Any loss is a good loss!!

Me, Before, still gorgeous


I LOST 8.4 LBS!!! TOTAL LOST - 26!!


Hi All!

Weighed in at 219.2 ! Yes , I did go up, but I also counted my blessings and was thankful for the nice loss this month!

I am tired from running both physically and on the computer last nite. I wasn't trying to be funny, but you wouldn't know it from the emails and comments that I got - mostly from family and friends:

"Tracy, only you could find a way to make water fattening!"


"That was the funniest post yet - I laughed til I cried! Just picturing you running for anything keeps me in stitches!!"

And my personal favorite - "You are so ignorant! Love, Mom" No wonder I'm crazy.....


Well, note to self, have a glass of wine after panicking and before blogging!


Just to keep me in the spirit of things, I went shopping on my lunch hour - I am now a qualified size 18!!! and a tight 16!!


And ....for your viewing pleasure (mine anyway) here are some "new me so far" pics, taken today by my wonderful and talented photog Michele. She is also my team member and diet buddy. Michele has lost over 30 pounds so far! WOO WOO! I am so proud of you , Michele!


We are going to see this thang all the way thru!



SUPERBAD!!





I'm ready for my closeup!!

Arms down, suck it in!

Damn, I'm hot!!

Cya! You can do it!!! Oh almost forgot! Thanks to all for your love and support! Could not have come this far without you!!

Obsession, You're My Obsession....

Hey All!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I took some "me" time, got mani'd and pedi'd and the hair did, and got a few things done around the house for Christmas! Didn't do too bad on Turkey Day - managed to fry one up without burning down someone's house or having to roll someone around in the grass......

I really would like to be funny tonite (or today, depending on when you are reading this), and I had a couple of ideas on what I would write, but something happened just a few hours ago that has kind of shaken me up .

I put a question to Nona earlier this week about being obsessed with the whole weight loss thing. I admit, I dwell on this subject more than I should, almost to the point to where it takes over most of my conversations. Nona informed me that she rarely brings the subject up herself, and that she uses her blog to vent and rant about the struggle. Sooo...I'm gonna take her lead and do that tonite.

For the month of November, I have been in all or nothing mode. I think with the weigh in being right after the holiday and me not reaching some of the goals that I had set for myself had put me in a tailspin. All that I have been able to think about is those numbers on the scale, what I they say now and what I would like them to say by weigh in. I planned what I was going to eat until then, when my period came and how I was going to deal with the excess bloat and how I was going to handle Thanksgiving.

The week of the holiday, I was on a downward slide, so I figured if I upped my water, and ate only when I was hungry I could get a good jump in before the next Tuesday. My only big meal was lunch. On Thanksgiving, I would only have that one good meal. Plus walking every nite, no matter how cold.

Well, it worked. I would have my flavoured coffee w/cream and a few macadamia nuts, a good lunch or a nice meal around five (nothing big after 7p) drink my 64oz of water, then go and do my power walk. Last Monday I was at 222 - this morning I weighed in at 217. I haven't lost 5 lbs in a week since this whole thing started. And I admit, I felt great!! I finally had control over this thing.....

Control...remember this word, we will be coming back to it...

I took and extra vacation day to rest up from the weekend and get a few things done. I ran my mom to her doctor appointment, we did a little shopping and I started and completed a small painting project. I got ADHD, what can I say? Anyhoo, I looked up and realized that it was about 7:15 and I had not had any dinner or water. I had a small salad for lunch, and I was very hungry so I made some tuna salad and poured myself 20oz of water. By 7:45, I had eaten the salad and managed to drink all 64 oz of water. The water was no problem, it was the food that I was having trouble with. On Atkins, or any diet, you are advised to eat until satisfied, not stuffed. Because I was hungry, I was eating a bit more that I would have liked, but I noticed that I was trying to make do with two or three bites of food. I was equating the feeling of hunger and an empty stomach with the weight loss, when just the opposite is true. So I choked down a little more and finished off the rest of my allotted water.

