onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “sugar addiction”

09 Jun 2013
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Now that I have everything I ever wanted, I guess it’s “back to the ol’ drawing board”

This past Thursday, I turned 36. It was fantastic. Best birthday ever. Didn’t do much out of the ordinary. Got a few hours of sun. Did some laundry and grocery shopping. Ate like a queen. (But I always eat like a queen.) Got a fancy diamond necklace. (Ok, that was a super-exciting-out-of-the-ordinary-big-deal.) And watched some Walking Dead.

But my birthday brought something to my attention, as I am one who likes to take inventory at times of ending/beginning. I do it at the New Year, too.

I started this blog in a new year. Jan 2, 2012. Because I was tired of being alone. And lonely. And because I had spent my life as a sugar-addicted-binge-eater hiding. Unwilling to take risks with my heart. Terrified of rejection.

That day, a year and a half ago, I knew that I was beautiful. And likable. Smart and funny. And that I was a good person. Honest and honorable. Kind and loving. And working to be more every day. I knew intellectually. But I lived in an old conception of myself.

I was absolutely, positively sure that I was destined to be alone. That I had been fat because I was broken. And that being broken made me unloveable. Or I was unloveable because I was broken. Either way, I more than “knew” that nobody would ever love me. I existed in the reality of it.

And somehow, in January of 2012, I knew that I wanted out of that reality.

So I started writing this blog. To get the demons out. And get the crazy out of my head. And try some new thoughts. And some new actions. And to stop living like I was still the girl I had been. Not just fat. But miserable. And crazy. A liar and a cheater. And incapable of stopping eating.

Because I had stopped eating! And stopped lying! And stopped cheating! I had learned how to live with integrity. How to honor my word. I had learned how to be a person I liked. And loved and respected.

So I started writing this blog to give myself a chance to fall in love. Because I was pretty darn sure that falling in love, (and being in love, and staying in love) was the most important thing to me. That it was what I wanted more than anything else in the whole world. And I thought that saying out loud, all of the thoughts that lived in my head, that I was afraid were true, would prove that they were not monsters under the bed. Just dust bunnies. I thought that this blog could be the flashlight. If I would just have the courage to look.

And it worked. Holy sh*t! It actually worked!

I am madly in love. With a man who is madly in love with me. And I was right. Loving this man, and being loved by him, is the most important thing that I have ever done in my life. It is actually bigger and easier and more special than my fat, food-addicted, miserable past-self could ever have known to wish for.

But this blog is still not over. It’s not done. And I’m not done with it.

I don’t know what comes next. What the next goal is. The next wish. The next dream. But there must be one. Because it never occurred to me to be done. It merely occurred to me that I got exactly what I asked for. Only better. And more quickly than I could have imagined.

So I’ll keep thinking about what I want next. And in the mean time, I will keep writing to you every week. And keep you posted on what it’s like for me to be a woman who lives with eating disorders.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
01 Jun 2013

I’m like a super hero. I’m so fast, my own body has to catch up to me.

So it’s weigh day. And for the second month in a row I lost weight. (Yay!) I’m down another 1.4 lbs. I’m at 158.8. It’s good. I’m grateful for it. I’m trying not to wish for it to go faster.

I have done a pretty good job of not focusing on my body. (Except for my tan, anyway. I have spent a lot of time focusing on that.) I haven’t been eating “lighter”. I have not been choosing “diet” foods. I have been eating plenty of bacon and cheese. Always, of course, within my boundaries. But I have not been trying to help the weight loss along. Or hurry it up. I’ve got enough to process without also trying to manage my weight.

Eat within my boundaries. That’s all I have to do. It’s enough.

Also, I have been very emotional lately. Very emotional.

Yes, I am happy. Still. More happy every day, really.

But I forget that the kind of life change I just made, accompanied by a physical move half way across the country, is traumatic. That it would be for anyone in the world. And that love doesn’t make it not traumatic. It just makes me forget that it’s traumatic. But even if I forget or fail to notice that I just jumped into a new life with no preparation and almost no time to adjust, my body has noticed. My heart and soul are overjoyed. I know that I am in the right place. With the right person. But my body is letting me know that it has to deal with the upheaval.

There are two things that are happening that have me understand that my body is in shock. I have a stress-related form of eczema. I have had it most of my memorable life. And I am having a particularly severe outbreak right now. And on a few occasions now, I have found myself crying over silly things. Irrational crying. In other words, I am having feelings that I can’t explain and I don’t know how to manage.

And I don’t get to eat them.

These kinds of feelings and experiences are why I ate sugar. Why I was a binge eater and sugar addict. Because sugar got me crazy high. Anesthetized. So I didn’t have to deal with feelings. And I didn’t have to deal with discomfort. And the not dealing occurred like managing.

