onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “giving up sugar”

03 May 2026

It’s not called a super chill system for a reason

I have had an absolutely insane week. Before we went to sleep last Sunday, we heard that our offer on a high rise condo with amazing Chicago city views had been accepted.

One thing a lot of people don’t actively think about is the fact that when we change, especially when we grow into people we have been hoping to become, our brains don’t cheer us on. They send our nervous systems after us. Like thugs in flat caps with tire irons. (My nervous system is apparently Irish.) 

So I have been managing a series of mini panic attacks in between filling out paperwork, signing electronically, and uploading documents. 

But there is a thing that having my eating under control for 20 years has done: it has taught me that I can act through my fear and my panic. That I can just take the next right step. I don’t have to feel like it to do it. I don’t have to be ready. 

What I am talking about is not just worry that I made a mistake or missed something. It’s not just about the process of buying a condo. It’s worry about all of the things that come from this change. For example, downsizing. 

I have been changing my wardrobe over the past year or so. Entirely switching up my style. And while I have had an apartment on the road and big house in the suburbs, I have not been thinking about space. I just get the new clothes I want. But there are still so many old clothes. Or new clothes that I realize I am just kind of meh about. So after a series of panic attacks about downsizing my wardrobe, I just took some steps. And it was a relief. I literally just made some piles to give away and packed them up. 

I have a problematic amount of craft supplies too. And this little voice in my head that sees something that inspires me, but that I have no current need for, and thinks “you have room.”

Guess what, voice, there is no more room for potential. 

So the purging of the craft supplies will be coming soon to a suburban house near me. (Mine.) 

Every time my nervous system tells me we are making a big mistake, I remember that it is fighting for the status quo. Because it knows we are surviving here. But survival and thriving can’t live in the same place.

As a person who wants more, who wants it all, love and friendship and joy and contentment without complacency, I can make friends with the panic, and move forward anyway. As long as I weigh and measure my food and keep my drug foods out of my body, I’m available to show up and do things, big and small, mundane and life-changing.

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26 Apr 2026

If it’s right it will be

Four months ago I assumed my husband and I would live in our house in the suburbs of Chicago until he retired. And then we would move somewhere warm.

And today we put in an offer on a Chicago condo with the expectation that we will keep it until we move to a lakefront Chicago condo in retirement. 

I absolutely love this! I am a city girl at heart. When I started this blog 14 years ago I was a single girl living in NYC. I love public transportation. I love walkable neighborhoods. I love the energy of a city. I love city fashion. I love 24 hour convenience. The ability to blend in or stand out as you see fit in the moment. I love the ability to find anything and everything you are looking for and so many things you didn’t know you were looking for until you found them.

When I keep my eating under control I can be flexible, I can go with the flow, I can enjoy the ride. I can change my mind, and I can be available for my husband to change his mind. 

Don’t get me wrong. If I would have been unhappy I would speak up for myself. It’s not that I would be unhappy, so much as overwhelmed. Stunned.

We have had a loose plan for most of our relationship, and one day about 4 months ago, my husband said he wanted to entirely change the plan. And if I were in the food I would have had to have a whole-ass panic attack about something like that. 


Because even if I love cities, it’s a huge change. It’s a major downsizing of our stuff to fit into a smaller space. It’s leaving the place that has been my home for 13 years and my husband’s for over 25 – a place we renovated to be just our taste. It’s grocery shopping with a cart not a car. It’s keeping my 10 year old car until the wheels fall off instead of getting a new one because I will need a car to live on the road for my husband’s job, but won’t want a nice car in the city.

It’s a whole bunch of future happenings that I have not had a decade plus to consider and imagine and troubleshoot. 

But I trust. 

For as long as I have had my drug foods down and my compulsive eating in check, whenever I didn’t get what I wanted – the job, the apartment, the boyfriend – I always ended up with better than I thought I wanted. 

I really want this condo. I love it. But I also believe very strongly that I get the best, most right, most beneficial treatment from life. Every time all the time. And that if we don’t get this home, it’s because the best home for us, the “right” one, is somewhere else. 

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19 Apr 2026

I set myself up

There is a concept/dichotomy that has come up for me in two different contexts lately.

Internal vs external. 

First it was an Instagram reel about tight hips.

I have very tight hips, particularly my right one. It has been an issue since my late twenties. I have lived in pain on and off since then. And over the past 5 or so years, I have found more and better stretches to get them to release. But there was a portion of my right hip, deep in the joint, that never got any real satisfaction. 

And then I saw this video a couple of weeks ago, of a woman saying if you have tight hips and you get a “cramp” kneeling, it’s not a cramp. 

It turns out it was the end of my range of motion for my “internal rotation.” The same with the top of my right foot. All of the stretches I have been doing up until now are working, but only for part of my motion, my external rotation. And then she demonstrated stretches for internal rotation. 

And if that didn’t change my life! It took more than one session of these new stretches for my hip to get full range. But I have finally managed to hit the spot!  THE SPOT!

