onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “self-care”

19 May 2024

Living the loose life

I had a super exciting Friday night this week. A family friend was in town running sound for a touring band and I got to see him and their amazing show. And I got to meet an internet friend for the first time! And it was all magical!

One of my favorite sayings is “how you do anything is how you do everything.” And in getting my eating under control I ended up changing basically everything about my life. 

I never wanted to do anything in preparation for anything when I was growing up as a sugar addict and compulsive eater. And as a really talented and intelligent addict, that was an easy lifestyle to execute but a difficult one to bear. It meant never preparing for anything and then having to constantly worry and overthink and perform spectacularly in the moment. I always wanted to “fly by the seat of my pants” but I don’t think I understood the toll it was taking on my peace and joy. All because preparation felt like work and work felt hard.

In order to get my eating under control, I had to start planning and preparing in advance to have what I needed to eat. I was told that I should be the most important person in my own life and that if I cared about getting sober from sugar and not eating compulsively, I was going to have to make sure that my food was taken care of. And that *I* very specifically needed to do it. 

I must weigh my portions myself. It’s part of my spiritual relationship with food and my ability to be totally honest and responsible for everything that goes into my mouth. I need to read ingredients. I need to ask how things are cooked at restaurants. I need to refuse to eat things that are not on my approved menu. Even if it’s something made just for me. Even with love. 

So now, I find that my life is so much the opposite. I plan and prepare all the things so I can relax in the moment.

Friday before I left I made sure everything was taken care of: My home, my husband, my food for the weekend, my dinner for the night, my tickets, my Ubers, my friends’ needs, my schedule, ALL THE THINGS! And that made me feel great about myself. That made me feel calm about my night. That made me feel like now all I had to do was go with the flow. And then I just got to be in the moment. I didn’t have to worry or overthink. I got to enjoy the moment and the music, my new friend and my old one.

Growing up my eating was addictive and out of control and it forced me to use ridiculous amounts of energy to try to keep myself together and show up for the most basic life tasks. I had to keep myself so tight and reined in, because of how loose my eating was. Now I keep my food tight so I can live my life loose instead. 

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21 Apr 2024

Another make coming

I have been thinking a lot about the addiction part of my life lately. (Not that I am ever not thinking about it on some level.) About the part of me that always wants more. That wants to be filled up. Sated. And never quite is.

People who keep the same eating and food boundaries that I do have a handful of slogans. And one is There Is Another Meal Coming. Because that is what addiction feels like. Dearth. Void. Scarcity and Deprivation. 

And even though I used to cringe at the cheesy nature of having slogans, that one, and many others, got me through. Reminded me that there was ALWAYS another meal coming. I was guaranteed three meals a day. I am guaranteed! I get to eat things I love. And none of them are drug foods.

But since I have been actively trying to create a year of joyful, peaceful, purposeful creation, I have noticed that I still live my creative life like there is not, in fact, another meal (project, idea, time to make) coming. I am thinking like an addict about making. Frenzied, overwhelmed, excited but in a way that leads to disappointment. Half finished, lost steam, too many ideas, not enough time.

In all seriousness, I feel like it’s a miracle I make and design and create as much as I do for as much chaos as I court around it in my head. 

So my goal moving forward is to remember that there is another make coming. 

I already know that this lesson comes with some practical considerations, like time and logistics, but there is something to Fake It ‘Til You Make It, and for now it feels good to trust that stuff will get made. And maybe in the end, with a little more room in my head for something bigger.

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03 Mar 2024

Stay where it’s warm

I have had a really intense week of spiritual awakening. It was around some inner child healing work. And it was made clear to me that around the time I was 12 or 13 was when I really shut down. Buttoned myself up. 

If you know me, you may think that this me who is “buttoned up” is still pretty wild. I think that is probably true. There have always been things about me that have been intense for the people around me.

For example, I cry. I have always been a crier. And to basically everyone’s chagrin, I never learned how to get control over it. So when I say that the crying I have been doing this week is “different” than usual, there is, indeed, a “usual” and this is not it.

