afraid there will be people in there) and the beds are all unmade. And it smells.

We are both clear that we are not going to sleep in the beds. (Duh!!!!) So we take what seem like unused pillows and go sleep on two chez lounges on the screened in balcony attached to our room. No joke.

So there are two things I want to say about this.

1) I didn’t have to eat over this. I didn’t have to drown my feelings with chocolate cake. I didn’t “deserve” something sweet at the end of a hard day. I don’t eat outside of my boundaries no matter what.

Sugar wouldn’t have made anything better. And in the long run, it would have made everything so much worse.

2) I had to learn to live a certain way when I got my eating under control. I had to learn to let life happen the way it happened. I had to learn to let go of anger and resentment. I had to drop self-pity.

It’s true that I was just plain miserable from midnight until I fell asleep on the lounge chair. And I was anxious for the hour that I was awake before the office opened and we got a new, lovely, clean room. And a refund for the night. (Obviously.)

But the trip is not ruined. We were able to be calm and loving and happy through the whole day. And I am perfectly happy right now. I’m laying by the pool watching iguanas eat bugs around me. My boyfriend and I have had a lovely day so far. We have even enjoyed telling our family and friends. We are already laughing about it.

I got that freedom from getting control of my food addiction. When I was eating compulsively, just the trouble with the flight would have been enough to positively ruin the whole time away. The. Whole. Trip! It’s not fair! Life isn’t fair! I hate everyone!!!!

But today it doesn’t matter if life is fair. All is well. Because I can let it be done. I can be happy in the now.

So that’s my story. But now I’m warm. I need to post this and get in the pool.

I hope you have a beautiful day. I am going to.

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