But that was not the reality. I was not managing. The thing about not dealing with feelings is that they don’t go away. They just become dormant. Until they’re not anymore. Until they come back with a vengeance. From out of nowhere. When I least expect them.

So I’m not eating over my irrational emotions. And I’m not trying to hide or stifle or contain them. I’m crying when I feel the need to cry. And honoring what is going on in my body. And letting it be what it is. Because it is what it is. And carbs and sugar and binge eating won’t change that.

And then I’m trusting. That everything is going exactly the way it should be going. And that life is giving me the right things at the right time. And that as long as I keep my food under control I can come from a place of love. And that when I come from love, I can’t do it wrong or mess it up or fail. Because I know I’m where I want to be. And where I’m supposed to be. And with the person I’m supposed to be with.

I have heard it said that the only way around is through. So I’m going straight through. Right through the center. Because when this adjustment is done, I want it to be really done. And when I have moved on, I want to really be moved on.

I like to live clean. Honest, with integrity, and in the present moment. And I can say at this particular present moment, as I hit the “publish” button to post this, that I am well and happy. And that there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

Posted in Body image, Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
27 Jan 2013

No, I didn’t change my hair. I just got a view of myself through a hole in the space-time continuum

Just briefly I want to note that this coming Friday, I am going to have to weigh myself. And I am afraid. Of three things. Gaining weight. Being wrong about my metabolism kicking back in. And having to admit to you that I was wrong. I am afraid of being fat again. And that the idea of me starting to get smaller is all in my head. And what you will think of me if it is. And not just you. Everyone I have told. I worry a lot about being wrong. I always have. I used to lie and manipulate to make myself seem less wrong. Now I don’t. But it still makes me feel oogie.

The truth is that my metabolism may have kicked in and I still won’t have lost any weight. Rational Kate knows that after a person quits smoking, their metabolism slows way down. Then it speeds back up again. That it is simply a matter of time. And waiting. And for me that means waiting without crossing my food boundaries. But Rational Kate hasn’t been given the floor too often lately at the committee meetings in my head. So she just sits there. And occasionally makes an objection when Bulimic Girl, and Sugar Addict Girl start to get unruly and insist that it’s time to do something (drastic, most likely futile, and certainly unhealthy) before I get FAT! Rational Kate is biding her time. She knows this, too, shall pass. And that when it does she’ll get to be in charge again.

But what I really want to talk about today is change. Because I am different today. Different than I was just a few days ago.

When I was growing up, I believed in predestination. And I didn’t even know it. When, in High School, I was reading American Literature of the Puritanical variety, I would have told you that I believed in Free Will. That a person had the opportunity to make of their life whatever they chose. I would have told you that I believed in the American Dream. That if a person who lived in a free country was willing to work and strive, he or she could do or be or make anything.

But I didn’t really believe. I believed I was broken. I believed I was genetically, and irreversibly fat. I believed I would be “ok” without ever having to do much because I was born smart and capable. Born to smart, capable, middle-class people. I unwittingly believed that with some minor potential variations, my life was already set in stone.

There were so many things that seemed either inevitable or impossible. I believed my fear. I never thought anything was worth taking a risk. I “had to” eat compulsively. And I could never ever give up eating sugar.

But somewhere inside, there was the wish to be free from being fat. And even more importantly, to be free from not being able to stop eating. (Or at least it would eventually become clear that dealing with the uncontrollable eating was more important. I am sure at the time, I thought being fat was the bigger problem.)

It was such a conflict for me. To want so much to be able to eat in a way that was not embarrassing. To be able to manage my weight. But God, sugar was my best friend. Sugar made life bearable. (It also made it unbearable, but it made bearable in the short-term, what it ultimately made unbearable in the long-term. It was like paying off a credit card with another credit card. Needless to say, it was bad economics.)

And then I stopped eating sugar.

What I learned from quitting sugar is that my life seemed to be set in stone because I kept making the same sugar-induced, fear-based choices over and over. And that having this commitment to abstain from sugar, no matter what, changed the course of my life.

When I say it changed the course of my life, I mean that the path I chose was more than just “no sugar.” I chose to be present and honest and growing. Continually. So I have been constantly changing for the past seven years.

But sometimes that growth comes in a big spurt.

In the past four days, I have been told repeatedly that I am a different person all of a sudden. That my energy is different. That I am more free. But also that it has manifested physically. Not just that I am more beautiful. (Though that has come up. It really never gets old, people…Feel free to keep saying it.) But that my face is different. My skin. Did I change my hair? (No.) “Since I saw you last week.”

