Health Coach | Speaker | Writer | Welcome to my digital diary! I'm here to help you blend life & fitness to find your health & happy! Thank you for being part of my family & allowing me to add value to your journey!
5 years ago, on a Saturday morning, I wrote a journal entry about my ongoing struggle with binge eating. I detailed my longstanding struggle with my seemingly endless appetite & f*cked up addiction to stuffing huge amounts of food in my face. I was struggling with gut flares & drowning in a black cloud of self loathing & frustration.
I had no “cures” as of yet, but I was now out of the closet & getting REAL with living in the haunted house of this behavior.
Since writing that entry, I created a community here simply sharing my life in hopes of helping others living a similar nightmare. I’ve received dozens of messages from readers asking about my journey of recovery from disordered eating, poor body image, food addiction, orthorexia, & Crohn’s disease.
Living 3 decades of 50 shades of f*cked up, I’ve learned so much about these demons that used to haunt me. I used to feel lost & powerless when it came to what I saw as my most shameful behaviors, but I’ve since found the keys to recovery, unlocked my own cage, & strutted my way out.
Today after going “carnivore” with my diet & changing my perspective on health & fitness, I never binge,& am healthier than I’ve ever been at 40 years old. I want the same for you.
I’m 3+ years carnivore and thriving!
How did I crack the code?
Well, first, I stopped looking outside of myself for solutions, in online articles & advice from friends, doctors, & the latest fads. Instead, I decided to compassionately look inward & get curious.
I started observing myself to understand why I was engaging in this behavior. I found that without exception, I binged in response to 3 different situations that left me hungry physically & mentally:
When I’ve been “restricting” & trying to eat like everyone else instead of for ME When I’m avoiding an emotion &/or lacking purpose When I’m neglecting my own pleasure & needs
By addressing these 3 triggers, I’ve been able to completely eliminate binge eating from my life, lose body fat, & enjoy freedom!
My top-of-the-list priorities now are: Great food in the form of meat & eggs — good sleep & exercise — plain & simple joy & peace.
I don’t categorize dieting & working out as a daily must-do activity anymore. I’ve learned to consider carnivore & exercise a lifestyle choiceI love, not a chore.
And it’s definitely not something I schedule or force myself to do every day because being a CHAMPION means to be someone that loves the work of becoming one more than the idea of becoming one.
Let your wrinkles & stretch marks & flaws serve as tree rings of growth.
Hoosier farm girl & Purdue University grad, Katie is a multifaceted girlboss! She’s a nutritionist, radiologic technologist, personal coach, executive assistant, motivational speaker & writer, brand growth consultant, & connection maker working with individuals, businesses, organizations, & executives. She specializes in gut health, sports nutrition, disordered eating, social branding, human connection, and how to organize/optimize life for better health, increased wealth & happiness! Katie welcomes all preferences & skill levels with a no diet dogma or one size-size-fits-all approach to health, fitness, & nutrition. After decades of struggling with her own health issues from Crohn’s, obesity, disordered eating, infertility, hormonal imbalances, & being a competitive athlete, she is passionate about helping others find self love, achieve their goals, & create sustainable success habits for an EXTRAordinary life! Katie currently resides in Fishers, IN where she has worked in the health, sales, and nutrition field for over 17 years.
I experienced trauma when I was very young. It shaped my life from the moment it occurred & the effects have stayed with me ever since. I still sometimes well up when I think about it while talking with clients. The body remembers those emotions.
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I say this not for sympathy, but to let other people who may have experienced something similar that they are not alone in their feelings, & that they don’t need to carry the shame that often comes with trauma.
I carried my shame, held onto it tightly for probably 3 decades of my 40 years. This shame caused me to form an identity that shaped my future & saw me struggle with Crohn’s disease, weight, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, low self-worth, debt, poor relationships, & self-doubt.
I’ve lost 55lbs via Carnivore & CrossFit
In elementary school, a boy I liked told my friend he would never like me because I was fat. A teacher told me in middle school I was too big to be a cheerleader. Kids in high school called me poor & a chubby farmer’s daughter.
