onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “the next big adventure”

25 Jul 2021

A job, some fear and anxiety, probably a miracle.

One of my favorite things I had the opportunity to learn when I got my eating under control is how to go with the flow. How to let life happen as it does (because it will) and to make the best of it. To handle new and difficult situations with grace and ease.


On Tuesday morning this past week I got a call from management in my company, asking if I would take on a new position. And could I start the next day?


I was certainly happy to take it on. I have mostly just been working part time for almost a year now. And while I have enjoyed it, because I love having lots of alone time, the truth is I like work. I like being of use. I like being good at what I do. I like the feelings I get when I accomplish things. I like being impressive. My best friend’s old therapist said that a huge portion of our self-esteem comes from our job.


And there is another part of it for me right now. I am not working with my husband on this job. My boss is someone I just met for the first time on Wednesday. And while I love working with my husband, and we make a great team, there is something exciting about getting the chance to show someone else what I can do. And knowing that what he has to say means something different to the company, coming from a stranger and superior, than it does coming from the person who chose me as a life partner.


The other important thing about getting my eating under control when it comes to this job is that keeping my food boundaries has taught me how to manage my fear and anxiety. Because for as excited as I am to do this job (and I am very excited), my brain goes on a little merry-go-round ride of thoughts and feelings, and a good portion of them are fears. Fears that I will fail, that I am not as good as I think. That I am not good enough in general.


It doesn’t matter that these thoughts are irrational. Anyone with irrational thoughts will tell you that knowing you are being irrational does not change the experience of it. It’s why self-knowledge was never enough to lose weight when I (and seemingly everyone else) cared so much about my weight. (I’m sure the world still cares about my weight because it cares about weight in general. I just don’t care that it cares anymore.)


But in getting my eating under control, I learned how to stop thoughts. I learned how to change my mind. I learned how to change my thinking. I learned how to harness control over my thoughts as a tool.


Eating compulsively always had me too high on sugar to manage anything, especially my thoughts. It had me foggy, and careless, and numb. These are not ideal circumstances to take control of one’s own brain. The point of getting high was always to stop thinking and feeling entirely, not to control myself.


I am very excited about getting a new opportunity. And if you read last week, I do believe that this job came straight out of a miracle door. So I am going to keep meditating on miracles and the doors they emerge from. And I am going to keep my eating boundaries. And I am going to do an amazing job! Probably. And if not, I expect there will be another miracle coming through another door. But for right now I’ll do the work in front of me.

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14 Mar 2021

Happy to be wherever here is

I am not a person who likes change. Or surprises. Or being unprepared. So this week was not my favorite.

My husband and I were set to head to a job in Connecticut. So we did all the things we do when we head out to a job. We found an apartment, and set up utilities. We went into the garage and packed up our second “traveling” home with another set of dishes and small appliances, and sheets and towels, and all of the things that make our home ours when we are working on the road. We even have a traveling Alexa device and a traveling meat grinder. We are not messing around.

My husband had to be there a few days before me, and it was going to take 2 days to drive,  so we picked up his truck and he left on Tuesday. He drove all day Tuesday and then woke up on Wednesday and got half way through the day’s drive, just a few hours away from the apartment we would be renting, when he got a call. The job was canceled. Turn around and go home. 

That is correct. Canceled. Not postponed. Not delayed. Just plain canceled. 

I was kind of devastated. I have friends in that area. Some in Connecticut. Many in New York City. I was looking forward to being driving distance from them. And with the vaccines getting distributed, I was looking forward to getting hugs and in-person laughs. At least at some point in the year. 

And we had made lots of plans for the money we’d make there. Fix up the outside of our house. Have new concrete porches poured in both the front and the back, have the driveway redone, and have the siding on our house replaced. We counted our chickens before they were hatched.

I was also really stressed about money. We had already signed a lease on an apartment. I did not know what that would mean for us financially.