The tears this week have been big. And hot. These are kid tears. These are the kinds of tears I saw on children when I was nanny when they didn’t have the words to express themselves, or the power to change things without an adult. They are tears of fear and powerlessness, and have probably been buried in my heart for 40 years. 

Over the past couple of years, I have come to understand that the people around me didn’t feel about me the way one might expect them to feel about a kid in the family. They ways they didn’t like me. The ways they didn’t want to deal with me. The ways they did deal with me which were often mean. But it was the water I was swimming in. A fish doesn’t know what water is until they end up out of it. Except fish die out of water. And once I got out, I thrived.

One of the things that happened to me when I went to college, and then even more when I moved away to New York City at 21, was that I ended up spending time with people who actually did like me. Who thought I was fun and funny and nice. Who thought I was worth time and energy and effort. People who didn’t think I was a know-it-all. People who didn’t roll their eyes at me or make me the punchline of a joke because I was sensitive and it was fun to make me cry. People who actually sought me out. 

All of a sudden it was warm.

I’m not saying that all of the adults in my childhood were awful to me. But there were plenty. Plural. And nobody to tell me it wasn’t me. It was them. No one to tell me that as a child, I could not really have deserved the kinds of bullying and just mean-spiritedness I received. I am saying that I was a grown up before I had any sense of myself being likable or worth liking. 

“Stop being so sensitive. If you didn’t cry so easily, you wouldn’t be such an easy target.”

So I tried to make myself small enough to fly under the radar. I’m not saying I was good at it. Just that it was what I had to work with. 

The idea that I am supposed to let that little girl out and tell her she is allowed to be as big and weird and fun and stupid and overly confident and creative and daring as she wanted to be before 12 is terrifying. One bitten twice shy is a whole different world when it feels like you were the sacrificial meal for years.  

When I got my eating under control, I wanted to be done. To be cooked. To be complete. But instead it has been a long process of uncovering my most authentic self more deeply every day. And 18+ years into it, the lessons and gifts are deeper and more profound, not less. 

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25 Feb 2024

Apparently, you don’t know what you’re missing

When I first got my eating under control, I lived in a bit of a fog for about a year and a half. I wore pajamas everywhere. I left my house in the middle of the night to drink diet soda and read manga in those pajamas in the bar down the street so I didn’t eat compulsively. I don’t remember a lot of that time. 

But then I got clear headed. And I realized that for the first time since I was 5 years old, I was very conventionally attractive. That was both the good news and the bad news.

When I say I was conventionally attractive, I mean I was hot. I mean that the kinds of things that happened to beautiful women in movies happened to me. 

Once, my mom was visiting me in New York City. We were getting into a cab, and as it was pulling away, a guy jumped in front of it so he could get my number. I remember my mom looking at me kind of funny and asking me if that kind of thing happened to me a lot. And me saying…well, kind of.

But when I think about that me, that 30 something girl who felt 16 again only actually excited to be here, I can see I really was like a 16 year old girl. I had to learn how to navigate the world differently. I had to get a crash course in having social currency.

I was completely unprepared for the differences in the way I was treated. Good, bad and heartbreaking. Completely insecure about my new place in the world. When you are fat, even though it’s a terrible one, the world has a place picked out for you. Completely unsure of who I wanted to be now that it felt like I could be anyone. And I tried on a bunch of new clothes and personalities. 

But the thing is, that 15+ years later, at 46, what I am is authentically me. Or the most authentically me I have ever been. I feel so much more confident, beautiful, sexy, sure, secure, and comfortable. That was 15+ years of making amends, changing behaviors and setting boundaries, loving myself and learning to love others as they were. And yet, nobody has rushed into traffic to get my phone number in many years. Which seems a shame really. I mean, I’m married, so I would refuse anyway, but I’m way more appealing now than I was teetering on my hot girl fawn legs.

I’m not saying I’m not a beautiful woman. I am. I know it. I enjoy it. But beauty without youth is not as in demand. And frankly, that’s a relief. But also, a pity. You clearly don’t know what you’re missing.