With the wisdom I have now, I understand those comments were made by people who didn’t know me nor have my best interests at heart.
But as soon as those words came out of those people’s mouths, my life changed & another wound slashed through my soul & left me bleeding.
I felt ashamed of my body & questioned its validity & my worth. I felt a burning shame about what my body looked like. I wore a t-shirt over my bathing suits & swim class was a nightmare. I felt embarrassed, & I wanted to hide. I hid my binge eating & wore anorexia as a badge.
As a young girl & young adult, I took the comments at face value, & believed them wholeheartedly.
These labels caused me to identify as someone who was fatter than she should have been, & the only way to prove my worth & beauty were to be skinny & lose weight.
Not only did I feel shame about what my body looked like, I developed shame around what it couldn’t do. I was not the fastest runner or athlete.
The kids at school laughed & teased me about how slow I was when I ran. I was always one of the last picked in gym class for teams.
The identity of being someone who needed to lose weight caused me to question my body so much I was extremely conscious of what I looked like & felt uncomfortable & disconnected in my own body.
I compared myself with other people all the time, always feeling ashamed because I believed I was ‘bigger’ than they were. So I started dieting to whittle my body into the smallest version of itself.
Obsession with weight, body shape & dieting took its hold in my early teens & 20s. I would jump from one diet to another, often ending up bingeing because I was eating so little during the day. I also used to use food to soothe my emotions.
With every failed diet, I slowly began to take on another layer to my identity. I became the girl who needs to lose weight but struggles to look the way she envied in her head.
The emotional weight I carried weighed more than my body did.
I celebrate my body every day now. I have done a lot of work in the past decade unlearning, unbecoming, & rising as a Phoenix. I write this to share with all of you to give you hope.
You see, what I have learned — & it’s been a painful learning, as I look back on how much my life has been affected by the words that I heard when I was a young girl — is that I was never a chubby girl who needed to lose weight. I never needed to go on all those diets in the first place. And, it’s only because of dieting that my weight became a problem.
My body was never the problem. My identity was.
So, I choose everyday to no longer identify as the person who is overweight, sick, broke, & can’t love herself.
I identify as the person I’ve always wanted to be.
Confident & happy in her body. Able to wear whatever clothes she likes. Strong & self-assured. Proud of what she looks like & how she serves others. Someone who celebrates & loves her body.
Someone who is proud of her struggles because they made her strong.
And hello to a sexy woman who celebrates her body in all its forms, & who will never be defined by her weight, other people’s opinions, or the need to shrink herself again.
And you can, too!
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
Hoosier farm girl & Purdue University grad, Katie is a multifaceted girlboss! She’s a nutritionist, radiologic technologist, personal coach, executive assistant, motivational speaker & writer, brand growth consultant, & connection maker working with individuals, businesses, organizations, & executives.
She specializes in gut health, sports nutrition, disordered eating, social branding, human connection, and how to organize/optimize life for better health, increased wealth & happiness!
Katie welcomes all preferences & skill levels with a no diet dogma or one size-size-fits-all approach to health, fitness, & nutrition.
After decades of struggling with her own health issues from Crohn’s, obesity, disordered eating, infertility, hormonal imbalances, & being a competitive athlete, she is passionate about helping others find self love, achieve their goals, & create sustainable success habits for an EXTRAordinary life!
Katie currently resides in Fishers, IN where she has worked in the health, sales, and nutrition field for over 17 years.
here. Confessions of another dirty bathroom photo.
Confessions of another bathroom photo…
I made some big decisions lately.
I’m going down part time in radiology. This is my last full-time week & I booked a legacy photo shoot for my 40th in August.
I read a past journalist entry this morning dated October of 2020.
It read, “My coworkers & I were going thru our schedules & I had a gut check moment. I’ve had 3, THREE whole days off in 2 months.”
My reaction, “WTF, Katie! You have a problem.”
I’ve confided in y’all about how I have an addictive personality.
I was never addicted to 1 thing. I discovered thru therapy I was addicted to filling voids.