I’ll tell you what I think it may be. I think that maybe I am available to fall in love. Not just wanting and willing but able. In a way that I have never been before in my whole 35 years. Because for the first time ever, I can say my truth to men. I am willing to be rejected as a burden. I am willing to be disparaged for my intensity. I’m starting to understand that I have been afraid of scaring men with my big feelings and my big energy and my big heart. And I’m starting to understand that there are men in the world for whom my intensity, integrity, and power are a thrill, and a gift. An asset. That there will be men who think that these traits are what make me a catch. But no, it won’t be all of them. Some will indeed be scared away. And have opinions. And things to say.

But my job is not to win over men who think I’m too intense by being less intense.

In one 24 hour period this week, I was given a powerful opportunity to communicate with 3 significant men from my past. One from my fat and food addicted childhood when I was invisible and believed that I was destined to be alone. One from when I was hot and sexy, all face and body, but everything substantial was unavailable and protected by my invisible fortress (as opposed to my fortress of fat). And the one that made me realize for the first time that I wanted something more than to be a face and body in a fortress. That I wanted to do the work to dismantle my fortress and be intimate. (I would venture that he’s also one who would probably like me more if I weren’t so intense…)

In that 24 hours, I said things that I was afraid to say. Things that six months ago I would have refrained from saying. For fear of being considered selfish or obnoxious. Or just too much. But I think that’s why it all happened at once. Like God ripped some sort hole in space-time for me so I could get a composite view of my life with men up until now. And understand that it was time to start using my voice to let them know who I am. And know that it is not just ok to express myself, but necessary if what I want is love. I got to say what I needed to say, without regard to how it was received. I got to experience the importance of speaking. Not just talking. The kind of offering that is vulnerable and intimate.

After I gave up sugar and got control of my eating, it took about a year and a half to get clear-headed and confident. And to believe that I was not actually born to be fat. That it was possible for me to reach and maintain a healthy weight that made me feel good about myself. And to know that I don’t have to be out of control with food as long as I don’t put sugar in my body. And to realize that I am really beautiful. But it took seven years to get here. Ready to take a look at love. But really it’s bigger than that. I believe…No, I trust that God would not have given me so much love if He never expected to give me the opportunity to use it. Maybe He’s been waiting for me to get out of my own way. Or maybe He hasn’t been waiting at all. Maybe God thinks seven years is warp speed in human terms and while it has felt like an eternity to me, maybe God thinks I’m right on time…

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12 Jan 2013
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Knock knock. Who’s there? Dopamine and metabolism. Thank God!

I have had an exciting couple of weeks! I got my dopamine back! To tell you the truth, it didn’t occur to me that it went anywhere. But now that it’s back, it’s obvious. And my metabolism started back up again!

It’s funny. I knew that quitting smoking was affecting me. And it was clear from the weight gain that it was affecting me physically. But it didn’t exactly register that it was affecting me chemically.

I knew that I was not quite right. That I was having a hard time. I think I thought about it as a “spiritual” problem. Or a “mental” problem. I knew that I had to readjust the way I dealt with things. I knew I had to learn new coping mechanisms. And I definitely learned a lot about my feelings. And how to deal with them. And (one baby step at a time) how to honor my own life without regard to how I would be judged by others. And how to make decisions that honor my heart even if they seem unreasonable, or foolish. Or scary. But I didn’t understand that my brain had stopped producing happiness chemicals. That just like my body was going to have to heal, my brain was going to have to heal. I think I thought about it as mind over matter.

In practical terms, I suppose it is just mind over matter. At least in terms of waiting out the withdrawal. It’s the actions I take and don’t take in the end that make up my life. My self-respect. My character.

I don’t smoke. I don’t eat compulsively. I don’t eat sugar. I don’t take laxatives. I don’t make myself throw up. I don’t take any drastic actions. I don’t act out. I just live with the fact that it sucks until it stops sucking. It doesn’t matter how I feel. It doesn’t matter how much weight I gain. It doesn’t matter what thoughts I have. The promises I made to myself matter. Commitment matters. Everything else is vapor and ego.

What I have learned is that these commitments end up culminating as my self-respect. They are my self-esteem. They are my dignity. And I don’t need a substance to get high. I don’t need to eat sugars, grains or starches to numb out. Or create enough crazy to escape reality. I could skip a meal. And lie about it. And I would be just as high and sick and screwed up as if I ate a chocolate cake.

But I was keeping my commitments these past seven months, and still having dark thoughts. I was unhappy. And I couldn’t seem to “bright side and gratitude” myself out of it. On a good day, the best I could do was change the channel in my head and not obsess about how much I hated my body. Or what a loser I felt like. Or how I was certain that I’m unlovable and destined for loneliness. And on a bad day, all I could do was cry. And manage to not hurt or numb myself. All I could do was keep my promises to myself and live in pain.