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18 Feb 2024

It was always sink or swim anyway

I had a fun little bout of body dysmorphia this week after our nephew’s wedding. 

I had posted pictures of myself on social media hoping people would tell me I was pretty. And then people told me I was pretty! 

And then I started to wonder if I was really pretty. And then my face started to look like just a bunch of shapes. And I started asking my best friend if I was really pretty or if it was just a face. Is it my hair that makes me pretty? Do I not look like myself in makeup? Am I only pretty with makeup? Am I only pretty without it?

And I wasn’t asking her to reassure me. I really didn’t know. I really wanted to know.

And she said, honey, this is just another side of your dysmorphia. 

Oh. Right. That.

So I changed the channel for myself. Am I pretty? I don’t know or care. It’s not my business today. 

It’s not my business today.

This has been happening too as I both get a smaller body while building muscles and changing my shape. When I focus on my body changes, I start to focus on my body. And I stop being able to see my body. Suddenly it is a bunch of shapes. Am I changing or is it all in my head? And what does it mean? About me?

(Spoiler alert: It doesn’t mean anything about me. It’s the result of the exercises I do consistently.)

I’m 46. I’m happily and lovingly married. I have my sugar addiction under control. But some of these issues, food and eating and body too, are only ever dormant. Never really dead.

I have learned to ride the waves. It still sucks. Sometimes I fall off. But it’s only ever been sink or swim anyway. It’s just that now I know how to swim.

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28 Jan 2024

Feels like a shame but probably isn’t

I am almost a full month into my “Peaceful Purposeful Joyful Creation” journey and I am still learning and shaky. But also still plugging along. 

One of the things that I had to learn early in getting my eating under control was time assessment and management. Because shopping and chopping and cooking and packing and eating took time. And I had to actually know how much time I needed. I had to learn to be practical about practical things.

And I got pretty good at that. Certainly good enough that I figured out my priorities and how to implement them in my life.

There is a saying that I think about a lot. “You can talk about priorities all you like, but your schedule doesn’t lie.”

And my schedule clearly says self-care is a priority. I take care of myself with my eating boundaries, my workout and sleep and meditation schedules, my skin and hair care. 

But all of this scheduling and routine maintenance has made a nice tidy place for my head to go chaotic. Rush through step 1 to get to step 2 while simultaneously preparing for steps 3-8 in my mind. My brain is full. No room for anything but the rest of my planned out time.

On the outside I look calm and confident. I know this because people say it all the time. “You have such a peaceful presence. You always seem so together.” Inside I am panting and panicking and focusing on perfection.

This past few weeks of trusting that my life will work out even if I don’t run around like a crazy lady is…frankly hard. There is a level of superstitious thinking to the way I live that stems from my childhood thinking. That the “magic” is in not stopping, not looking, not hesitating. Not giving life, or bad luck, or karma, or the devil or WHATEVER, a chance to get me.

But the thing is that I already know that the real magic is in slowing down. It’s in the stillness. It’s in the trusting. It’s in the space between thoughts.

Because ultimately that is what my brain chaos is. It’s me not having to trust. It’s me not having to look too closely at my dreams and my wishes and what I really want for my life. It’s me not having to expect that things will work out for the best for me in the end. So I can use that time and space to go into survival mode and “prepare for any eventuality,” instead of being excited, interested, involved, curious.

I guess what I am coming to recognize is that all of that mental busywork is a way for me to burn off my creative energy without having to create anything. 

And that sucks. I hate that! I’m annoyed at myself. I’m frustrated that I have taken so long to get here. I am impatient to grow faster and be better now!

But I am reminded, yet again, that these big changes come a little at a time. I do not currently have the capacity to bridge the gap between what I am and what I want to be. And the only way to get there is to continue. At life’s pace. Not mine.

Which feels like a real shame but probably isn’t.

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07 Jan 2024

Pretty sure my dreams are in the stillness

Over the past few years I have noticed that my New Year’s Day has set the tone for my coming year, though not intentionally. Which made me decide to be intentional about it this year. 