Since then I have been doing my new stretches with every workout. And additionally any time my hips are paining me. I have the most relief and least hip pain I have ever had in my adult life.

The other thing was a reel about the differences in the brains of people who live by internal validation vs external validation. That there is a difference in their brains. But it’s not about parts. It’s about practice. That the rewards and the reward systems are different. And lead to very different life experiences.

And this made perfect sense to me because what the reel described was the difference between me before getting my eating under control and after. 

And it also made other people come into clearer focus for me. It made strangers on the internet make just that much more sense.

I definitely didn’t know when I got my eating under control that what I was *doing* was engaging in less external validation seeking and more internal, but I ABSOLUTELY knew I was rewiring my brain. 13 years ago I was writing blogs about it. 

One thing I know from 20 years of having my eating under control. That my brain is as elastic as I let it be. My hormones are not entirely in my control, but they are not entirely out of it either. That when I make a choice to remain calm, I can take actions to remain calm, and I can stop from brain from flooding my body with hormones. I can make friends with my body. I can retrain my brain. I can choose peace. I can set myself up for the best experience.

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12 Apr 2026

Maybe all my childhood dreams will come true

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I need all my tops CROPPED! GASP!

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

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

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

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

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05 Apr 2026

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

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

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

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

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

There are so many more.

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

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

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

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

Don’t buy it.

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

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22 Mar 2026

Available for connection

Last night I went to a party with a dozen or so awesome ladies, about half new to me. And it was a delicious delight. (And I didn’t even eat the party food!)

There was so much laughter, candor, humor, insight, and love. There was a spirit of mutual respect and appreciation. There was the desire to support each other.

A few years ago I made the deliberate choice to cultivate my friendships. Especially with women. I felt like I had lost my connections to people who liked me, and whom I liked. Not for any other reason than grown up life doesn’t have a lot of built in structures for relationship that aren’t partner and kids. As an individual, one has to make it a priority. Or not as the case may be.

13 years ago, I moved away from my friends when I left New York City to be with my husband. And we were all already grownups. Navigating partnerships and parenting while we were in the same city was hard enough. From long distance, it takes even more. And I am inconsistent. And so are my long distance friends. This is not a judgement. It’s an observation. Life gets lifey fast and sudden.  

So when I noticed the lack of everyday friendships in my life, I took actions to change that. To reach out to old friends. To make new friends. To be an asset to communities. To find new people that I like, that like me back.

When I was heavy in my addiction and depression, I would isolate for long periods of time. I would hide away in my room and binge eat and avoid my friends. And then when I was better or lonely or ready to be back in the world, I would have to go mend the friendships I had harmed. And that made friendships feel like a kind of burden. And it made me feel bad about myself. And all of those feelings led me to want to isolate more, eat more, hate myself more. 

By keeping my food boundaries and bringing my own food to this party, I looked a little weird at first. But I got to be authentic and funny and fully present. And that is when I can be part of the community. That is where I can make a difference. Just by being there, available for connection. 

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22 Feb 2026

I probably won’t stop, but I can learn

My husband and kitten and I all packed ourselves into the truck for an hour and a half yesterday, to spend less than 24 hours at our house, and then drive an hour and a half back to our apartment this morning. 

The other day I packed all of my food for those next meals. Then I packed the cat’s toys and food. The cat’s water fountain. Then my clothes. Craft stuff. 

I could have literally just packed my food and Harlow’s cat fountain. (When I type it out even that seems a little overkill. No I will not stop bringing her fountain.) 

We were barely there to need anything. I never opened the suitcase. I never made anything. Food or craft wise. I went from one home to another and anything I brought to one was already in the other one.

Really I just hung out with family and ate the meals I brought. Then we left this morning. After repacking all of the cat stuff. And dragging the kitten out from under furniture…

But even though I can see that I’m a little obsessive, I know I feel better when I am prepared. For eventualities. I feel better when I know I have taken care of my own comfort, peace and happiness. It keeps me from being mad, at myself or anyone else, if things DO go pear shaped. When I am prepared I know I did what I could, so I can just shrug and say “that’s life,” and do what I can to fix it. 

So I will still probably over pack two weeks from now when we go back for less than a day. 

But also. I can learn. That I don’t need to bring two outfits a pair of pajamas, and 4 pairs of underwear for 20 hours at home….

Harlow Gold on the road in her harness giving me the ears
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15 Feb 2026

Right now that doesn’t seem too bad

My kitten, who is almost a cat, is a very independent girl. She has a limit to how much touching she likes. And how. There is generally more wrastlin’ (pronounced RAS-lin) and more games of “bite the mamma” and fewer snuggles and pets.

But she loves to sit on my lap while I am eating. 

She doesn’t try to eat my food. Usually. She is occasionally interested in knocking my silverware off the table. But in general she doesn’t need anything. Not pets or scritches or even my attention. She just wants to be there.

I was a nanny for several years and I love babies. Like *baby* babies. I know how to communicate with them. To have them understand the important things at the very least. I love you. I see you. I care. I’m here. I’m happy when you are happy, and I want to soothe you when you are not.

