onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “sugar-free”

11 Oct 2026

All the gratifications

I was a child throughout the 80s. I can remember them. And one thing I can remember is the feeling I got when I obtained something shiny, new, and mass produced. It always felt perfect. Pristine. And that felt so special. Filled with potential. (I also kept stickers on their sheets. Undiagnosed ADHD? My friends would say yes…Anyway…)

Recently I have come to a realization. That I feel the opposite now. That I am unimpressed (and honestly a little repulsed) by anything that looks mass produced. I like things lived in, imperfect, filled with personality. And I don’t know when it started to flip. 

Perhaps it is from the way I changed my framing. 

One of the things that I changed my framing for, was my art. Because (even before fake AI images) so much of the kind of art I make – crochet toys especially- is only presented in public or on social media when perfect. Perfectly round, perfectly straight, perfectly placed. Cute and symmetrical. And my art is…not. It’s filled with uneven smiles and wonky eyes.

For a long time my style made me ashamed. Not polished enough to be considered “well made.”

But then I realized that that arm sewn on funny makes him look like he’s shrugging, or her nose over too far on one side looks like a sneer. So now I sometimes purposely leave the accidents  because they create personality. And I value personality. I value nuance and uniqueness. I value the story that can be told in a weird arm shrug or an expression of arrogance, its own kind of micro storytelling.

I also value craft and learning. I value the intent that I put out into the world when I take something from an idea to a tangible object, and let myself express all along the way. Let my hands do their job, without letting my imagination micromanage. I value the time I put into a long term piece that feels like it will never be done, so that I get to put the idea of “done” aside and just do. Things that take time REQUIRE that I make the time. The middle has to get done too. 

Back in the 80s, the other side of the joy over the pristine mass produced toy, was how quickly it scuffed, scratched, got broken or lost. And then I was let down. And so much more deeply than a 99c toy should warrant. (I was a VERY sensitive little kid.)

But ultimately, any and all change in my thinking started when I stopped eating my drug foods and I put boundaries around my eating. Because when I was eating sugar and eating compulsively, I didn’t have the capability or capacity to do things that required delayed gratification. I ate sugar, my brain went *ding ding ding.* So the thought of doing anything that didn’t end in *ding ding ding* was painful. Literally painful.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a 49 year old woman in the US. I still love me some instant gratification. I just know that it’s not sustainable for the kind of life I want to live. So lately I’m working on many kinds of projects. Short term (crocheted Möbius strip fidget toys) long term (a queen sized knit blanket) and in between (my convertible toy.) And I get to love each in their own way. I guess this is me getting all the gratifications. 

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04 Oct 2026
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Play

I finished my convertible toy this week and she is adorable! I am very proud of her. 

When I make, there is a lot of variation in completion. Some things get made. Some things get made several times over in different iterations. And some things get started, or even more than half way completed, and then sit. And sit. 

Some are still sitting. Some got thrown away. (How expensive was the yarn…)

It’s not about time, and it’s not about skill. 

I have a cable knit blanket that was so complicated that I couldn’t do anything simultaneously while I made it. No audiobooks or TV. Just me and the cable pattern and bamboo needles so the stitches didn’t fall off. And when the hard part was over, all there was (is) left was (is) the border. It has been almost a decade since I worked on that border. 

But I have completed huge projects. Hours of labor and hundreds of dollars of yarn. Complicated designs I had to make up on my own. 

I don’t know what it is that makes me finish and what makes me abandon a project. But I will tell you that it used to make me FEEL a certain way to look at all of my unfinished projects, like I wasn’t serious. Like I “never” followed through. 

And then I really looked at all of the things I have completed. I have dozens of little pieces as well as multiple blankets at home and that doesn’t include any of the gifts I have made. Or the trinkets I made so I could practice a technique and then give them away. Or the things that I made to use every day like my craft basket or my cat’s “grab and go” basket so I can throw her favorite things in and hit the road. But why does the finishing have to mean so much? 

The longer I have my eating under control the more I like myself, the more generous I can be with myself, the more I can listen to myself. The less I need to judge. After all, what is there to judge? 

I am proud of my many and varied pieces. But also, I don’t need to put a judgement on everything. Why does a completed project have to mean more than an unfinished one to me? I am learning. I am playing. I am thinking. Why isn’t that just enough? 