But the apartment complex terminated the lease and it only cost us the security deposit, which was the best case scenario. So all that I really had to do was mourn the lost expectations of living back on the east coast near my friends and the money I had already spent in my dreams. And I did have to mourn those things. So I did.

But a lot of really good things came out of this as well. For example, in a row, we had some little things go wrong right before we left. Our plumbing was wonky because roots sometimes grow in our pipes, so we had some plumbers come over and snake our outside drain. My husband would normally do this himself. But we were busy packing and getting ready to move, so we hired someone and in terms of both time and money, it was the best thing to do. It cost less than it would have for my husband to rent the machine and do it himself. And we are kind of procrastinators, so if we had not been on our way out, we might have left it longer. And then our furnace stopped working so we had someone come out to look at it. Thankfully it was an easy fix. Both of these turned out to be easy fixes and we took care of them quickly, and now they are done.

And then, since he was on his way back to our house, my husband looked to see if he could get a PlayStation 5 and they had one at the store just a few blocks from our house. So because he had to come back, he got the thing he has been wanting most for the past 6 months. Not the worst consolation prize.

But maybe most importantly, my husband and I were both working on a project that was causing us a lot of stress and frustration and we are now in the process of getting out of that job. Today we are writing a letter together to say that we cannot go back to that job. That in leaving it, we realized how it had been affecting us detrimentally, both individually and as a unit, over the past several months.

I will tell you that one reason I know I cannot go back to that job is because I know what it feels like to give up poison, and to know that I cannot go back to feeling like that. I did it with sugar.

I know that some people think I am crazy for keeping my eating boundaries. They think it’s extreme. They think I must be suffering because they believe they would suffer to give up cake. I need to express to you that I could not do what I do every day for over 15 years if I did not get one hell of a payoff. That payoff is not feeling toxic or poisoned or trapped. I felt all of those things when I was eating compulsively. Now I feel free and light and able to take life as it comes. Like when a job I was really looking forward to falls through at the very last minute.

Leaving this job feels a lot like giving up sugar. I feel sort of disoriented. I am afraid of what I just gave up and what I will lose because of it. Money security in this case. And potentially the good will of certain people in the company we work for. But also, when I even think of letting it back into my life, everything in me screams that I do not want to go back there ever again. I do not want to feel that way ever again.

And in general, I do not want to go backwards. I want to move forward all the time. I want to keep getting better, and to keep getting a better life because of it. That is also a gift of having my eating boundaries. Growth.

We don’t know what is in store for us moving forward. We don’t know what our next job will be or where it will be, at home or on the road. But we did learn some things about ourselves. 1) That we miss the road. 2) That we can’t do that awful job that we may have ended up stuck in for years if this canceled job had not come up. 3) That we are resilient. 4) That we are excellent at packing quickly at a moment’s notice. (Actually, we already knew that but this was a nice reminder.)

I will tell you what this feels like. It feels like a fresh start. It feels like someone hit the reset button. It feels like exactly what I need and where I want to be, even if I am not sure where, exactly, I am.