It’s a hard shot to swallow. Most truth bombs are.
I reflected on my journey this mornin & gave gratitude for how far I’ve come. And I hope y’all can do the same. Be proud of yourselves!
My addictions were similar shades.
Mornings writing with Pete (and coffee, of course)
I’ve been all 50 shades & shapes & sizes of fugged up, mentally & physically. They affected all my relationships.
Like the memes…
𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲: what do we say when we feel like this? 𝗠𝗲: you coulda had a bad bitch? 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘀𝘁: NO.
Quoting @lizzobeeating seems like a positive life decision for me at this point
You?
My biggest fear used to be gaining weight.
Now, I’ve quickly discovered my biggest fear is missing out on life & working my life away.
I enjoy coaching y’all, writing, speaking, networking with my community, nurturing relationships, & helping others more at this season in my life than trading my time for money.
I want to spend as much time with my mom & dad, my friends & family as I can, making as many memories as I can. Loving the sh*t out of this life, squeezing every drop.
That’s my true wealth.
I hope I gave y’all a laugh, & let you know that it’s OK. We are always 1 decision away from a completely different life.
“Addiction is an attempt to regulate a nervous system chronically stuck in fight or flight.
Addiction is an attempt to escape from feeling a pain and emptiness that runs to the core of a persons being.
Addiction is a form of self abuse. When we are abused or emotionally neglected as children, we can become our own abuser. It’s all we know. Our brains seek to repeat the familiar.
Addiction is the result of not having childhood co-regulation. An inability to self sooth. A lack of healthy ways to cope.
Addiction is the result of witnessing things that were scary, overwhelming, or downright terrifying without having a safe adult to help you understand them.
Addiction is the childhood LACK OF EMOTIONAL CONNECTION, manifested.
Addiction is an attempt to silence the “dark” thoughts that re-play (like a broken record) the voice of the critical parent.
Addiction is the result of a society’s greatest lie: that says some people aren’t lovable, worthy, or valuable.
Addiction is SHAME. And it’s usually a shame that was never that persons to carry.
Addiction causes a person to engage in survival based behaviors they wouldn’t otherwise engage in like: deception, abuse, theft, or betrayal.
Addiction is a slow spiritual death that no human being consciously chooses.”
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
I used to plan big binges on purpose. They were a high. I believed that if I could “get it out of my system” & cultivate enough shame, I would “get my sh*t together.”
It didn’t work. No change ever came from me shaming myself when I kept reliving the same story.
I realized I was hungry all the time – from under eating, eating too many carbs, sugar, & gut trigger foods. The Carnivore way of eating saved my life in more ways than one. Not only did it heal my disordered eating & put my Crohn’s in remission, it helped me find more purpose in my life. You see I was hungry in a much different way than just food.
I realized my worth & my mess was my message. That if I kept my mind busy, fed my soul, & stoked my hunger in more ways than one, I had more enjoyment & satisfaction, not just in my belly, but in my whole life. Somewhere as a kid between farm chores, playing with my little ponies & my 1st diet, I lost the simple enjoyment of my body, my food, & just being me.
Don’t underestimate the value of having purpose & simply staying busy. Tasks & movement engage our bodies & brains to redirect in more positive ways. They offer a sense of structure & boundaries that give comfort to most abstainers when it comes to food/sugar addiction. Along with eating enough food to fuel my body, this was one of the most useful tools in recovery.
Most days, especially when my emotions feel ginormous & suffocating, I create a “to do” list of things to execute during my day.
(I freaking love lists, how bout you?)
It gives me a sense of control, direction, & inner peace.
For a busy bee like me, there is grounding in the “doing,” especially for those of us who have to keep our minds busy.
During times when my disordered eating & binge eating were at their worst, I found correlation in the times when I was bored, restricting more food, eating more carbs, &/or lacked a sense of purpose.
