onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “self-love”

31 Aug 2025

I can want with clarity

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I don’t want to excess, BUT I want what I want how I want it, pretty intensely. And that is still true now at 48. But there are some huge differences.

Getting my eating under control taught me that I am responsible for getting what I want. And it taught me that I really do care how I get it. I won’t “do anything” to get what I want. I have limits. I have personal boundaries.

When I put down sugar and grains and started managing my compulsive eating the very first lesson was that nobody could do it for me. Literally. I have to weigh my own food. Unless I am physically incapable, I have to be the person who puts the food on the scale. (People in my community are really committed. And I have specific friends who have had to have loved ones weigh their food for them after being hit by a train or a bus because they *were* physically incapable.) 

There were no “excuses” for why I didn’t have the food I needed. Or why I didn’t have a scale with me or why I couldn’t do what I said I would do. I was told it was my responsibility to be prepared.

So yesterday, I had a plan for eating on our travel day. (We are visiting family on vacation!) And it didn’t work out. But I was prepared for eventualities! And they did, indeed, “event.” (This time. Sometimes they don’t.) But I was prepared for that too. 

Were they my favorite meals? No. Were they still delicious? Yes. And they were all within my eating boundaries. One hundred percent. And that is the most important thing. My peace and my self-respect are inextricably linked to whether I put drug foods in my body.

The ability to put what I need above what I want came from putting boundaries around my eating. Along with the ability to know when what I want is not meant for me. But also, having my eating under control and my drug foods down, means that I can go after what I do want with clarity, consistency, and drive.

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17 Aug 2025

I’m betting it’s for the best

When I was young, I think 20, I went to a (fairly controversial) self-help seminar. And because I was still actively eating compulsively, I heard a lot of good things, but I, personally, lacked the tools to put them into practice. 

One of those things specifically, is that when you make a commitment, you change the trajectory of your life. 

Those are great words. But without a frame of reference it was hard for 20-year-old Kate to comprehend what that meant. And I was just really not capable of commitment then. I didn’t know that, though. 

Because commitment is only commitment after it has been tested. And getting my eating under control in my current food program 19+ years ago was my first real follow through. And that paved the way for all my other commitments.

Well my husband and I have decided that we are getting a kitten in a few weeks when we get back from a week long vacation.

One of the reasons we have not before is because we travel for my husband’s job. A lot. And that is now another moving part in finding housing for us on the road. So that is a minimum of 1.5 bathrooms, a dishwasher, an in unit washer dryer and now pet friendly.

But cats keep finding me. And needing me. But ultimately not wanting to be pets. 

Besides the cats that live in our suburban neighborhood, that my neighbor has been feeding for us while we are on the road, here in our second apartment, there were 3 little kittens that I fed for several weeks. But once they were bigger, they disappeared. 

And I feel like Life is telling me that I need to find the cat that is my cat. 

And that will change the trajectory of my life. But how could it not? That is a new little (or big) personality living in my home. 

But I guess the most important thing is that I don’t have any idea *how* it will change the trajectory of my life. I know that right now I can’t imagine what getting my first pet at 48 will create. Just like I could never have imagined how getting my eating under control would not just change my weight, but my health, my peace, my self-love, my humility, my compassion, my creativity, my integrity, really just everything. For the best.

L toR: Leo, Gus, and Baby Donut (BD got their own food when the big ones left)
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10 Aug 2025

Caring more, but also could not care less

Yesterday, I had a very busy, very lovely day. My cousin is getting married and I went to her bridal shower. And then later that evening my nephew and niece and her girlfriend all came over to play Guitar Hero. 

I ate different food from everyone else for both parties. And I didn’t care. 

First, I made sure I didn’t feel deprived. I ate fatty foods that I love and are delicious. And I enjoyed the experience. Both at the shower and at home with the kids. For a minute at the shower I considered being embarrassed about my very clearly different and weird meal. But then I just decided not to. And I could. Just decide not to be embarrassed.

Having my eating under control makes social interactions ten thousand times easier, just because I don’t care how I land as long as it’s not as a bad person. 

Oh, you think I laugh weird? I do! You think it’s weird to bring your own food to a catered party? It is! You have opinions about my clothes or my hair or my very big personality? ME TOO! WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!!

Having my eating under control is the ability to keep promises to myself, not just to other people. And that, the ability to care for myself even better than I care for others, is where my self esteem comes from. Not from making everyone else comfortable. My self esteem comes from me keeping my life authentic. Even if that means disappointing other people. 