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07 Apr 2019

My eating is taken care of, so all is well with me

There is a saying that “Hell is a hallway.” That it is the transition, the periods of unknown, that make us unhappy, anxious, and weary. I am in a hallway. I’m right at the threshold,  but I’m not quite in the door yet. 
I moved this week. Packed. Drove 8 hours. Unpacked. (OK sort of unpacked. There’s a lot left to do. And a lot of clutter in our new living room.) But a lot is still up in the air. Unfinished.
My furniture and internet don’t come until Tuesday. What office space I will have on my new job is unclear, and I will be working from home until that is figured out. 
And grocery stores are not what I would prefer. I have been spoiled. It turns out that small town Oklahoma is not going to provide for me in the manner I am accustomed to. Even driving an hour to the nearest city I can’t find some of the things I really “need.” Like Italian Sausage without sugar. This is a bit of a blow. I will have to see if there is a butcher who will make it for me by special order, like I did in Texas. Or maybe Amazon. You can but almost anything on Amazon.
But what I do know is that I will adapt. I always do. My eating habits will change, but I will stay within my boundaries. My routine will change, but I will figure out how to take care of myself. Some new things will be better and some will be worse. That seems to be the way of it.
But because of the consistency of keeping food boundaries, new normals come quickly to me. I think this much travel and change could have a hangover effect on me if I didn’t have a touchstone in my food commitment. 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m tired. I have gotten less sleep and more physical exertion in the past few days than usual. And I am ready for my new home and new job to be settled. But my food is already settled. It was while our old apartment was in disarray. It was while we were on the road. And it is while our new apartment is littered with crates and boxes. My food is always taken care of. And that makes my life better.
People often shudder and balk at the idea of what I do. So restrictive! So extreme! So unyielding! But in actuality, it makes times of difficulty easy. I don’t always get to eat my favorite foods when I am living in the crazy, but I never have to worry about food. I have already planned, and prepared. And the truth is, there are lots of ways to do what I do quickly and efficiently. Ways to cook huge batches of food to freeze. Ways to buy pre-packaged proteins that travel well. Ways to simplify that part of my life so I can focus on the tasks at hand.
I still have lots of unpacking to do. And I still have work that needs to get done from my last job that has fallen by the wayside in the face of a big move. But my food is taken care of and my eating is under control. So all is well with me.
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31 Mar 2019

No rest for the weary, but they can have delicious meals

I had a long, weird week this week. My husband and I went to our permanent home in Chicago for the week, to do some work out of the home office, and meet with the accountant to get our taxes done. And while we were gone, some shady stuff went down at our job site. Which meant he had to rush back to take care of that, and I had to get our taxes taken care of by myself. Plus, my workout routine was thrown off, so while I *did* go on my jog every day, every single day was a struggle with myself to do it. And also, I’m gaining weight. Even though I am eating exactly the same and working out 5 days a week just like always. The weight gain, thankfully doesn’t throw me into a pit of despair, but doesn’t make me particularly happy either.
And this week doesn’t get any easier. Because we still have to move on to our next job in Oklahoma, which means being out of our apartment in Tennessee and moved into our apartment in Oklahoma by Friday. No rest for the weary. 
And the truth is, I’m weary. 
When times like this come around, I have to remind myself that that’s life. Sometimes I just tired. Sometimes I’m just sad. Sometimes I’m just worried or restless or cranky. And if there *is* something to change, which, of course, sometimes there is, it’s always me. It’s always my thing to change. Like my eating, or my sleeping, or my attitude, or my expectations. When I was eating compulsively, I was always looking to force change on something or someone else. Then I could be happy. 

That never worked.

Regarding my weight gain, I could change the way I am eating, and eat lighter options with less fat, to see if I would lose this weight. But my experience is that it doesn’t always help. And one way that I keep my food boundaries is by fighting the food with the food. I eat foods that I find delicious and satisfying to keep myself from feeling deprived of cake. Because if I ended up eating sugar and carbs, even just a little (at first), the little bit of weight I’m gaining for no reason, would end up being a lot of weight I was gaining for a very valid reason. Because I would never be able to stop at a little. I’d be 300 lbs again in a minute. Ok, not a minute. But definitely a year, and possibly 6 months. And that is *not* an exaggeration. 
And I suppose there is a reason I’m tired. Because two 7-8 hour drives in a week, plus all of the life obligations I had to handle in between was a lot. And I will be a busy bee this week, wrapping up the work I can here, and starting up the work I have there. Along with moving a home from one place to another. 
But there is nothing to fix. All there is to do is one thing at a time. Keep my food under control. Take care of my body and my mind. Take care of my work and home obligations. Put one foot in front of the other. And refrain from worrying about anything not in my control. Which, frankly, is not as hard as it sounds. And is much easier when my belly is full of guilt-free food, and my mind is clear of shame and worry. 
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17 Mar 2019