Now, I usually go walking about an hour after my last meal. It was pretty late so I decided to do maybe a half hour on the stair stepper and call it good. That was before I got on the scale..

See, I am a scale junkie...I would say that I weigh myself 3-6 times a day. I use the scale to measure how much exercise, if any, that I would do that nite to either maintain my current weight or lose for the week. On a normal day of eating , if I weighed in before my walk, my weight would be up about 2 lbs.

When I weighed in tonite, the scale read 224 - seven pounds! I had a panic attack, my head literally swam. All that I could think about was how I blew it, how I shouldn't have eaten that damn tuna (never mind that a gallon of water probably weighs 5lbs) and how I am not going to make my goal for the weigh in tomorrow. Then I looked in the mirror and something happened that made me almost get sick.

I didn't like what I saw. You know how you look at circus mirrors and it's all distorted? That's how I looked. All that I could see was an old "before" image of me.

Well that did it - I bundled up and at 9:00 pm in 27 degree weather, I headed out for a four mile walk. Only, I didn't walk. I felt crazy, just really anxious and the walk didn't feel like it was doing any good. I still felt bloated, I felt bigger. So I started to run. Not jog, not fastwalk, but run - and run til I was out of breath. Then I would slow down, catch my breath and run some more. I probably was running two blocks and walking two blocks, something that I always wanted to be able to do at this point in my exercise training. And I tried to tell myself that I was finally getting to a new level, but I knew exactly what I was doing.

I was trying to control my body and get rid of this ugly feeling of failure that I had. A scale - an inanimate object - had me losing my mind. Look, I am far from being an anorexic, but I got a taste of what goes on and it scared me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was so important to be at a certain weight or why I was being so competitive in the first place. Or why I was panicking.

So, I arrived home winded and confused, and immediately sat down and took a minute to count my blessings. My mom is in good health, my brothers are prosperous and have their right minds, I have great friends both here and in the blogosphere, I am gainfully employed and life overall is good and filled with God's blessings.

So why can't I get over the scale? I did weigh myself again - the running worked, down to 219. And I have told myself that I will be happy with whatever the scale says tomorrow - but I don't know if I believe that.....

Til next time.....

Oh! Shout out to Nona! Glad you are feeling better! And to Dia at Runchilde, congrats on your recent loss! You will be on that motorcycle in no time!

YOU CAN DO IT!!

Sorry ...

I have been wretchedly ill this weekend with a stomach virus and not able to complete my weekly post. Will be back to regular programming this week.

Do What You Love.....

Hey All!

Nona does the tango and plays tennis. TS has dance fever. Ms. Runchilde takes karate lessons. And your's truly is a hiking fanatic.

What do these women have in common? Besides the fact that they are four strong beautiful Black women that could snap mere mortals in two like a dry twig (don't know about you, but if I ever meet Dia / Runchilde I'm gonna be reeeeeeally nice)?

We all have found a way to combine fun and fitness into a formula for success. Exercise does not have to be a chore. In fact, the more you dislike it, the more excuses you make for not exercising, and poof! it's back to the cheeto's and tv.

But find something that you love and cannot wait to do, like dance or tennis, push a little harder so you get your cardio in, and WALA! There is your no nonsense, gee was that exercise workout routine. Try it! YOU CAN DO IT!!

I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!! Course, mine can't be too happy, cuz I weigh in on the Tuesday after! What genius thought of that one? So far, I have dropped 3 more pounds for a total of 22 lbs since the start. Would like to get in the 2 - teens for weigh in - that was my goal. Sooo, eww I'm gonna be like those folks that you see in the afternoon on Thanksgiving, running or walking their dinner off! Guess I'm hooked!

Sorry to be so short - been battling the flu bug! But I got well just in time to cook dinner for the pack of ingrates that are passing themselves off as family members. Think I will cough all over the turkey......

Til next time!

Listen to the Hunger

Moving to the USA to attend graduate school, was a big change for me. Moving is generally recognised as one of life’s big stressors, and this move was no exception. It wasn’t just the challenge of getting used to a new environment that was problematic for me, I’d lived in Paris for two years preceding my move to the USA and so was prepared for that challenge. The thing that made the move most difficult for me was America’s racial politics which depending on one’s temperament, can generate more distress and heartache than any human should have to endure.