So people pleasing is an oxymoron, of sorts. When I am my most authentic self, most people like me more, not less. And I like me more. Which makes the other people who do like me less, less important to me.

Over the past few months and years, it has become more and more clear to me that it’s time to keep our communities close. That I, personally, want to look at what I can do to protect, and provide for the people around me. And that is money and resources. But it’s also space. And fun. And showing up to celebrate. The big moments. And also, just being together.

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03 Aug 2025

Strong over skinny.

Ilona Maher, the Olympic medalist in women’s rugby turned social media star did a cute little video where she makes fun of the old saying that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And she says, she thinks feeling strong feels better and also have you tried tiramisu?

Obviously I don’t eat tiramisu anymore, because sugar is poison for me, but I will not give up my yogurt with 10% milk fat, my salt and vinegar pork rinds, or my crunchy cheese to be smaller. Smaller for what? For whom? 

And when I really thought about it, I NEVER felt comfortable, confident, or content when I was skinny. 

I didn’t even KNOW I was skinny! I was struggling with my body every moment. Even after I had stopped struggling with my food.

I was trying to figure out how to be the most beautiful woman I could be. And I thought it had to do with what I projected rather than what I was *being.* And I was absolutely positive it had to do with being small and also shaped like a supermodel. Or fooling the world around me into thinking I was that.

In fact, it was the uncontrollable weight gain that happened after I quit smoking, the worst emotional pain of my life since I had gotten my eating under control, that forced me to stop striving for skinny as a goal. At all. I was eating less food, fewer calories, and moving more. And I just gained weight. There was nothing left but to give my weight to the Universe and say, welp, I guess this is your problem now.

BUT! That didn’t really happen the way I wanted it to for another 10 years. I got more and more comfortable in my skin, but I would not really give up on “smaller” as the goal until I started to focus on muscle. On strength. On balance and flexibility. On what my body could DO!

So I concur. Feeing strong feels better than feeling skinny. Because skinny is illusive. It has a slippery definition, and it is tied, culturally, to “perfection” and “true beauty.” And it does not serve anyone. But strength is easy to see and understand, and to use to the benefit of our friends, ourselves and those we would offer it to. 

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27 Jul 2025

Maybe leave us out of it?

Sometimes I am really confronted with how much work I have done on my internalized fat phobia, and how much the default response of most people to fatness or things related to fatness, is disgust and judgement.

On Facebook the other day I saw a woman I used to go to school with posting about her daughter’s difficulties since being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. That is not the thing that hit me. That sucks and I wish her and her daughter the best.

It’s how she went ON AND ON about how it was not her daughter’s fault. Because type 1 is not the one where it’s your fault. My issue being the idea that type 2 is your fault? She explained over and over about how she and her daughter are following a diet based on her doctor’s recommendations and watch her food and she’s a healthy eater and they are doing all the right things.

Here’s the deal. I understand that this is a woman who has only had to deal with fat phobia as it applies to every woman in the Western world, which is admittedly no small thing, but therefore has never had to dismantle the structures in it. And she is a societally attractive woman. So she has most certainly experienced privilege based on her beauty. Which is not a slight. Just a truth. I like her. She’s a nice lady.

But fuck did it hurt my feelings to hear her try to insist her daughter is one of the worthy ones, instead of inherently understanding that every one of us is worthy. Even if we have eating disorders. Even if our bodies are not the standard. Even if we are hugely fat! Yes! Even then!

Fatness is not always an addiction. I didn’t understand that until I had my eating under control. There are plenty of happy, healthy fat people. People who love their lives and their bodies and are simply fat.

I was not one of those people. I was an addict. I wanted to stop and I could not. And even though I did it to lose weight, I KEEP my eating under control because it makes my life better. But it doesn’t always keep me thin. I have been very thin but I have also been quite chubby.

It turns out thinness is not as predictable for me as common lore would have you believe. Calories in calories out is not actually the way it works. Not for me, anyway.

But even if it is clear that a person is fat, and an addict, and miserable, and not doing the “right things,” do they really deserve to suffer and die?

There are plenty who will say yes. And I think it’s quite possible I would have been one when I was in the food and miserable and a self-hating fat phobe. Because I used to believe one had to earn their place in the world. But now that is not true of me. 

I guess I will wrap it up with this thought. Sometimes the only way to change is to think you are worth it. And when you tell people they are not worth it, you are just slowing the process of the thing you think should happen. 