Logistical Tetris, and then the fun part

As a person who travels for work, I get to see all sorts of places and be part of all sorts of communities. And I enjoy that very much. There are things I like and things I dislike everywhere. For example, I won’t miss the way people drive here in Tennessee, but being so close to Nashville was fun. 
But it’s just about time to move along, and that means my least favorite part of this way of life. Apartment hunting. Setting up utilities. Packing, hauling, and unpacking. Tying up loose ends. Ending and beginning again. 
It’s stressful. It’s a lot of moving parts. It’s kind of like logistical Tetris. All of the pieces are coming at you in quick succession and you have to get all of them to fit together in a certain time period. 
It’s times like these that having food boundaries is helpful, especially in terms of self-care. Because I already have an attitude that prizes planning, preparing, and protection of my food. For example, I am looking ahead to the future and realizing that I will have to prep more food than usual in advance. Both today for next week at our permanent residence. And then again in two weeks when it’s time to officially pull up stakes here and head to a new home in a new town.
I know a lot of people who forget to take care of themselves in difficult or unusual situations, times of change and upheaval. They forget to eat until they are starving and/or hangry. They forget to sleep enough because they need to get “one more thing” done. They don’t make time to take care of their bodies or their minds. 
And what’s more, they think they are doing the right thing, being honorable, sacrificing.
I am not saying that there is not a time to sacrifice. There is. There is beauty and honor and love in it. But I am going to suggest that moving apartments is not that time. If I had to sleep in a hotel for a night, I could do that. Having the internet turned on immediately is not life or death. (I even have a hotspot on my phone!) And since we change residences about every year or so, that would make for a lot of sacrifice, of my my health, my happiness, and my relationship (I don’t want to be cranky, angry, and taking things out on my husband) to basically be able to like stuff on Facebook. 
Getting my eating under control taught me about my own priorities. It taught me *how* to prioritize. And my well-being is my number one priority, followed closely by my husband’s well-being. Everything else is a situation that will pass. 
So I will have to do a bit more work today. But it will give me peace of mind and keep my head clear. I won’t be nervous about when or where my next meal will be. I will be able to think about all of the many things I have to get done, without worrying about how I am going to take care of my needs. I will be free to go with the flow of life.
But one of the best things about logistical Tetris is that all of the pieces come in rapid succession, but then they are in place, and it’s done. And then I can look forward to getting to know a new place and a new community. And that’s definitely the fun part of a life of traveling.
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10 Mar 2019

Stretching, strength, and grace (ish)

I have had a pretty intense week, all focused around my job. Some things needed to get done. Things that were (are) “above my pay grade,” as they say. But there was nobody else there to do them. So I got them done. I had to ask for a lot of help, and ask a lot of questions, and there was a pretty steep learning curve, but the work got done. And I learned a lot. 