I heard an anecdote recently about a school that had two pottery classes. One was graded on the beauty of their final project. One was graded on the number of pieces they could make in the semester. They literally just put them on the scale and added up the weight. And then they had people (artists and non artists alike) view them in two rooms, and everyone said the best pieces were in the room where they prized quantity over quality. I bet the worst were there too. *shrug*

I want to play. I am almost 50 years old. I want to make and hate and throw away and love and be surprised, and push through the hating stage to the loving stage, to trust the process.

I only have this much time and awareness right now because I have twenty years of having my eating under control. In the food I exhibit all of the addict behavior. Because I have all of the addict thoughts. Two decades of not having constant food noise in my head gives me time and opportunity to examine my life, my choices, my body, my thinking, my morals and my priorities.

So anyway, I DID finish my toy. “Be home by midnight or you’ll turn into a Pumpkin.” 

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27 Sep 2026

All my castles on solid ground

With all of the things going on in my life over the past 6 months, I had not been making anything. No dolls, no toys, no blankets, no squares, no nothing. 

But finally, over the past 2 to 3 weeks I have started to make again! I am working on designing a little crochet convertible toy when I have the mental energy to do crochet math, and a seed stitch knit blanket when I don’t. 

One of the things that recovery from sugar addiction and compulsive eating has offered me is a firm foundation in the tangible. AKA “Doing the work.”

I am one of those girlies who straddles the line between woo woo and science. And one of the most important things I learned when I got abstinent from sugar and arrested my compulsive eating was that manifesting is not magic. It doesn’t mean “free.” And that if you do manage to “manifest” something without any work behind it, under it, there is nothing to hold it up. Building castles in the air, if you will.

When I was eating compulsively, I could absolutely lose weight. For periods of time, at least. But never ever once did I go on a diet or a program where I lost weight and thought, “this is the answer. I could sustain this!” 

Never once until I put my current boundaries around my food. Specific and measurable. Literally. Eating 3 times a day. Eliminating my drug foods. Weighing my food. With a community of people who do what I do. 

I had to change. I had to choose different foods. I had to choose different behaviors. I had to choose different thoughts. I had to give up whole ways of being. I had to have a crisis of self! (That sounds very dramatic but it was mostly a lot of me being in public in my pajamas and drinking gallons of coffee with a bajillion packets of sweet n low.)

And one of the ways that manifested for me was in honoring the cyclical nature of life. More specifically of MY life. That not every moment is a moment for creation. That not every purpose is one of productivity. That the moment is worthy. That I am worthy of rest and healing. That conversely, I am capable of digging deep and reaching so far beyond my comfort zone that I astonish even myself. 

The past 6 months has been a wonderful reminder how good I am at managing a project. How efficient I am. How dependable. It was fun. It was great to have so many new experiences, some of them a little scary. (In a grown up way, not a safety way.) 

And now I am ready to create again. In a new home with a new view and a new neighborhood with new people to meet. I am excited to be inspired and confounded and willing to try and fail. I can’t wait to spend hours making only to spend minutes unmaking and then giving it another go. No really. 

Getting control of my eating gives me peace enough to live my life as a process. I’m here for the experiences. And it’s all just experiences. 

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20 Sep 2026

Different free

There have been a handful of times in my life that I didn’t realize how I was feeling until the feelings stopped. Like not knowing I hated myself because I couldn’t stop eating, until I quit sugar and I stopped eating compulsively. Or not knowing how stressed I was about money and being poor, until I was no longer poor. And it turns out driving is one of those things.  

When I left New York City in my mid 30s, I did not know how to drive. And there were a lot of reasons for that. Most notably that I used to have nightmares as a little kid, from the time I was 4 or 5, about having to drive and not knowing how. And I had built driving up to be a very scary thing. (I’m sure there is plenty of it in these here archives. I was already writing this blog for years when I learned to drive.) so when I moved to New York City at 21, I was relieved I was never going to have to learn how to drive.

But about 11 years ago I did learn how to drive at 38. Since then I have driven all over the country alone. I can enjoy the time in the car with an audiobook. I don’t hate driving.

But I really do hate having to drive. I hate the experience of having to do anything that requires a car. I don’t really even know what it is that I don’t like. Because I am so grateful to both have a car and know how to drive. For my own sense of freedom. For my own ease of getting around. And to be able to live anywhere. Because the other side of not knowing how to drive in NYC also made me know I was “stuck” there.