I chose to have an intentional day of joyful peaceful productive making, including crochet projects, comedy bits and improv jokes and snippets of singing on social media, and a delicious dinner to enjoy with my husband. 

And I noticed something in my intentionality to be peaceful; even when I am not upset, when I have plenty of time, when all is well, I am amped up to go go go. I am never really peaceful about being and doing enough. 

I want to crochet that row quickly and efficiently to get to the next step. I want to get the wording perfect but still get that quip out quickly in case someone else makes a similar joke! I want to salt and pepper the steaks quickly and efficiently to get them in the sous vide. So I can quickly and efficiently get to cooking the vegetables!

And I don’t just mean physically, though physically too. I am rushing in my mind. RUSHING ALL THE TIME!!!!

And I want to change that for myself. Because I know intuitively that the gifts of abundance, the life beyond even this life beyond my wildest dreams, are in the stillness. I know it. And I fear it. But perhaps I could notice because I am actually ready to be still anyway. Even if fear of success has always been on my list, just as much as fear of failure.

It occurs to me that that is why I spend so much time rushing. So I don’t have any space between thoughts of perfection in the now. I be careful what I think I can have. I be careful what I think I am worth. I be careful what I wish for. Or I don’t wish at all.

Because getting what I wish for means work. It means being great. It means trying and failing to be great and then being embarrassed about it. It means stretching and struggling. It means pain. 

If I ate over it instead, there would be no pain. 

But I don’t eat over things now. I don’t put sugar in my body to drug myself. And I have the benefit of 18 years of work, and trying and failing to be great and being embarrassed about it, and stretching and struggling and pain. And I know first hand that there is magic in the trying.

(Oh HEY! On January 2, I celebrated 18 years of having my eating under control! Yay!)

Now, when I notice my brain rushing, and telling me to go go go, I purposely slow down. I make every thought and movement deliberate and smooth. I trust that it will work out just fine. And so far it has. And has also brought me more peace daily.

My time on this planet has been a long slow lesson in easing into this life. 46 years in, I may be getting the hang of it.

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10 Dec 2023

Not another quit in me

Today I am going to write about quitting. It has come up twice this week, once just this morning, so I guess I will take that as a sign. 

There is a very big practical difference between quitting, and having quit. It is harder to quit than it is to stay quit. And I am pretty sure I do not have another quit in me. Not for sugar. Not for cigarettes. Because both of them sucked so bad.

17 years and 11 months ago, I quit manmade sugars, starches and almost all grains, along with some foods so naturally high in sugar that they kick off sugar cravings. I think it’s worth noting that all of the natural foods I avoid (potatoes, grapes, corn) are all easily made into alcohol. My body is a still.

It took a full year for me to start digesting food properly after I quit sugar and carbohydrates. When I was in the food, everything I ate was so processed that my body didn’t even know how to break down whole foods. And then another 6 months on top of that to come out of the food fog I had been in for the majority of my life.

For that year and a half I wore fuzzy pajama pants everywhere because I could not handle anything rough or restricting on my skin. I was afraid of binging so I would go to the Manhattan flagship Barnes and Noble (in said pajama pants) and stay and read until it closed at midnight, and then take my time getting home so I wouldn’t eat in the night. I watched the same 3 DVD anime (Fushigi Yuugi) on a loop just to obsess over something that wasn’t food.

When I quit smoking cigarettes I got a side effect that affects about 3% of people who quit smoking. The top layer of skin in my mouth started to loosen and peel off. I had open sores all over my gums from having basically smoked the inside of my mouth like a salmon for 20 years. I had already been off sugar for over 6 years but I started gaining weight uncontrollably. And I mean uncontrollably. My food got cut. I was eating quantifiably less food and fewer calories and I was gaining weight. I felt crazy. I was miserable. And it is only over 11 years later, at 46, even after years of working out 5 days a week and keeping my eating boundaries, that I am *almost* the same size I was at 34.

If I had known how these things would look, and feel, and work out, I would NEVER have done them. Were they worth it? Ten thousand and a half percent! But I am afraid of exactly those things I had to get through. Pain. Weight gain. Feeling out of control. Sickness. Lethargy.