When I compare who I am as an employee, and as a worker in general, since I got my eating under control, to when I was growing up eating compulsively, the difference is stark. I would say that the biggest change in my life is not my body, or even my relationships, and those are entirely made new. I would say the biggest change in myself is as a worker. 
In the food, I was a liar, a cheater, and a thief. Which is some serious sinning. But it all stemmed from the fact that I was easily overwhelmed, plus terrified of failure and judgment to the point of paralysis, and rash-decision-making. In the food I was engulfed in a sugar fog that impaired my thinking, and temporarily numbed any feelings of guilt. 
In the food I was fighting for survival, but just barely, because I didn’t have any life skills or the ability to be sober long enough to learn some. I was getting by, minute to minute, waiting to either be rescued by someone who wasn’t me, or to eat enough chocolate cake that it didn’t matter anymore that I was drowning. Or both. Usually both.
In getting my food under control I became honest. I became a good worker, and a person of integrity. I started worrying less about how I might fail, and caring more about how I might help. 
In getting my food under control, I learned how to be strong and graceful (or at least graceful-ish). The way one learns to be strong and graceful is to get stuck in a bad situation, and to get ourselves out. In having my food taken care of, and having a clear head, I learned how to ask for help, how to take direction, how to take baby steps, how to figure out the right questions to ask, how to do the best I can, and then let the chips fall where they may.
In the end, that work thing I did that was “above my pay grade” helped us nail down our next job assignment. And that means we have to wind down here, pack up our apartment, and move on to the next town and the next job. 
That is par for the course in this way of life. And after almost 6 years of it, the husband and I are pretty good at it. It can be a little stressful. And I do enjoy it when we get to a place and we can settle in for the time being.  But by the time we leave, we will have been here about a year. And that is usually enough time to be done with a place. 
I am excited to move on. And grateful that I helped make it happen by stretching myself. And that I have the skills to do so with strength and grace(ish)fullness.
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22 Jul 2018

Routine and adventure

I travel with my husband for work. And I love it. I love the kind of travel we do. Long stints in a bunch of places. (So far we have done Mississippi, a couple of places in Kentucky, a couple in Texas, a couple in Indiana, and one in Tennessee.) One of the things I particularly like is it occurs like the perfect balance between routine and adventure.

I like routine. It makes the food boundaries easier. Having a home with all of the cookware I need to cook delicious meals, and getting to know the grocery stores and butcher shops, and what they have, and where to get what I need as well as what I want. And there is an indescribable peace that comes with knowing that my highest priority is always taking care of my food addiction. I know that if I do that, everything else will be well.

And I like adventure. I like seeing new places and meeting new people. I also like trying new foods, new seasonings, new flavors around the country. My husband and I are on a hot sauce kick at the moment. And it’s fun! And a mini adventure in itself. (Just reading all of the labels and ingredients lists is like an adventure within an adventure. And yes, there are a lot of hot sauces I cannot try because they have a lot of sugar.)

What I love too, is knowing that I can keep my food boundaries anywhere. Some places are less convenient than others, of course. But it is all about my commitment. And sometimes, that inability to get whatever I want at a moment’s notice gives me the opportunity to try new things in a different way.

When we were in small town Mississippi, I did not eat out at restaurants. I knew that they could not accommodate me. I made sure I had my own food all the time. But there, I figured out where to buy beautiful steaks, sugar free bacon, giant cantaloupes and apples. It’s also where a friend found me a recipe for making my own vanilla without alcohol. And I was lucky to have another friend who would bring me kabocha squash and fried tofu up from New Orleans once a month when she came to visit. I had yet another friend who introduced me to a bowl for making my own ice cream. It’s also where I was introduced to Chinese Five Spice, which I still use all the time. So obviously, in terms of food, small town Mississippi was not too bad for me. I did not miss eating out at restaurants.

I love my happy lifestyle, gently swaying from adventure to routine and back. I love the things I learn and the things I get to try. Some of them become staples, and some pass with the next move and the next town. But no matter where I end up, my food boundaries go with me. And I always make sure they are delicious.

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22 Apr 2018

What could be more convenient than that?

In February of 2011, about a year before I started writing this blog, I was having a talk with one of my roommates and good friends. He pointed out to me (it was solicited, I might add) that I had a very small comfort zone. This was spot on. Whenever it was implied to me by any person or circumstance that it would behoove me to step out of that comfort zone, I clung to the edges like a Looney Tunes character in a doorway.

As I said, it took me nearly a year after that conversation to start writing this blog, the purpose of which was to help me take risks with my life, so I could have things like love and adventure. In other words, it took me a year to be ready to be ready, to be willing to be willing.

Now, I have been married to the love of my life for over 2 years and we travel the country for work, moving every 3 months to year and a half.