And now that I can feel the relief, I can see how scary that time was. How it’s kind of a miracle that I came out on the other side with my integrity. I wrote in this blog that I was unhappy, but that I was not depressed. But I was wrong. I was absolutely depressed. But it was exactly that integrity that kept me from despair. My brain was incapable of producing happy without cigarettes. My dopamine levels dropped severely. But it was nothing like the horror of 28 years of sugar addiction and self hatred.

What is interesting to me is that I knew that it would pass, because I know that’s how life works. All things pass in time. But I didn’t expect it to pass all at once. I didn’t expect it to turn on a dime. I didn’t realize that my brain would just start producing dopamine again. I didn’t even know that my dopamine levels had dropped until this week when I realized I was happy again and googled “quit smoking depression”.

And as if it couldn’t get any better, my clothes are getting looser. I bought a very sexy dress when I gained the bulk of my weight. It was sexy because it was tight. Now it’s not tight. And it’s not so sexy anymore. Now it’s just a cute dress. And I can’t tell you how happy I am about that! Plus for the first time in many months, I have been hungry between my meals. (Is that you metabolism? I’m so glad you’re here! Why don’t you stay a while…)

So hooray for going through hell and coming out on the other side! And thanks to you for being there while I got through it. I’m hoping that I am now back to my grateful, joyful self. And that I’ll get to stay here for a while.

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
05 Jan 2013
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Grrr. I really thought I was smarter, braver and more empowered than that…

Something has shifted in me recently. I’m peaceful. I don’t hate my body. I can see that it’s not any smaller than it was 2 weeks ago. But I can also see that it’s pretty sexy. Beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong. It still looks big to me. Not grotesquely fat anymore. But chubby maybe? Soft? Smushy? Anyway, not the body I had that I loved. Because for a while there I was in love with my body. And proud of it. Not proud of myself for having that body. Proud of my body for managing to withstand 28 years of abuse and still end up gorgeous. I mean guh-ore-juh-us! (Good work, body!)

The honest-to-God-truth is that I still think this body is temporary. And that I want it to be temporary. But as long as it is temporary, I can allow that it is beautiful in its way. That being soft and womanly has some appeal. Though I don’t know what I would do if it turned out to be a permanent change. For example, would I start eating my vegetables steamed instead of sautéed in butter and olive oil? I don’t know. I love food. But do I love it as much as my size 6 body?

But when I ask myself what is so important about being a size 6, I do not like my answer. Because it seems I have bought into the image that I hate. I have taken on the impossible ideal. I am judging myself against bodies that don’t exist. It seems I am comparing myself to pictures of already thin women, Photoshopped to make them look even thinner and more symmetrical. As if they live without internal organs. Like their skin doesn’t pucker under a strap or a band. As if they are made of marble. And I am fascinated by how this could have happened! To me! I have been actively trying to avoid this kind of faulty concept of my own beauty. I don’t watch TV or go to the movies. I don’t read magazines. I spend my time with real human beings in real bodies. On the street and the subway. In shops and restaurants. I know what actual, real bodies look like. And yet somehow I am not seeing myself as a regular body in a sea of regular bodies. I am seeing myself as compared to underwear models as they appear in ads! Dammit!

It’s funny that when I was growing up, most of the beautiful women in movies and on TV were a size 8, the size I am now. And I was morbidly obese. Now famous women are 0s and 2s, and size 8 is considered overweight in movies and on TV. (Ok. It’s not that funny…)

And the other thing I don’t like is who I want to be a size 6 for. I am active and healthy and I have powerful integrity. In life and around my food. Who do I owe being 24 lbs thinner to? Some man I haven’t even met yet who would like me because I’m beautiful, smart, funny, sexy, have a profound relationship to my word, and being with me makes him happy, if only I were 24 lbs thinner?

The hardest part is that there is a little voice in my head that says, “Yes. That guy. So you’d better lose those 24 lbs before he shows up.”

I don’t know what to do about any of this. I don’t know if there is anything to do. But I feel like it’s important to note that I can have this philosophical discussion with myself because my self-hatred has lifted. I was paralyzed with my own irrational thinking. And I don’t know what changed. Perhaps my metabolism has started back up again. Or perhaps it’s hormonal. The one thing I will say is that I am so grateful that through that particularly long and difficult attack of body dismorphia, I kept my food boundaries and did not eat sugar. If I had, I am quite sure I would not have been able to get through such a dark period and find some peace. Here’s hoping it lasts!