My sense of displacement, alienation, disillusionment, hurt and anger manifested themselves as a gnawing hunger which eating did not satisfy. This hunger grew more and more insatiable as time went on. I felt as though a huge hole had opening up in my soul and I needed to fill it to survive … to be whole. At first I would make myself little treats that I’d always enjoyed at home over conversations with my friends. I was trying I guess to recreate the warmth and connectedness of those moments. When that didn’t work I increased the quantities and when that didn’t work I began to branch out, trying one thing after another in larger and larger quantities. By the time I was consuming 20,000 calories a day in cakes, ice cream, sweet biscuits, chocolates and growing larger and larger, I realised that I was locked in a destructive cycle from which I desperately wanted to escape.

Every morning I tried to start fresh. I'd promise myself that I would not eat as I had done the day before. Sometimes I made it until 10am, sometimes noon but always I caved in before the day was over. It often started with having just one chocolate bar and that one would lead to 10 within an hour, which would lead to whole cakes, pints of ice cream, boxes of sweet biscuits etc.

Luckily for me, I happened to be invited to a party about 6 months into my binging career, where I overheard a women talking about her problems with compulsive overeating. I was not that familiar with the term then but I recognised it immediately as one that fitted my behaviour very well. I managed to catch her alone later on that evening and asked her how she managed to stop compulsively eating. She suggested I read a book called Listen to the Hunger by Elisabeth L. and gave me her number to call her once I’d read it. I got the book a few days later. It is quite a small book. Only 84 pages and I read it in one sitting as I cried and binged on chocolate bars.

The introduction read:

If someone habitually overeats, it is safe to say that person is hooked on using food to do things food cannot do. Habitual overeating is an addiction as powerful as the addiction to alcohol or other drugs. In many ways, it is even more difficult to deal with food abuse, since no one can stop eating completely. We can put alcohol and other drugs out of our lives. We do not need either substance for survival. We do need food. We must find a way to identify our legitimate hunger for food without letting it expand and absorb other hungers that need to be fed.

If whenever we feel a twinge of emotion, our first impulse is to put something in our mouths, we are misreading our inner signals. The key to getting “unstuck” is learning to pay attention to what is behind the craving for excess food. What needs are being masked or covered up by the desire to eat more? What is the hunger about?

The path away from food abuse leads out of the boredom and despair of compulsion into a many-splendored world of feeling and participation. The way out is sometimes steep and twisting, with temporary roadblocks, detours, and slippery places. It is a path to be travelled daily with all the aid and assistance we can get. Professional healers can help. So can fellow travellers. Our greatest resource – which is always available – is the inner voice that tells us who we are, what we feel, and what we need. If we will take time to listen and learn, we will slowly discover what the hunger is all about. The hunger will lead to an ever-increasing knowledge of what life is all about. We will grow through our hungers into greater understanding and strength. Each day will be richer and fuller. We will not cease to be hungry, but will learn what satisfies.

That was the beginning for me of a long and arduous journey of recovery from compulsive eating and sugar addiction to a healthy and balanced life.

Adios - For Now

Alright Ladies and Gents ( I know you're out there),

This is me saying goodbye....for now. I have a Masters Thesis that has to get written and I have been procrastinating and procrastinating and now it's down to the wire. I'm not very good at multi-tasking so I'm not going to be able to blog and write my thesis. So I'm signing off for now. I'll be back no later then Jan 1.

Fear not however Sweet Potato Pie will live on. Tracy and Nona will continue to hold down the fort I'm sure. So keep coming back. There'll be plenty of weight loss news, tips and humor to keep you on track or to help get you started on your weight loss goals. Thank you all for making Sweet Potato Pie such a success.

C-You in January,

T.S. Johnson

Set Your Dieting Rules

Set your dieting rules. What are dieting rules? Dieting rules are a set of guidelines that you will follow to help you achieve your weight loss goals and hopefully, by the time you've reached your goal weight, they become habits and an everyday part of your life.