Ways I redirected away from binging: Coffee with a friend, drink more water Go for a walk, get out in nature, sun Go to CrossFit or a group fitness class Clean & purge my home Design something for social media Write a blog, read, listen to a podcast Go for drive & listen to music Color
Until I reached my weight “safe place” or “set point,” my body was still hungry & not losing body fat even on Carnivore. I wasn’t underweight, but my body did not feel safe. It was hard to sense fullness & true hunger. I gained 15lbs when I started Carnivore 3 years ago. It took me a year to heal, adapt, & lose fat. I’m now 20lbs lighter, maintaining my weight eating 2,000+ calories/day.
When I allowed my body to heal & gain the weight it needed to restore my health, a switch went off & I felt capable of eating foods I knew I needed, in amounts I needed without feeling fear. For those of us with a disordered eating history & one of chronic restriction/exercise abuse, safety is everything. Your body decides when you’re ready & recovered.
Your set point & maintenance ranges are not static, like your body & LIFE, they’ll shift & change over time. Genetics, medical history, dieting history, training modalities, food needs/preferences, digestion, body goals, etc will all differ.
Live your life & listen to your gut.
So maybe the question you should be asking is “How do I start satisfying my hunger living a life of purpose authentic to me?” vs “How do I stop binge eating?”
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia, orthorexia & disordered eating. Swipe for some things you may relate to like I did.
Lately I’ve been experimenting, reflecting, & redefining what “beauty” & physical beauty mean to me. At 40, beauty is a feeling & state of being that becomes from knowing I’m listening to, honoring & taking really good care of myself. In my teens, 20’s, & early 30’s beauty meant a certain size, weight, body fat %, barbell PR, & things like how many compliments I got about how I looked… Beauty encompasses the whole body & soul. To me, beauty also has a visual, aesthetic element too (if you want that to be part of your definition) that includes who I want to embody AND see in the mirror. How do I want to feel? For me, the emotions around my body & mind were the pivotal helping or hindering factors on redefining the identity & relationship with my body AND other people. Going carnivore significantly healed my gut issues & relationship with food. Life dramatically improves when you simply honor yourself & stop trying to fit into somebody’s box. As for other people, life dramatically improves when you start seeing people for who they truly are & what they show you instead of romanticizing about what they could be. If some of these sound like you, know you’re not alone. Things won’t get better until you really “do the work” & that starts from within. Sending love & hugs 🤗
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
“You’re just too big to be a cheerleader, hon.” -cheerleading coach, middle school
“Pretty girls are in the front, you fit better in the back.” -a mom, childhood birthday party pictures
“Well, you’re just not polished enough.” -recruiter, job fair in college
“I’m sorry I cheated, I like you, it’s just, she was prettier.” -someone not even worth mentioning here
Naturally I’d be lying if a part of me didn’t want to tell these people of past chapters of my life they can suck it.
I’ll take the high road & use it to help y’all if you’ve ever struggled when someone has devalued you.
People will teach you how to love well by hurting you. They will teach you how to love yourself by not loving you back. Life will teach you evolution & growth through pain & stagnation.
Pay attention to the wisdom the Universe is trying to teach you. Gold is found sifting thru gravel & diamonds are created under pressure.
Hell, crispy airfryer #meatbars were discovered by me being late to work & literally throwing the shizzle my nizzle in the airfryer basket. Now we can’t live without them!
In my youth, I shouldn’t have taken these statements as a reflection of my worth, simply moved on, & not allowed a single encounter to take up so much energy in my heart & taint decades of my being with shame.
This world is made up of a plethora of different people with different priorities with different life situations all 50 shades of f*cked up.
You’re not alone, the difference is how you react to what life throws at you.
People who have broken my spirit have actually led me to having more empathy, more self worth & appreciation for who I am, & the desire to reach out to all of you because I have felt what a lack of human acknowledgment & compassion can do to a person.
Know that your feelings have a real place, & this life can be so much more beautiful & grander if we let love & optimism fully into our hearts.
The first time I set a “fitness goal, “I didn’t even know fitness goals were a thing. I just wanted to lose as much weight as possible.