So I’m curious. Tell me about your relationship with your body and body image. How much thinner “should” you be and what would you have if you were?

You can share my blog. You can follow me on twitter @onceafatgirl5

Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
02 Jan 2013

A pretty unbelievable, amazing, fantastic, miraculous thing

It turns out January 2nd is an auspicious day for me.

Today is the 7th anniversary of getting control of my food. That’s right, seven years without eating sugar or eating compulsively. (Wow! For a 300 lb girl, that’s a pretty unbelievable, amazing, fantastic, miraculous thing!)

And it is the one year anniversary of this blog. (You know, my blogiversary.) One year ago today I wrote something and posted it on Facebook. I didn’t know it would end up as a blog. I didn’t know it would have this awesome title. (I mean, seriously. Onceafatgirl? Am I a genius or what!?!?) I was just writing because I wanted to express that my insides and outsides didn’t match. I wanted to tell the truth about me. The things you would never know unless I told you. I wanted to be witnessed.

And I have been. Thank you for witnessing.

I am looking forward to my second year of blogging. And wondering if this particular January 2nd will offer anything unexpectedly, and deliciously life-altering…I’ll keep you posted! Wishing you many blessings in 2013!

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15 Dec 2012
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It’s always an eating disorder blog because I always have eating disorders

I wrote a post earlier today, but I don’t think I want to share it. Not today. Not yet. It’s about my anger. My hate. My distrust. I have a lot of it. I am overflowing with it. And it’s ugly.
I am not afraid to show you my ugly. But it would not do any good right now. It would not serve me. Or you. There would be nothing for either of us to learn from it. Except that I am human. And that I have ugly feelings. Which I already knew. And you probably did too.

I am doing my best not to be ashamed of my ugly feelings. I am doing my best to remember that denying them doesn’t stop them from existing. And that the closest thing there is to making them disappear is to eat them. which is not an option. And I would like to say that I know that there is nothing virtuous in turning my hate in on myself instead of hating the people who have hurt me. But I have always used self-abuse and martyrdom as a kind of substitute for virtue. And I can forget when my rage scares me enough.

So for today, I will spare you my ugly feelings.

A friend said recently that my blog is as much, and maybe more, about quitting smoking lately than it is about compulsive eating. I think that may be true. And I told him that I made a decision a while ago to let it be what it is. That both the experience of getting control of my eating and that of quitting smoking are similar for me. I’m actually pretty sure that in time, my eating disorders will return to the forefront. I just happen to be going through a particularly difficult time with regards to quitting smoking. I am having a hard time with the feelings and the weight gain. I am having a hard time finding my footing after making a significant choice about who I want to be in the world. And who I want to be in the world is even more awake and aware and alive. I want to be not numb.
But there is something that I know, that you might not. In my mind, every day, always, I think of myself as a woman with eating disorders. I am a compulsive eater and bulimic with body dismorphia. A woman with a sugar addiction. And more specifically, woman who painstakingly takes care of her life with food so that she can be sane and stable. That is my primary identity. (I know…sounds super sexy, right?)

I have given up many things as a compliment to that identity. Smoking is one of them. Along with alcohol, and smoking pot, sugarless gum, diet soda and excessive caffeine. And behaviors like making rash decisions, and acting out in anger. But first, last, and always comes the food. Food was my first drug. It was my first numb. And getting control of my eating and letting go of getting high on sugar led me to realize that I actually wanted to be alive. That I don’t actually like numb. And that one step at a time, I want to come back to life fully.

I am in excruciating pain at the moment. I am more angry and hurt and scared and tormented than you can possibly imagine. I am burning with rage. I am overwhelmed with grief. I wake up puffy and swollen and encrusted with dry tears. My throat is sore from how tight I clench it. I am more miserable than I can remember being in the past (almost) 7 years.

But I do not eat to numb it! I would rather be here in honest, living, livid pain than be numb. Than be dead. Because eating compulsively is death to me. Numbness and death.

Yes, I have been talking a lot about smoking. And I’m ok with that. But my life, all of my life and every fiber of my being, is about being free from the food. I was able to quit smoking because I have my food under control. Because I learned how to feel pain when I let go of sugar and put boundaries around my eating. And if I thought that my eating boundaries were in danger, I would certainly go back to smoking. Or caffeine. Or chewing gum. Or whatever. Because the food will kill me quickest and make me hate myself the most.