Now I live in the city because I choose it. I could live in the suburbs. I have done it. 

It is so much easier for me to get out of the house if I don’t have to drive. It feels like so much less of an ordeal to do anything if I don’t have to take the car. I ran 2 errands in less than twenty minutes the other day. Just the driving would have taken me more than 20 minutes in our old house. 

I needed to learn how to drive. I am grateful I had over a decade to get comfortable. To stop being afraid of it, to have the basic skill most Americans need, and to have real freedom. I have no regrets about needing to learn and following through.

Anyway, I haven’t driven in over a week and I feel a different kind of free. 

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06 Sep 2026

I’m too old for the bandwagon. But not the soccer mom wagon!

I have a soccer mom wagon for my new condo city life and it’s one of my favorite things in the entire world. Because it makes grocery shopping about 73% easier. And grocery shopping is the single most important adulting I do. It is the first thing I do to give myself even the chance to adult. 

If I love my food, I have a better chance of keeping my eating boundaries. If I keep my eating boundaries I have a better chance of keeping my word. If I keep my word I have a better chance of keeping the lights on. If I have kept the lights on, I have a better chance of keeping my eating boundaries. A virtuous cycle.

The ability to keep my word is absolutely on the table when it comes to food for me. And that’s a big deal. Being able to be counted on is reputation. And reputation is important in the kinds of communities I am part of and want to be involved in. 

So back to my wagon. I can keep it folded up for my walk to the store but then I can use it as a cart in the store, I already know how much room I have! I put it on the belt and right back into the wagon. (Note to self to put my bag of reusable, washable bags in my wagon.) Then right back to my building, up in the elevator, and home to put away! No dragging them in two arm loads at a time. No trips to the car! No pressure marks on my arms because I WILL carry all of the heavy bags at one time! DAMMIT!

Grocery shopping will always be important for me. I want to pick my meat and my produce. I want to read ingredients. And getting this newer, easier version of it would absolutely be the cherry on top if I ate cherries! 

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30 Aug 2026

What else is catching up with me?

Life has felt like it has been speeding by lately. My entire year has been a whirlwind from the beginning. And here, before the official end of Summer, I (yes “we,” but “This isn’t about him”) have bought a condo, sold a house, paid off all debt and have moved. MOVED moved.

This may not sound particularly exotic if you know me from real life or my blog, and are aware that we move all the time. But that is different. A kind of home away from home. Those places are never meant to be permanent. The “home” is always the stuff in it that has been used in the last place and the last. It’s the sameness of dishes and utensils, sheets and towels (and each other) that make life on the road its own kind of home. 

But this is Home. “Capital H.” 

And it is entirely different. I moved from a two story suburban house with all the trimmings: attic space, a two car garage with a refrigerator in it, a shed with lawn tools, a lawn, a patio, patio furniture, a swing in my back yard and fancy trees in the front. Yes even a picket fence but ours was black.

And now I live in a 2 bed 2 bath high rise with a balcony, a doorman, elevators, a pool, and minimal storage. As I was forced to look at my life through new lenses, and I was forced to examine, yet again, my ever evolving priorities. 

This move is a huge culture shift. One that feels so right for me, and also changes so much about my day to day life. 

From the outside all this happened between the beginning of May and the end of August. And in terms of actions and logistics, yes. At least I sure did have my fair share of panic attacks in these past 4 months. But I don’t think changes like this happen in the moment. 

I have been changing. And for longer than four months. It’s just now my home caught up. 

I wonder what else is catching up to me.

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23 Aug 2026

Hip to the new style

Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with time. I have had a pulled hip flexor so I couldn’t do my workout. 

And it gave me a chance to play with my schedule. I have had the same morning workout routine for many years. I want to break out of old patterns. Not because they are bad, but because I want to shake up my life and what better way to do that than to disrupt my routines. To do something different.

I am always looking for the next part of my life. Some new growth, a new understanding, new perspectives. I don’t love the experience of change. But I love having changed. Like a lot.

This willingness (however begrudgingly in the moment) to change is a direct result of having my eating under control. Not eating my drug foods forced me to look at reality. The reality of my integrity and my behavior. And with my hormones and emotions not being influenced by sugar and carbohydrates, it was hard to talk myself into continuing a temper tantrum and insisting on being dragged kicking and screaming. It was easier to be a grown up. Also less embarrassing.