I started out doing videos at home in my room. I swapped two and three portions of food at dinner for a salad and then walked a mile on the treadmill instead of sitting and watching TV.
I started working out and setting more intentional exercise goals in the 7th grade. I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I was 160lbs and barely 5 foot tall.
Me at my heaviest
Kids were extremely cruel. They called me names. I will never forget the kids who were mean to me, their names, or the way they made me feel.
And I took that as a life lesson into my adulthood that I would be aware of how I made other people feel because the way other people made me feel made a huge impression on the trajectory of my life and perception of myself.
The imprint you make on other people’s lives is truly your legacy. It’s not the number in your bank account, what you look like, your size, achievements or how many titles you have before or after your name.
“To live in the hearts of those we love is to never die.”
Hazel Gaynor
I was 11 years old feeling trapped in an overweight, changing body I didn’t recognize or understand. All I wanted was to be accepted and loved.
As I spoke before my body image issues started at the age of 8 and I had already absorbed the message that being skinny was desirable, powerful even.
If I could just shrink myself down to the “right size”, I’d ace all my classes and win the hearts of all the boys and the popular girls would want to be friends with me.
Although more intentional exercise goals are a positive thing in the right dose, I noticed all I wanted to do was skip meals and exercise more.
My lunch used to be a handful of Ritz crackers and one small snack size cottage cheese container. Dessert, some sugar-free Jell-O.
In retrospect, at 40 years old, it’s something I can only guess was an attempt to exert control over my body, life, & other people in an attempt at “happiness.”
Throughout my school years, college and even when I married early at 22 years old, I struggled with my body image and self-confidence.
I skipped many social functions to exercise and avoid eating. With all my gut issues I didn’t know what to eat without causing some sort of flare up anyways. I resorted to diet pills and taking shots of cold medicine to make myself sleep so I wouldn’t eat.
I figured out when I binged, ice cream was the easiest to indulge because it was easy to throw up. I’d down 2-3 gallons of ice cream in one sitting.
I missed the beauty of exercise as a celebration of what my body could do & the simple love & joy it brought to my life.
I couldn’t see the ways I was hurting myself, pushing myself too hard, eating too little, and denying myself basic care, pleasures, and missing out on making memories with friends and family because of my addictions.
This pattern continued even into my early 30s, even after I shifted my focus away from being purely about aesthetics and losing weight towards performance goals like CrossFit, running, spartan races and lifting.
I knew I had the heart of an athlete and so much potential but why did I always feel like a total failure?
The answer arrived when I broke up with aesthetic or performance goal setting, at least in the way I’d been doing it.
I started focusing more on improving my health, especially my gut health which I struggled with my entire life.
I stopped trying to fit into a box and eat a certain diet because certain athletes ate that way or my favorite Instagram account ate that way.
I started looking at goals as destinations on the horizon, an invitation to do better because now I knew better.
Goals aren’t a finish line or a final destination. There’s simply an invitation.
I started choosing workouts because I loved doing them and they made me feel amazing whether it was running, bodybuilding, spartan races, or CrossFit.
I started eating food that made me feel amazing and I took the knowledge I had gained working as a nutritionist to make smarter adjustments and decisions with things like quality, quantity, macros and the types of foods I was eating.
We’ll talk about food & gut specifics later on in the book.
I’ve been meat based or ”carnivore” for almost 3 years. Outside of coffee & occasional social alcohol, my diet is 99% comprised of meat and eggs. I haven’t had a full blown Crohn’s flare since I started this way of eating.
And in the process of learning, experimenting, and authentically stepping into myself, my greatest fears since childhood, gaining weight and failure, fell away.
I got stronger, leaner, and healthier. I can confidently say at 40 years old I am the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been.
This hasn’t been a linear journey, I’ll remind you it takes a long time.
Simply sit back and enjoy it. It’s taken over 10 years to build the physique you see today. It took me 4 years of intentional healing and doing things I didn’t want to do like eat more food and gain weight to gain my health back.
I tell everyone, especially my clients, any weight that you gain in the process of gaining back your HEALTH is weight you needed to gain.