I don’t know how, knowing what I do, that I could ever choose it again.

Maybe I am not being fair to my very powerful and committed self. Because I have certainly learned to lean into choosing the practices of delayed gratification for the purpose of long term contentment. But I still think it’s asking a lot of the girl who went through all of that to do it again. And for what? A smoke at a party? A bite of cake?

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03 Dec 2023

Retroactive love

Someone posted on social media the other day that they used to think they had a high pain tolerance, but then they realized they are just excellent at disassociating from their body.

That is how I got through a lot of the physical pain of being fat. And for me personally there was a lot of physical pain that came with my fatness. Foot pain. Back pain. Period pain.

Well right now, perimenopause is kicking my ass. I am not disassociated from my body anymore and my periods are as bad as they were when I was eating sugar compulsively. I have been in pain for the last few days. And none of the pain medication I have taken has worked well or for any prolonged amount of time. And I am reminded of what a gift it is to live the majority of my time in an easy body. 

I am grateful to be in communication with my body. I am grateful for a relationship with my body based on gratitude and grace. But more than that, I am thankful that I don’t have to live with pain every day. Because for as much as I take care of my body with nourishing food and water and gentle loving exercise, much of that is still luck. 

I used to think of and treat my body like my own enemy. It was fat and I blamed it for being fat. It was always hungry and that was shameful, so I blamed it for the uncontrollable need to eat. It was an easy target, so I blamed it for being the easiest joke in the room. It was the problem. It was the root of all my problems.

I gave up sugar to lose weight so I could get rid of the ugly body I hated and get a new, better body I didn’t think I deserved, so other people would stop being able to target me.

But giving up sugar let me get to know this body. The old body. The same one that I hated and pushed away so it would just work like a machine, even while in pain. I wanted to shame it into perfection, and instead I learned to like it and love it and be grateful for all of the ways it took care of me while I was hating it. To love it for being me. To love it retroactively, all of my iterations and presentations.

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19 Nov 2023

The closest to Enlightenment I have ever come

When I was young, late teens and early twenties, I was always looking for something like “answers” or an “owner’s manual” for life. And I tried a lot of different religions and practices. I felt that my life was missing something.

I wouldn’t understand until later, when I got my eating under control that I was trying to “fill a God-sized hole.” It was, surprise surprise, also why I ate drug foods the way I did.

I was telling some friends the other day that when I was in my 20s and looking for contentment and peace, I tried to get into Zen Buddhism. One of the practices is called sitting Zazen. It means to sit very still in a rigid posture and think of nothing. 

If you know me, it may not come as much of a shock to you that I was very very bad at sitting still and thinking of nothing. The other thing that I learned at that time was that Zen Masters believe in many roads to Enlightenment, and 20-something Kate was *positive* that my path to enlightenment was *suffering*! Maybe it was why, at 28, I was willing to give up what I expected to be the only joy in my life: sugar.

Now, at 46, the idea that I was made for suffering is hilarious to me. Hilarious!

The closest I have ever come to Enlightenment is the pure peace and calm of having my eating under control. The only thing I actually gave up was the high, and the subsequent shame that I could not stop eating.

Because I still love food. I still love to eat. I still get excited about meals and particular dishes. I still do little dances. I still sing little songs to my meals. I still talk to my food. I even talk to it at the grocery store. “Oh! You’re a pretty baby! Are you mine? Yes you are!”

Giving up foods I am addicted to and keeping within my eating boundaries frees up so much space in my head. It helps me prioritize my relationships and goals. It makes me like myself enough to make hard choices. It gives me the fortitude to choose the practices that will make me truly happy in the long term, not the ones that will make the moment feel better momentarily. 

Keeping drug foods out of my body lets me think straight, and feel my feelings. It helps me make honest and honorable decisions that I don’t have to worry about or backtrack on. And if I do make a mistake, I know how to take responsibility and make amends. 

Yes simple. No not easy. But the closest to Enlightenment I have ever come.

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