Confessions of a Sick, Overweight, Broke B*tch: The Beginning. Plus Things That Helped Me Stop Binging

**Warning** This may be sensitive, triggering information for some.**

It’s officia! This is the beginning of my journey as an author. You guys have been telling me for years to write a book about my life…so I’m keeping my promise. Manifesting this sh*t.

I decided to just. start. writing. Here are some bits & pieces from, Confessions of a Sick, Overweight, Broke B*tch.

Enjoy, I hope these nuggets can resonate in a way you need.

I remember it well, it was a Saturday morning. I snuck an unopened package of Girl Scout Tagalong Cookies into my bedroom. I ate the entire box while everyone slept.

Who would’ve known the gates of addiction, self sabotage, sickness, obesity, & decades of debt & relationship debacles would follow. 

My body image issues, food addiction, gut dis-ease, & disordered eating started at the age of 8 with the opening of a package of girl scout cookies. 

I could put away more food than my father did at dinner.

I’ll never forget my mom (bless her heart she meant well) saying, “If you keep eating like that you’ll get as big as a barn.” 

I grew up on a family farm in small town USA, Indiana, raising crops & beef cattle. We ate good y’all. ALL the meat, potatoes, home-cooked baked goods, fried spam & bologna. ALL the down home country sh*t.

I am the oldest of 3. I have 2 younger brothers, both “skinny” growing up, I was always the “fat” one. There was a reason I played catcher in softball & threw shot put in track. You wouldn’t think it lookin at my 5’1, 105lb frame today at 40 years old.

I remember crumpling the package of cookies under my bed, hiding it in shame. I curled up in pain, stomach so full & nauseous from all the sugar. At that time I willed myself not to throw up. I was swollen, sick, ashamed, & unaware of the drug addiction that had only just begun.

“What have I done? What would my parents say or anyone else if they ever found out?” I thought.

Then the binging & purging began as I got older.

I discovered I could make myself throw up & “undo” what I had done. I could workout more. I could restrict more so I could enjoy my binges more & eat MORE.

F*cked up, right?! 

The thing is the “monster” inside of you doesn’t see it that way.

It’s like you have two personalities like an angel and devil on your shoulders fighting for your attention.

Things I used to tell myself, “This must be what all the skinny & popular girls do at school, right?! Because I have to look like them to be loved by all the boys & be successful. I’m just not trying hard enough. Push harder. Oh, you gained 2lbs, great job, Katie, no food for you for 2 days.”

Sound familiar?

As painful as it is reliving these nightmares, I’m writing this for YOU. 

I know I’m not alone and I want you to know that someone else gets it. 

I know what it feels like to be so full you’re sick, but you can’t stop eating. 

I know what it feels like to be lying on the floor with a sore throat, reflux, & puffy eyes telling yourself, “This is the last time” & also knowing you’re full of bullsh*t.

I know what it feels like to feel like you’re not even in your body when a binge is happening. The sugary taste of all the foods you’ve denied yourself & deemed “bad” are orgasmic, the high of knowing what you’re about to do is exhilarating & shameful at the same time. The feeling of letting food control you & sabotage every relationship & facet of your life.

I know what it feels like to feel hopeless. Suffering with gut issues and not knowing what to eat because everything makes you bloated, constipated, & miserable to the point you’re a shell of yourself.

I know what it feels like to live in an abusive relationship with yourself and others, seeking validation through outside sources like relationships, controlling your body, excessive drinking, and overspending to the point you’re over $40,000 in debt. You feel like you’re drowning in a cesspool of your own creation.

Binging became something I did regularly, pushing the boundaries of “full” further & further.

My memories of elementary & middle school are saturated with the fact that I was fatter than all of my friends. 

I had a friend jokingly poke my waist & make a joke about “pinching an inch.” My classmates ridiculed me & called me heifer & lamb chop because I had frizzy curly hair, full cheeks, was a farm kid, & bigger than everyone else.

It became a recurring nightmare until my first bad break up in high school.

I was so emotionally distraught I just quit eating. I lost 15lbs in a matter of 3 weeks before school started. 

I didn’t even have the energy to show my calves at the Indiana State Fair. I did, but I thought I was gonna pass out.

Rub some dirt in it right?! Suck it up. Farm kids were raised to be tough. We weren’t allowed to give excuses.

I remember my mom telling me she was gonna put me in the hospital if I didn’t eat. 

Guess what happened when I went back to school 15lbs lighter?

All the kids magically loved me.

I was thinner, I was praised for my weight loss & finally got attention! 

BOOM! 

That moment right there was the pivotal moment I believed in order to be loved, successful, & worthy, I needed to be as thin as possible.

“Bare bones, b*tch, that’s our goal. Don’t f*ck this up.” That’s what I told myself.

At 40 I finally feel whole, happy, & peaceful with my being.

I’m grateful for a meat-based & “carnivore” way of eating. It broke my addiction & healed me in ways physically & mentally I never thought could be mended.

I’m not writing this for pity or attention, I’m writing this for YOU. The ones still stuck in this cycle looking for magic & quick fixes.

Fall in love with your journey & slow down, it’s a long one but well worth the work & effort & patience. YOU ARE WORTH IT! You are worthy just because you exist. And you are fabulous at whatever weight & size you are your healthiest.

Love the skin you’re in, it’s the only home you have forever!

Book to be continued 😉

Things that helped me break my binge eating

They may seem small, but these lil tips make a huge impact on your healing. No need for perfection here, but it does take making & KEEPING commitments to yourself.

I think I can speak for all of us who struggled or are currently struggling with 50 shades of a fuxked up relationship with food & exercise.

Like I spoke about earlier, I chased bare bones, wore restriction like a badge, & was abusing carbs like a drug (let alone with my Crohn’s, my body couldn’t digest & utilize carbs & fiber like a normal human being. I was in agony).