And communication with a cat is similar. They don’t know words. They know energies. They drink intentions, feelings, experiences. 

And I can imagine that my meal times create a kind of palpable joy in me. A peace and also an excitement.

And here is the other crazy thing. I LET HER! I let her sit in my lap during my most treasured time: meal time!

I am forever and eternally obsessed with my food. I have never wanted to divide my attention between my meal and literally anything. Not even with those beloved babies I nannied. And here I am eating one handed with a cat in my lap and I am not even annoyed or begrudging. 

Here is the thing about babies. They are only babies for a year. Those babies I nannied are in their late teens and early 20s now. Grown ups or close to it. 

But having a cat is like having a baby forever. So maybe it’s me eating my meals one handed for the rest of my life. Which right now doesn’t sound too bad.

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08 Feb 2026

Maybe someone else will get suckered into loving themselves too

I’m on the cover of Woman’s World magazine this week. I’m in the top right corner. It’s exciting!

Mostly.

Actually I have had a lot of thoughts about it. Mixed feelings. Because over the past 20 years of quitting sugar and having my eating under control, I have learned to separate my feelings about my body from my feelings about food. I have learned to love my body for all that it is and does. And to be able to love it and call it beautiful on my own terms. And to also know simultaneously that there are foods that I am addicted to. That when I eat grains and processed sugars and even some high sugar and starch whole foods, my body craves more. And those cravings are painfully intense. And that even if I don’t have to hate being fat, I can hate the way those foods make me feel.

I think all the time about how I got basically suckered into getting my eating under control. 20 years ago I had a life coach who told me I just had to get 90 days and then I would prove that I was not a food addict. (HA!) And then I thought it was going to keep me skinny. (HA HA!) I mean it did for years. But even having my eating under control, when I quit smoking almost 14 years ago, I gained weight seemingly indiscriminately. Weighing all of my food. Cutting my portions. Gaining weight anyway.

And I still kept my eating under control. Because even though I was terrified to gain weight again, and be fat again, I was more afraid of the insanity of eating compulsively.

I had to learn to honor my body at any weight. 

But magazines don’t sell that. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of joy. Or freedom. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of “I hated myself here, and here I love myself.” 

But an extreme weight loss? That is an easy thing to show.

And I should remember that I started doing what I do with food exclusively to lose weight. And it was only a series of (un)fortunate events that led me to loving my body unconditionally, and keeping my eating boundaries in all circumstances. Not to be thin, but to be grounded, nourished, and sane. 

So if Woman’s World selling weight loss through me lets someone find a solution to their eating problems, that’s another person who may get suckered into loving themselves unconditionally too.

Photo and makeup by Holly Michelle Makeup and Beauty
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25 Jan 2026

Limits to Time and Momentum

I don’t eat compulsively, no matter what. No Matter What is a popular slogan with the people in my life who have boundaries around food. I eat my portion controlled food, three times a day, I abstain from simple sugars and carbohydrates at all times because they are drugs in my body. And I do it No Matter What. 

The United States is a terrifying place right now. I am afraid all the time. I am a person who has a lot of anxiety naturally. And right now it’s through the roof. 

I am worried about myself, about my family, about my friends, and the state of the country and the world. 

But I don’t eat outside my boundaries. No. Matter. What.

I have 20 years of doing this. Back to back, we call it. For 20 years I have done it every day all the time. And because of that I don’t think about food as a drug very often. 

But lately I have. Just little thoughts that are so fleeting. “I wish I could have another piece of bacon before I put the extra away.” Or recently “I wonder what would happen if I took 2 of my SSRIs today?” (Wow! Where did that come from???)

I don’t. I don’t act on these thoughts because I have 20 years of momentum keeping me doing what I do. And 20 years of going to meetings and talking to other food addicts. BUT! Momentum has its limits. 

So I also know that if I didn’t pay attention to the addict in me sneaking around, if I didn’t say it out loud, I could slide back. Yes. Even after 2 decades. So I am saying that I am having thoughts that say, “hey, I don’t want to have these feelings. There are ways we could not feel them. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.” And I am choosing to not do those things. I am choosing to keep my eating boundaries, and to take my medication as prescribed. 

Yes these are barely blips now. But I learned years ago not to get complacent. To play it out in my head anyway. Because when I really play it out to the end, it doesn’t make sense. 

My addiction didn’t go away. And neither did my compulsion to binge eat. I know because I can eat an entire huge meal and still be sad at the end and wistful for more. Did I mention 20 years? And a little piece of bacon, which, by the way, is not a drug food for me, is NOT going to do anything to make me feel better, but it is going to be me undermining 20 years of self esteem built by not eating compulsively.

Because it’s not about the bacon. It’s about the chink in my armor against my addict brain. 

The last thing I will say is, I only have a shot at doing the things that will make me proud and help me sleep at night, when I keep my eating under control. I learned how put boundaries around my eating by learning that the best way to get through a difficult personal time is to stop worrying about your own uncertain future and be of service to others right now.

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