So I hope you’re ok with my smoking talk. That you can somehow see that quitting sugar and quitting cigarettes are connected. Or if you can’t, that you still think I’m brilliant whatever I write! Or that you’ll humor me…

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
25 Aug 2012

Losing battles, my heart and a blunt instrument, and a first attempt at a new humility

When I stopped eating sugar six and a half years ago, I admitted that I have no power over it. That if sugar and I ever end up in a battle again, sugar will win. I will lose. It’s that simple. And that’s ok. I don’t battle with sugar anymore. There is no need. It is the reigning victor.

In other words, do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Do I want to prove that I have willpower and nothing can beat me, or do I want to live in peace? I choose happiness and peace. I choose to acknowledge my weakness and my humanity. Not just acknowledge them. Honor them. Give them their proper place and their due. Have some humility.

Because I understand that I am going to have to submit in some way. I cannot have it “my way”. My way does not actually exist. I cannot eat a little bit and stop. Which is not actually “my way” either. “My way” would be to eat and eat and eat and not be fat. Or obsessed to the point that I am careless of others. My way would be to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with no consequences. Anybody know the secret to that? (Even if you said yes, I wouldn’t believe you.) So I can submit to the acceptance of my weakness and forfeit sugar as an option. Or I can try to control sugar. And control myself around sugar. But I have a lifetime of experience that assures me that I will just end up having to submit to sugar in the end. And be its slave. So I give sugar its rightful throne. And stay the hell out of its kingdom.

But the longer I have my food under control, the more I learn that I have no power over other things too. So many things. More and more things than I ever imagined. And it turns out that I have no control over my heart. I cannot control my feelings.

Let me make some distinctions. I am not talking about my thinking. I absolutely get to choose what I think. And what kinds of thoughts I think. I can stop thoughts. I can redirect my focus. This is important. It is an excellent skill to have. I cultivate it. If I have a thought about how great chocolate cake is, I stop thinking that thought. I cannot afford to romance thoughts about foods I don’t eat anymore. Foods that will kill me. Foods that will torture me first, and then kill me. If I am feeling like life is unfair, and I am throwing myself a pity party, I can list the things I have to be grateful for. I do have power over my thoughts.

The other distinction I want to make is about shutting my heart down. I can do that too. It is a skill of sorts. It was very useful in my early life. It saved me as a child. I had a pain that was too big for a little girl to deal with. Fear that was too dark and scary. But this is not what I’m talking about either. Because shutting my heart down is not like using an exact tool for performing detailed work. It is a blunt instrument. It is all or nothing. My heart is either on, or it’s off. If it’s off, there is numb. If it’s on, there is whatever there is. And that’s what I’m talking about. When it’s on, I have no power over what comes out of it.

I have this agreement with God that I will not “take my toys and go home”. I originally made this promise about men. That I will not run away as soon as I think I might get hurt. That I will not stop caring to avoid pain. That I will follow every relationship to its natural conclusion. That I will be available for whatever a relationship has to offer. And if it’s pain and getting hurt, that I’ll stick around to get hurt. (Oh yeah. Huge fan of this agreement with God…) But what is starting to dawn on me is that I choose shutting down with all sorts of situations. I have spent my entire life trying to control my feelings. So I don’t feel disappointed. Or hurt. Or frustrated. Or angry.

And I have been thinking of this shutting down as a kind of power. That I have power over my feelings. But I do not. If my heart is open, I’m feeling whatever I’m feeling. If I let my heart be open.

So I’ve just come to the conclusion that on is better than off. All the time. That there is no such thing as a bad feeling. Even if the feeling is jealousy or greed or anger. Even if it’s something that I’ve been told to think of as shameful or wrong.

This is new for me. And I’m going to tell you I’m scared. Because I don’t really know what it will mean to stop fighting my feelings. I don’t know what that looks like when practiced and applied. And because I want so much to be a good person. And I’m so afraid of my dark side. And that it is just another log on the fire of my unlovableness. But if I am going to be honest, I have to admit that I am powerless over my heart. And the more I resist it, the more exhausted I am.

When I stopped eating compulsively, I gave up fighting with food. And now I want to give up fighting with feelings. Because the longer I am sober from sugar (and cigarettes) the more clarity I get, and the more I understand that I have spent my life fighting battles I can’t possibly win. So I guess I’ll just have to do my best and let you know how it goes…
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28 Jul 2012
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Have you seen a year and a half? I lost one.

A friend asked me the other day which was worse, quitting cigarettes or quitting sugar. I must have looked flabbergasted. I felt flabbergasted. In my mind it’s so obvious. I forget that to most people, food is innocuous. That when you say you’re addicted to sugar, they think it’s a cute euphemism for liking dessert. Like “I have a sweet tooth” or “I’m a chocoholic”. Yet there are signs and public service announcements everywhere exclaiming the risks and hazards of smoking. If you are wondering which I think is worse, sugar. Sugar withdrawal stole a year and a half of my life.