Also, maybe mind your own business. You can talk about Type 1 diabetes without bringing Type 2 into it…

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13 Jul 2025

The price of magic

With having my eating under control for almost two decades, the food part – the not eating sugar and carbs, the weighing my food, the abstaining from eating between portion controlled meals – is usually on autopilot. And having all of that basically running in the background all the time, gives me time to actively work on other things. My relationship with myself. My own authenticity and the kind of life I want to live. My relationships between my authentic self and the people in my life. The ways I want to communicate. The ways I want to land. What I want to create in my community and the world. 

And that is just relationships. That is not the learning I do. The making. The expanding.

It is exciting to talk about all of those things and the work I am putting in. All of the breakdowns and breakthroughs of my humanity. 

But I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t note that all of this is based on me actively having my eating under control. Doing it all the time without exception.

My ability to grow all goes away if I start to eat compulsively again. Because having my eating under control is where my self esteem STARTS. Period. All of my self love and self respect come from my willingness to stop putting my drug foods in my body, and my ability to follow through. 

If you have never been an addict, there is a thing in us that feels ultimately incomplete and wrong any time we are not high on our drug. And then broken for feeling that way any time we realize we can’t stop. That is a bunch of broken promises to ourselves that seem to reinforce that we are, in fact, broken. 

And those feelings don’t go away the moment you put your addiction down. They slowly fade over years. SLOWLY!

There are a lot of things that I get from giving up my addiction, but, like I said, the first one is self esteem. And that makes knowing what I want so much easier. I am not wondering if I should want what I want. I am not wondering what other people think about what I value. I like me enough. I respect me. I know I’m worth having an opinion.

In fantasy books, one rule is alway clear: Magic always costs something. Keeping my eating under control is the price of this magic. Practicing it every day is the spell. 

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06 Jul 2025

Mine and not mine.

We had some people over last night. We over ordered Chinese food. We had the counter covered in cartons and containers and literally none of it was for me. And I felt great about that. 

When I was eating compulsively, I absolutely would have been obsessed with the countertop. And the company would be secondary. If that. How good was the food?

Instead I ate my usual “junk food” dinner of homemade sugar free chocolate ice cream and salt n vinegar pork rinds (there is more to it, but those are the highlights.) And I didn’t think about the food out for grazing.

I don’t graze. I eat my meals. Nothing in between but zero calorie drinks. 

My attention last night was for our company. Telling funny stories and laughing at theirs. I’m funny in real life. Charming. A good story teller. Quick with a one liner. I can be these things better when there is no part of my brain being used to keep track of the food. 

That is what 19+ years free of drug foods can do. Make food invisible. At least if I t’s not mine. My food is still mouthwateringly visible.

In fact, one of my food addiction milestones was looking through a NYC shop window at a really attractive man, and not noticing it was a bakery until I had passed it. INVISIBLE!!!

So I got to have fun and laughs. A meal I loved. And a mind free of all of the things that don’t belong to me. 

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29 Jun 2025

This old(ish) dog’s new tricks.

It’s sort of crazy to me to think that over the past two and a half years so many things in my life and my body are entirely different than they used to be.

About 3 and a half years ago I got sick and I didn’t get better. And I hated doctors. I spent my young life fat and was not treated very well by doctors. And as an adult I was poor and didn’t have insurance so I just sort of managed. Went to a clinic if I had to, but mostly just rode it out. 

But I am married to a union construction worker. We have excellent insurance. Yet I still didn’t want to go. Doctors were a traumatic experience for me most of my life. And even unable to breathe I didn’t want to go. To the point that my husband was at his wits’ end. 

I will say that even right from the start, I had a whole bunch of experiences that reminded me that there is a reason I don’t like doctors. I was treated with so much condescension by several. And I have to say that being an incredibly smart person, being treated like a child by a person whose mother I could be, really brings out the bitch in me. (I literally had to stop myself from explaining the logical fallacy used by the probably 20 something first year resident while she was condescending to me…I did hold my tongue. Keeping my eating under control keeps my tongue under control too. For the most part.)

But here is the deal. That one change, being willing to go to the doctor to deal with my breathing, made a huge shift in both my physical body and my experience of it. 

When I stopped running because I could not breathe, I started walking stairs. Walking stairs gave me a butt that I never had. Having a butt moved my center of balance back from my toes to my middle foot. The shift in my balance made my short right leg tighter and more noticeable. That made me put a lift in one shoe to accommodate my short leg from being born with a club foot. 

Today I walk different. I workout different. My right hip rarely hurts anymore. My clothes fit differently, so that my belly is smaller and less noticeable. 

And I go to the doctor. Regularly. I have a doctor that I adore. And I have a particular phlebotomist that always gets me perfectly on the first stick. (Blood draws have always been another problem for me and I would often end up bruised all inside my elbow.)