On average you have to do something 17 times before it becomes a habit. 17. So don't think you're just going to wake up one morning, decide you're gonna lose weight and all your old habits will just fall by the wayside. No, you have give yourself a set of rules to follow to make that transition possible. And remember these have to be things you can live with FOR LIFE. Not just something you're doing until you get fit into the little black dress.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about here are my dieting rules:

T.S. Johnson's Dieting Rules

1. Eat breakfast no exceptions. Even if it is just a piece of fruit.

2. Drink at least a glass (8oz) of water after I eat anything. And I mean ANYTHING. If I chew a piece of gum I've got to drink water.

3. Walk at least 30 minutes a day 6 days a week. No exceptions. If I do other things fine but if can't do anything else I gotta at least walk.

4. Eat 25 - 30g of fiber everyday. No exceptions. Doesn't matter what else I eat...gotta get the fiber in.

5. Don't feel guilty about falling off of the wagon. Recognize it happens and as long as I'm doing Steps 1-4 I should be okay.

So there you have it. Those are the rules I live by and let me tell you it makes a WORLD of difference in trying to lose the weight and sticking to my goals. So if you haven't set you some rules...get to it. It could mean the difference between losing the weight and trying to lose the weight.

Today is a new day. So what are you waiting for?

Weight Loss Tip of the Day

Make lunch your main meal. Although they do this throughout Europe, a good explanation for eating your big meal at midday comes from ayurveda, India's 5,000-year-old approach to wellness. "According to ayurveda, we're actually designed to eat the larger meal at lunch because our digestive 'fire,' called agni, is strongest between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., so we digest more efficiently," explains Jennifer Workman, a Boulder, Colorado-based ayurveda specialist, registered dietitian and author of Stop Your Cravings (Free Press, 2001). "I've seen people in my practice lose 5 to 10 pounds just by doing this."

Source

Weight Loss Tip of the Day

Start with soup. This Japanese tradition is one of the best weight-loss strategies. That's because eating soup, particularly the broth-based vegetable kind, before your entrée fills you up so you eat less during the meal, explains Barbara Rolls, Guthrie professor of nutrition at Penn State University in University Park, and author of The Volumetrics Eating Plan (Harper-Collins, 2005). A two-year French study of 2,188 men and 2,849 women found that those who ate soup five to six times a week were more likely to have BMIs below 23 (considered lean), compared with infrequent- or noneaters whose BMIs tended to be in the 27 range.

Source

Food Diary - Day 3

So today was a really bad day for me. When I say bad, I mean BAD. Anywho, I did what I normally do when I have a bad day...found something good to eat. This time...a pint of Blue Bell Cookies n' Cream ice cream. Sigh. I'm a work in progress.

Breakfast - Kashi high fiber cereal with 2Tbs of raisins
Fiber - 12g
Water - 16oz

Water - 16oz

Lunch - Grilled chicken with medium apple
Fiber - 4g
Water - 16oz

Snack - Pint of Blue Bell Cookies n' Cream ice cream
Fiber - 0g
Water - 16oz

Water - 16oz

Snack - Pecans and raisins trailmix
Fiber - 3g
Water - 16oz

Dinner - Grilled chicken with mushrooms, onion and carrots
Fiber - 12.3g
Water - 16oz

Total Fiber - 31.3
Total Water - 112oz
Exercise - 30 minutes walking/running
20 minutes on the treadmill
30 minutes weights

Eat Like the Master.....

Mere seconds before all the lycra exploded......

Hi All!!

Had a faaabulous time Saturday nite! Details next post, I'm still recovering (what can I say, I'm old!)

I did want to add a quick thought for y'all tho....

Recently, my mother was told by her doctor that she could eat pork. Lean pork, mind you, but pork just the same. She was astounded! She thought that all pork was bad for you and that the pig was the cause of heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.