My life got incredibly small from January of 2006 to June of 2007. It had to. I couldn’t do anything but protect myself from food. And feel feelings I had been eating my whole life. I couldn’t handle much of anything. I felt like I was walking around without skin. I felt dazed and stupid. And erratic and unhinged. The best way to describe it is “emotional free-fall”. Nothing about my life was familiar. Nothing felt comfortable or normal or safe. I had just made a commitment to give up the very thing that I had always used for comfort and a sense of safety and normalcy. Life had suddenly become terrifying. Filled with uncertainty. I felt unfit to be in the world. I needed to avoid food. I needed to avoid being upset. I needed to avoid most interactions. I spent a lot of time alone. Doing weird, obsessive things that were not eating.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time cooking. Preparing food for the future. I would cook for weeks and weeks ahead of time. I made fancy, time-consuming things. I got recipes for how to make all sorts of mock desserts and dishes. Things that were like the foods I was used to eating, but without sugar, flour or starch. And I made up my own recipes. I experimented and I labored. I obsessed over cooking and preparing the way I had over eating.

I watched the same anime series on 3 DVDs on a loop. As soon as the series ended I put the first episode back on. By the end of that time, the shows didn’t mean anything anymore. The funny parts weren’t funny. The sad parts weren’t sad. The romantic parts weren’t romantic. But it was familiar. And comforting. And it kept me oddly centered. It was another something to be obsessed with besides eating.

The only time I would want, really need, to be out in the world was at night. I would get restless and want to eat, so I would run out of my house, sometimes in pajama pants and a T-shirt, to the book store that was open until midnight. I would sit there reading manga and drinking coffee until they closed. And then I would take my time getting home. I did not want to be home alone at night.

Nights were so hard because nighttime and binge eating were specifically tied together in my mind. I ate all the time when I was eating compulsively, but the ritual of bingeing myself to sleep was particularly ingrained in me. Sometimes getting out of my apartment was both absolutely necessary and incredibly difficult. All I wanted to do was get enough sugar to make me totally numb, climb into bed, and eat myself into a food coma. If you are not a binge eater, you may not understand what “enough to make me numb” means. But it’s a lot. It means eating several of “the whole thing”. The whole box/bag/container.

When I was eating compulsively, I am not sure I ever fell asleep. I basically just ate until I passed out. Every night. Like an alcoholic. That is not an exaggeration. Frankly, it’s why I was such a bad bulimic (thank God!). I would start a binge with the intention of eventually going to purge, but so often the binge would get so out of hand that I would pass out before I could get to the bathroom. I don’t know that I would have looked for a solution to my food issues if bulimia had kept me thin. I may have thought that making myself throw up was the solution.

It’s kind of interesting to me that my friend asked me which was worse. Asked me to compare sugar withdrawal to cigarette withdrawal. Because they are comparable. Quite similar, in many respects. Since I quit smoking, I have had a few emotional flashbacks to that year and a half that I first gave up sugar. A lot of the same feelings have come up and have brought me back to that time. Whereas before I quit cigarettes, I had probably not thought about that time of my life in years. In fact, when I try to recall it, it’s kind of hard to remember. It’s a blur and the days seem to blend together. All 520-something of them. 2 Winters, 2 Springs, a Summer and a Fall. That’s a lot of time to lose.

It was my 30th birthday that I looked up and realized I had room in my head and in my life. That I didn’t have to be obsessed with not being obsessed with food. That the cravings and the craziness were gone. That maintaining my boundaries around food was a muscle I had successfully built up. Of course, I knew I still had to take it seriously (just like I do to this day, six and a half years later), but it was not so precarious. I could actually live my life. A life so much bigger and better than the one I had had when I was a slave to food.

I have been walking around all pretty and happy for a while now. But I generally remember where I come from. I haven’t forgotten that I was fat. And crazy. And that food and sugar ruled my life. And I know that I don’t ever want to be fat or crazy or enslaved again. But I don’t always think about what I went through in the beginning to come out on the other side and get this happy, pretty life. I feel like I should acknowledge who I was then. What a hero I was for myself. I walked through the fires of hell, and I made it out whole. Cleansed. I am careful about pride and hubris. But I also want to remember that I am capable of honor and commitment.

So yes. Quitting smoking has me in a bit of an emotional free-fall right now. And I have let my life contract a little. I’ve slowed down and taken on less. Avoided things I know will upset me. Because I know that if I let my life be smaller right now, and if I’m gentle with myself, on the other side life will be better and more beautiful than it was when I was smoking. And that less will upset me in the first place. But the truth is, I still have a pretty full life right now. I don’t need to lock myself in my house and obsess about not being obsessed with cigarettes. My years of keeping my food under control have taught me a lot about trusting life. And living with uncertainty. And being uncomfortable. And letting that be ok. I’ve gotten pretty good at the free-fall. I trust that my chute will open. Or maybe I’ll just learn to fly. Whatever.