But changing the way I ate at 28, giving up my drug food, weighing my food, eating only 3 times a day, created the opportunity to change. Anything. Anytime. If I could change my eating I could literally change any aspect of my life. Yes it takes work. But everything worth anything takes work.

And I am 48. I am old(ish). Which means you apparently can teach an old(ish) dog new tricks.

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22 Jun 2025

The slow road

I decided recently to stop showing people my crochet projects before they are done. There is some science behind it. That the praise of others gives you the same reward chemicals as actually finishing the project. 

There is a thing that people who do what I do with food say. “If you want what I have, do what I do.” Mostly we mean, “if I look happy and peaceful to you then maybe you should try giving up sugar and put boundaries around your eating.” 

And sometimes we say it outside of the group. A little inside joke. When someone says they could never do what we do, one person I know always tells them “that’s fine. I don’t want what you have.” 

But sometimes it means something *within* the group. There are people who are doing all of the same things with food that I am. But they have a life I don’t want. I am not saying it’s not a good life. Just one not good for me. So I don’t take life advice from them. Food help, absolutely. Life advice? Absolutely not.

Getting my eating under control let me see how specific I could start to be about what I wanted for myself. Every specificity was a little more authenticity. And authenticity, not praise or popularity, was the goal. 

Because it’s the knowing what I want that is often the sticking point. In getting my eating under control, I started to realize that the way I had lived, what I *wanted* up until that point was just reward chemicals in my brain. Very much short term gratification. 

Denying myself reward chemicals in the form of food was the first step to delayed gratification for me. Eventually I would start my slow hobbies. Set positively unrealistic expectations for myself that I would actually end up meeting in a very realistic time frames. (I wanted to be able to design crochet as a beginner 15+ years ago. Before I could read a pattern…But yes. I now design my own dolls and art pieces.) And fail and persevere repeatedly for over a decade.

There are many things I dislike about perimenopause, but one thing I love is how self aware and self involved I am becoming. Caring more for pleasing myself than others. And yet I am so much less selfish than I was when I was in the food. 

What I want is a rich and satisfying life of contentment and creative expression. And the road to that is slow by nature.

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15 Jun 2025

Get in line

I saw a video on social media this week that I have been thinking about. It was about how to spot and stop manipulators. But the point was that the hardest person to manipulate is the one who is in alignment with themselves.

The person who knows what they want, what they stand for, what they want to achieve and create, and who they want to be in the world, isn’t going to be swayed by anything other than something even more in alignment with their heart and head. 

I spend a lot of time worrying I’m doing life wrong. And will probably never entirely grow out of it. But this was a nice little reminder for me. 

Because getting my eating under control is how I learned to listen to myself. I had so much noise in my head when I was eating compulsively. Most of it was about food and eating and craving, but it was also about shame. What I did wrong. What I failed to do. How I was lacking. How I was broken. How I was ugly and wrong.

When I was in the food, I could not see what I wanted. And if I thought I could, but the world didn’t agree, I assumed I was wrong, not the world. 

But here’s the thing. The world often doesn’t agree with me. I’m not particularly interested in its conventions. And once I made friends with that, it was easier to be authentic. After all, the world doesn’t really want me to quit sugar and grains. It upsets a whole group. People who have zero stake in my eating have had all sorts of opinions about it. Strangers! And there is a whole ultra specific group that thinks that what I do is not only useless but harmful. People on the internet insisting that sugar addiction isn’t a thing. That it is about food morality. That I am a fatphobe monster because I assert that I have a problem with sugar and that sugar can be addictive. 

Look. Just to clarify, I don’t think every fat person is an addict. I don’t care if a person is fat. I don’t think fat people need to lose weight. I don’t think that anyone owes anyone else any explanations of their food or their body.

But I was getting drunk on sugar from childhood and it was ruining my life. And want to help a compulsive eater and sugar addict who still suffers. (P.S. Not all sugar addicts are fat. I want to help them too.)

But that is part of how getting my eating under control helped me align myself and my principles and my past. It was only in putting boundaries around my eating that I could separate my fatness from my addiction. Come to love my body in all its iterations. To feed it nourishing foods. And not worry about health or weight. Just worry about not doing my drug foods. Just worry about not using. Take the morality *out* of food.

And every time I make a choice that makes people who are not me look at me funny, I remember who I am, what I want, what I want to create and what legacy I am leaving. And I have enough clarity of mind and purpose to actually know the answer. And all of that is the culmination of 19 1/2 years of keeping boundaries around my eating. 

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