I love this life. It is fun and exciting. I love seeing new places and learning new things. But it can be exhausting. This week I worked from home part time, plus secured my husband and myself an apartment in our next town, including electricity and internet. Plus, I had to deal with some seemingly shady dealings with our last landlords. Not to mention cooking, laundry, dishes and grocery shopping.

There is a lot to working on the road. And let’s face it, moving sucks. And while we get better and better at it every time, it is almost never just smooth sailing.

Having my eating under control is absolutely the rock that makes it possible for me to not only live, but love, this life. Knowing what I am going to eat, how much, and when, leaves so much of my brain free to deal with inevitable hiccups and snafus. Knowing that I must eat my meals within certain times reminds me to stop what I am doing to eat lunch, no matter what it is or how important it seems at the moment. Eating my meals is the most important thing. Period. Not eating foods that get me high keeps me sane, clear-headed, and focused, which keeps me able to get things done quickly and efficiently.

When people hear about my many rules and boundaries around eating, they often marvel at what they consider to be inconvenience. Sometimes it is. But mostly, it is the thing that makes everything else in my life fit into its proper place. And I can’t think of what could be more convenient than that.

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25 Feb 2018

No place like home

After over a month of uncertainty and moving around, my husband and I are finally in a place we will be in for a little bit of time. Probably about another month and a half. It’s not exactly long-term, but it’s a chance to relax and catch my breath for a minute.

One of the things that makes my life happier is that my husband and I always travel with a little bit of home. My kitchen, with my cast iron skillets, our dishes, our silverware, my favorite mug, and a handful of other things I know I will need to be happy come with us. In bigger places for extended periods, I bring more. For a month or two, I make do with less. I also bring our linens everywhere. We also bring our internet TV and the husband’s PlayStation.

I started doing these things because of my my eating boundaries. Because I needed to cook all the time and I needed to be sure I had the tools I needed. But it started to become a way to recognize a place as home. My decorative shower curtain has hung on several shower rods above my bath mat, and alongside my matching towels. My coffee mug, my ramekins, freezer bowl to make homemade sugar-free ice cream, all these little things make every new sublet feel like home.

If I were a normal eater, I may never have gotten so good at making myself comfortable. I may have disregarded that kind of home comfort as important. I could have eaten fast food, and gotten by in hotel rooms without kitchens, and flown by the seat of my pants.

I am terrible at flying by the seat of my pants. I like routine. I like sameness. Life is complicated enough. I am always going to be expected to deal with life as it comes up. Always. In the in between time, I like to know that my husband and I will eat dinner together at the same time each night. I like to know the mug I have is big enough for the way I like my coffee. I like recognizing my home in a new place. It makes me feel safe.

So for the time being I am in a tiny little studio apartment with my husband. But I have bits and pieces of my home all around me. And there’s no place like home.

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04 Feb 2018

Back to normal, which is still not all that normal

I gotta be honest. I have no idea what to write about this week. I am emotionally exhausted. And just as life was finally leaving “surreal” and returning to day-to-day, we were told that we have to leave Texas. Again…

When I got my eating under control 12 years ago, I made my life kind of small. I wrapped myself in my own comfort zone, like a cocoon. And that really worked for me. It kept me protected from food. At that point, food was my problem. I mean I had other problems, but they would all manage to get worked out as long as I took care of the food problem.

But about 6 years in, (yes, 6 whole years of having my eating under control) I wanted a bigger life. And I ended up falling in love with a man who travels for a living. And I agreed to spend my life living in different towns for somewhere between a few months and a few years.

So I don’t really want to leave Texas yet. But this is the life I agreed to. And, really, I love it in general. Though, not all the time. But who loves their life all the time?

Tomorrow I will cook meals for two days of travel. And we will head back to Texas to pack up our apartment. And soon enough, we will find out what’s next.

So I guess this is normal life. It’s the “normal” I chose 5 years ago. And I’m grateful for all of it.

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