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09 Jun 2012
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If I love food so much, why don’t I marry it?

I love to eat. I love to eat now even more than when I was eating sugar. Because now I eat without guilt or shame. I am not one of those people who used to “live to eat”, but learned how to “eat to live”. I still live to eat. I did not suddenly stop caring about food. I’m pretty sure that I will never become indifferent to eating. It’s just that now I eat within my strict boundaries. Besides not eating sugar and simple carbohydrates, one of my rules (I have many food rules, by the way) is that I eat 3 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s it. I don’t eat in between those meals. So in between those meals, I have a life. Usually that’s good. Sometimes it’s hard. But whether it’s good or it’s hard, my life between meals is not about being obsessed with food. And that is a miracle. That affords me the opportunity to absolutely love to eat! When it’s time to eat.

When I was eating compulsively, food and I were in an abusive relationship. I let food be my best friend, my lover, my closest companion. But it made me miserable. It made me hate myself. The food I was eating gave me a body that I hated and was ashamed of. But I “loved” my food. I couldn’t live without it, even though it was beating me up emotionally and physically. So every time I ate, I was simultaneously comforted and tortured. Relieved and anxious. Quieted and tormented. And I ate constantly. Or if I wasn’t eating, I was thinking about eating. So I was in a constant state of confusion. I was having a love/hate relationship with both food and myself. 24 hours a day.

And then there were the rare “diets”. I didn’t go on many of them in my life. But I did go on a few. When you grow up morbidly obese, you end up getting “put” on a few diets. And they always occurred to me as a punishment for being fat, not as an opportunity to be healthy. I never felt like I was being offered help or kindness. And I always hated the food. Partly because I wanted sugar to get me high. I was used to getting high from eating. And partly because eating a diet consisting almost entirely of sugar and simple carbohydrates for most of my life deadened my palate. Fruits and vegetables had no taste. In fact, for much of my life, fruit was not sweet. I didn’t just eat grapefruit with sugar, I ate strawberries with sugar. When people would say something was “too sweet”, I couldn’t understand what that could possibly mean. Sweet was the most important trait of a food. That was like saying something was “too delicious”.

Plus, on these diets, it was often explained to me (by doctors or nutritionists, etc.) that I didn’t have to give up sugar.  I just had to eat it in moderation.  But I could never eat sugar or simple carbohydrates “in moderation”. That is a skill I do not possess. So once I ate a moderate portion of something, it was followed by…well, basically, a chocolate cake. And the diet was over.

It took a while for my palate to change back to normal when I stopped eating sugar. Eating real food was not entirely satisfying, flavor-wise, in the beginning. I think the reason I stuck with it was that my head started to clear and the obsession with food lifted. But, of course, the longer I went without sugar, the better real food tasted. By now, six plus years later, vegetables have become food-orgasmic.

But you know what? I still refuse to eat lettuce, celery, or raw carrots. (Cooked carrots are another matter. Cooked in butter? Roasted maybe? Ahem, I digress…) Maybe it’s psychological, and they still occur to me as “diet food”. But I don’t like them. And you know what else? I don’t have to eat them. If I want a delicious salad, there are radishes, mushrooms, arugula, artichokes, onions, cucumbers. There are so many foods that make my mouth water. And I’m not on a diet. I’m not being punished. I don’t eat anything because I “should”. Because it’s “healthy” or “good for me”. I eat foods that I love. I eat meals that make me happy. And this time really happy. Not some weird combination of trepidatious happiness and shame. There is no guilt in my pleasure. All because my meals are within my set boundaries. The three times a day that I eat are pure bliss. I don’t answer the phone. I don’t worry about the future. I just enjoy eating. Wow!

My point in all of this is that boundaries have created freedom for me. It’s a cliché paradox, I know.  But if you have experienced it, you know how profound it is. Living within a strict set of rules has made it possible for me to not only not have a bad relationship with food, but to have a fan-freaking-tastic relationship with food. I don’t just get a life in between my meals, but I get to glory in eating three times a day.

 

It’s true that there are things about the way I eat that are inconvenient. I can’t just grab a slice of pizza on the go. I can’t just walk into any old restaurant and order off the menu. But I am not sorry. Because what I get instead is self-respect, a body I love, and to eat with gusto three times a day anyway. Not too shabby for the “poor girl” who had to give up sugar.

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