The more time I spend with my sugar addiction arrested, the better I am at life. I am more peaceful, have a good sense of (not religious) faith, I know how to be a good friend, and a good community member. And the more I understand what I care about, the better I can use my time going forward into a new life.

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16 Aug 2026

Loving all the places I live

By the end of the month, my home buying and selling saga will be done and I am so overjoyed! I love my new home. I am so happy to have our old home sold to a family that loves it. (I designed that kitchen with so much loving intention!) I am so relieved to not have a mortgage anymore before the end of the year. I am so glad that it didn’t take months and months to find a buyer and have to deal with stagings and showings and two tax bills.

I have a home beyond my wildest dreams. I already had a life beyond my wildest dreams.

That was a promise I was made by people who were already putting boundaries around their eating 20 years ago when I started. They said “weigh and measure your food and your life will get better.” “Stop putting drug foods in your body and you will change your life.”

And I changed my life. Not just my body, which did change, but my very experience. How I felt about myself. How I thought about myself. How I talked to myself. And therefore how I felt about the world.

The foods I am addicted to and abstain from DO things to my body. To my hormones. To my brain. More than just nourishment, they affect my moods and my pain receptors, and my anxiety levels. 

And I have never been so clear about it as since I stopped. I am a 49 year old woman, and I love my skin. I love my body. I love to do my workout. And I love myself enough to rest it when I need to. This vessel is the only one I exist in. And it’s my job to understand that that was not a mistake, it is a gift. 

There is so much the same about loving the body I am in and the home that I am in. I had to love my body *before* I could change it. (Well, change it for the better…I tried bulimia but it was hard…do not recommend.) I had to love the home I was already in before I could get a new dream home. There is something to the idea that gratitude is key to abundance. To be able to change the filter in your brain to see the gifts and the joy and the winks from the Universe. 

So here’s to the next unexpected gift from being this grateful for my new home! 

Goodbye to my amazing kitchen! I hope you make the next family as happy!!!
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09 Aug 2026

7,524 days of getting better at life

My move went incredibly well this week. It took less time and cost less than the original quote. And I definitely did a great job downsizing. There is still plenty of room in my kitchen. And while we don’t have our extra room organized yet, I am not afraid of how much stuff I have or where I am going to put it. 

I am deeply joyful and grateful.

And I keep thinking about how easy it was. 

But it was easy because I made it easy. And I could do that because I have my drug foods down.

I didn’t leave everything to the last minute. I didn’t avoid looking at the reality of my situation. I looked critically. I made plans. I replanned plans. I prepared. 

When I was eating compulsively, I didn’t look at difficult things. (It still takes me longer than normal to look if I, say, cut myself in the kitchen.) And the problem with that was I never had a real gauge of the actually moment. And if you don’t know what something is, you can’t take action. I imagined mediocre issues were worse than they were and ignored them until they became real problems. Or I let real problems grow until I could not ignore them. And by that point I was overwhelmed and terrified.

I have 20 years of managing my addict behavior. I have 20 years of learning to be good at life. Because I was very very bad at it for my first 28 years. And every day I don’t eat compulsively I get a little better at it. 

Today is day 7,524 of having my eating under control. Over severity five hundred days of getting a little better at life got me my dream home. Not too shabby. 

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26 Jul 2026

Even today of all days

Yes, I woke up at 5:30 on a Sunday to prep food for the next day and a half and tidy the kitchen. And now I am in the truck pre moving some weird odds and ends to our condo before the movers come in a week and a half. Then we head to the house we are selling, where the dumpster is sitting in our driveway and we get to get rid of a bunch of stuff I am not sure how we got!!! Somewhere in there I have to call to get my internet set up, and see about some IKEA furniture. And then I will stay overnight at that house so the village can inspect my sewer in the morning.

Yet here I am writing my blog. 

It’s so funny that sometimes there is nothing going on and I have to really dig deep to find a topic. And sometimes I have so much going on and it’s changing everything at warp speed and I barely have time to write. 

How downsizing has changed my thinking.

How having a dream come true in an unexpected way has changed my expectations. 

How not meeting certain expectations has been a blessing not a curse.

There are certainly more things like this rolling through my head. More than I can grasp at a time. I guess when this move is done the whole thing will shake out and the next new normal will begin. And I can sort through it all then. But for now, I am just writing this blog because it’s what I do. Even today of all days. 

But now I’m done. Phew

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