The disordered eating & carbs, they’re like a high for us, like a drink to an alcoholic, or a high like that first kiss from that boy you’ve loved for so long.

Some signs of a disordered relationship w/food & exercise:

• Refusing to eat foods you love due to fear of weight gain.
• Avoiding social situations, anxiety.
• Compensating by “working food off,” “earning”, or using food as a “treat/reward.”
• Obsessing about food, tracking, exercise.
• Addiction to specific foods.
• Not being able to moderate specific foods like carbs, sugar, hyperpalatable & caloric foods like bacon, cheese, high fat meats, etc.
• Letting the weight on your scale or missing a work out ruin your day.
• Obsessive body checking in the mirror.
• Constantly seeking validation from things &/or others.
• Falling into the restrict, binge, self hate cycle. Yo-yo dieting.

There’s so many more but the above were biggies for me.

Tips that helped me:

• Find your triggers (food, stress, emotional situations, comparing, etc) write them down & journal or talk to yourself about why you react to them the way you do. You have to gain self-awareness.

• Eat regularly & eat enough for your goals & activity. Binging comes from overly restricting. It’s your body’s survival mechanism. It affects you physiologically & psychologically.

• Eat larger meals with plenty of protein & healthy fats. Carbs & highly palatable, calorically dense foods seem to be a big trigger for most people.

• Determine if you are an abstainer or a moderator. Abstainer’s typically do better with food rules, also get the trigger foods out of your house.

• Eat with friends & family. STAY BUSY to avoid emotional eating or boredom eating. Get out of the house, WALK, clean, call someone, read, watch a movie, color.

• Eat mindfully, chew your food, slow down, portion food on a plate, avoid tracking & weighing yourself if those are triggers.

• On the other hand, tracking & weighing can also help some of us that have lost our true hunger & satiety cues. Often we can’t physically tell when we’re full, so tracking will give us the data for us to make decisions about proper portion sizing.

• Wear comfortable clothes & stop body checking in the mirror. Get new clothes that fit & are flattering. You wear your clothes, they don’t wear you! Stop keeping smaller items in hopes you’ll fit into them again. I find it just causes more disordered behavior & thinking.

• Strive to be self aware rather than judgmental. You are simply on a fact-finding mission to uncover patterns of feelings & behavior so you can work to change them.

• Journal! I cannot tell you how many epiphanies I have had while journaling about food. You don’t have to sit and write out a lengthy entry, brain dump. I’ll just make a list of what I’m feeling & thinking, not worrying about how it sounds or if I use proper sentences or grammar. It releases emotional weight. Use the prompt, “What is the feeling I am trying not to feel?”

• Remove your food triggers & get on a meal plan that works for you. For me, this was the carnivore diet. I have an addiction to carbs. I also do not digest them well, causing physical harm. I cannot stress enough how important it is to eat enough food for proper body function & activity. You should be eating at your maintenance caloric levels the majority of the time. We shouldn’t be chronically dieting. It will really help cut down on overeating & binging & help you relearn portioning & true hunger/fullness cues.

• Opt out of others’ ideas of health, beauty, & diet culture. Cut the toxicity out of your life & monitor what you consume. This means relationships, social media, your environment, what you read & watch – it’s not simply just food. I remind myself:
  • One, there are things that are easy for me that are difficult for other people.
  • Two, people generally share successes & highlights, but not the effort or failed attempts that lead up to them.
  • Three, I am making progress doing what works for me.

• Start prioritizing sleep! We NEED sleep, 7-9 hrs/night. It not only affects you cognitively, but physically. When we don’t get enough sleep, it throws off our hunger & satiety hormones, leptin & ghrelin, making us hungrier & typically crave carbs, sugar, & high fat foods. Getting enough sleep is as important as diet & exercise in fat loss. People who get enough sleep not only physically are healthier but also cognitively make better choices.

• If you do binge or overeat, focus on moving forward. One of the single biggest things (other than the carnivore diet) that helped me was not responding to a binge by restricting the next day. Go back to your normal meal schedule, otherwise, you’re stuck in the restrict & binge cycle AGAIN.

• Seek therapy &/or help from a coach or practitioner. I have a lot of difficult conversations with my therapist. When it comes to conflict & relationships, I’m an avoider. I hate talking about difficult topics, I hate conflict, I feel angry & anxious when I do. But the way to get rid of a monster’s power is to shine the flashlight in the closet and see it for what it is. Talking about a negative thing gets rid of any power it has over you. A surprising thing about therapy is that every time I tell my therapist something I’ve been too embarrassed to tell anyone before, she tells me how normal it is & how it’s in a cause & effect relationship with other things in my life & absolutely can choose again. Amen, right?!

• Keep a compliment journal, write affirmations on post-its & put them on your bathroom mirror, write out positive intentions in your scheduler everyday, list things you’re grateful for every morning. I even save a board of inspiration on Pinterest when I’m feeling low vibe. I always feel better after reading through!

• Be compassionate with yourself when you’re not perfect. Recovery is not linear. Think about how you’re feeling & how to redirect instead of punishing yourself for feeling & thinking certain things. Its like punishing & rewarding yourself with food & exercise. Food is fuel, not a reward. Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do, not punishment. Another reason I loather the word & use of “cheat day.” You’re only cheating yourself.

• If you’re hungry, eat, if you’re not, don’t. We do not need to over complicate things. There is also no one-size-fits-all to anything in life, especially food & fitness. You don’t have to choose a specific diet camp, fitness modality, fasting regimen, etc. Do what feels good & authentic to YOU!

Love you all & sending y’all virtual hugs!

All info you may need lives in my IG Bio Link.

oxox Coach K