And what I’ve learned throughout this process is that I can accept that sometimes I must get lost to find what I was looking for all along.
“Lost & found are from the same box. Remember this when you don’t know where you belong.”
**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.
How bout that cat shirt tho? 🙂
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.
Current me 🙂
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.
Huge transformations mentally & physically thru my 40 years!
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.
The scary thing was I thought I was fit & healthy in the left photo, but I remember what hell I was putting my body thru trying to chase a constant smaller version of myself. I still thought I was fat. Thank God for CrossFit, it made me realize what I was doing was wrong & I needed to eat MORE! Strong not Skinny 🙂
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.
My Crispy Airfryer Meat Bars are LIFE! I have an Instant Vortex 6qt airfryer from Target, also on Amazon- Link in IG Bio under Amazon Favorites. I cook about 1-2 lbs of meat at a time, usually 85-90% ground beef & Perdue Ground Chicken, Airfry, 380, 12 minutes!
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!
I used to crave all the sweets. Could smash an entire pan of brownies, boxes of cereal, gallons of ice cream — & I did in the thick of my binging & disordered eating. Followed by days of guilt, inflammation, pain, & more hunger.
Tap for full post with cheat sheets!
Thank God every day for this carnivore lifestyle. This is an important post, please SWIPE, save tag & share freely with someone who needs to hear it or if it’s a simple reminder for yourself.
We think we crave chocolate, cookies, brownies, & ice cream, but our hunger truly is for somethin much deeper, somethin much more nourishing.
Things like love, significance, fulfillment, & connection are what we really crave.
When we allow ourselves to FEEL & RECEIVE & have these things, it’s far more satisfying than treats, overindulgence, & temporary pleasures.
If you feel constant, ravenous hunger, know you are probly feeling undernourished & unfulfilled in more ways than just food.
❌Watch your words, they’re powerful!
“Diet starts tomorrow, or Monday, etc”
“I deserve a ‘cheat meal’ or ‘treat’ because I’ve been, ‘good’ all week.”
“I messed up my diet, might as well splurge & start again Monday.”
“If I eat that I’ll need to make sure I workout enough to burn it all off.”
“I’ll be happy when I reach my goal weight.”
“I don’t deserve to eat that, Ima failure.”
“I can’t do that until I lose the weight.”
Look deeper for what you truly need. Maybe its a walk with a friend, a deep convo, GRACE, a hug, doing something nice for someone else just because, or quiet time with God/the Universe/the Collective or whatever you believe.
⠀Without connecting with ourselves, forgiving our past, & getting real honest on the bullsh*t sandwiches we’ve been feeding ourselves & understanding what TRUE nourishment is — we remain unfulfilled & hungry.
If you are feeling disconnected & lost, my door (& DMs) are always open 🚪💌📲
I have a whole 354 page guide with an entire section dedicated to emotional eating and things to help you. Click below ⬇️
What I have to say may piss some of you off, and that’s OK.
I hear this question a LOT.
I asked you guys what you were struggling with & these were the biggies: What can I do to beat the sugar cravings? And the “I’m bored with my food.”
And I get it, I’ve been there too, & I’ve also realized when I tend to crave things like this it’s because my life & body are out of balance.
⠀So here’s the thing…there’s not just 1 reason why sugar cravings take over. It really could be a number of things, but these are the ones that are worth taking a look at first:
• Under eating, over exercising, overly fasting
• Unbalanced blood sugar
• Too many processed carbs & sugar
• Malnutrition
• Too little sleep
• Not drinking enough water
• Unmanaged stress / emotional eating
• Bad habits
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When you start to become more aware & mindful about what’s causing your cravings & you start linking them to your lifestyle or daily choices, you can start to reset your body & strive for more balance in these areas, to help ease your cravings.
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For me, not getting good, restful sleep is a huge trigger for cravings as well as Crohn’s flares.
Swipe through, I promise the cravings will get better the more you build a foundation on consistency & fueling your body & mind with nutrient dense foods like all the delicious meats & nourishing positive thoughts!