I, of course was elated, cuz me and little oinky have been best friends since grade school. But now that I am older and wiser (and fatter), I realize that you have to be smart about everything that goes into your mouth. So, ladies, and gents too (I know you are out there! Call me!) get your pencils and papers out! Here is your guide for pork, and just about any kind of meat or food:

EAT LIKE THE MASTER, NOT LIKE THE SLAVE


Ok, this part is for the Black Folks - everyone else talk amongst yourselves....

We have all heard the stories about Massa getting the good part of the hog, cow, etc and the slaves getting the leftovers. That's how we got chitin's, pig feet, ears, stomach, tongue, brain and all the other parts that should be thrown away. Yes, we were talented enuf to make all of that taste good, and we have even made some of this main stream, but at what cost? OUR LIVES!

These "parts" are all just fat and gristle, not meat. Instead of eating and "seasoning" with the leftovers, eat the lean cuts. Watch the bacon and ham or anything that is smoked(including turkey) for nitrates and salt. Folks, we're not slaves anymore, and while some of us are far from rich, there are affordable, leaner choices that can be made.

Trim the fat to 1/8" and grill or bake, and center cut chops are a lean choice. Tenderloin roasts are also and excellent choice. Same goes for beef, and chicken. Do you know I actually saw some chicken feet for sale? How much meat can be on those? And whose idea was it to market turkey tails?

If you are a carnivore, like me, make it a point, no a mission, to eat healthier, better quality foods. They will make a difference in how you look and eventually feel.

Oh yeah, get some salad and veggies in there too! ;)

Til next time, good night!

Weight Loss Tip of the Day

Do you suffer from buffet thinking? If the availability of more food items adds to your temptation level then, you'll have to answer "Yes.". A recent study suggested that the more food choices you have, the more you consume. Stick to a healthy variety of a fewer number of items and you may be less likely to overeat.

Source

Food Diary - Day 2

Today wasn't the best day but I got all my fiber in and just barely made my water goal for the day.

Breakfast - Kashi Cereal with 2Tbs of raisins
Fiber - 12g
Water - 16oz

Snack - Large pear
Fiber - 4.5g
Water - 16oz

Snack - 1 6 pack of Oreo cookies
Fiber - 2g
Water - 0oz

Snack - Pecan and rasin trailmix
Fiber - 3g
Water - 0oz

Dinner 1 - Big N Tasty value meal with cheese from McDonalds
Fiber - 8g (Yeah really. No lie.)
Water - 8oz

Water - 8oz

Dinner 2 - Grilled chicken with sauteed mushrooms, onions and carrots
Fiber - 12.3g
Water - 16oz

Fiber - 39.8g
Water - 64oz
Exercise - 30 minute walk/jog
20 minutes on the treadmill
30 minute weights/abs

Weight Loss Tip of the Day

Avoid eating anything directly out of the container, particularly foods that lend themselves to binges like ice cream or potato chips. It's virtually impossible to practice portion control when you eat straight out of a container. Plus, the experience of eating the food in and of itself will be different. As you eat from a container, you're likely to feel out-of-control, thinking, "If I'm being this 'bad' then I should just go all the way." You'll feel more in charge of your actions by eating one serving mindfully from a dish.

Source

Food Diary - Day 1

Food diaries are a great way to keep track of what you're eating and keeps you honest about what you're consuming and how much you're consuming. I've been resisting FOREVER actually keeping a food diary. I thought it was hokey and unnecessary but it turns out it is a very handy way to keep me on track with attaining my goal of 25 - 30 grams of fiber a day and ultimately getting down to 140 pounds.

So I will keep a daily food diary until I reach my goal weight. Feel free to comment. Talk about keeping it honest...with the whole world watching and all.

Breakfast - 1 cup of Kashi high protein, high fiber cereal with raisins.
Fiber - 1 2g (including raisins)
Water - 16oz

Snack - 1 small apple
Fiber - 3.0
Water - 16oz

Lunch - Spinach salad with tomato, cucumber, carrots and oil and vinegar dressing.
Fiber - 5.6g
Water - 16oz

Snack - 1 large pear
Fiber - 4.5
Water - 8oz

Snack - 1 6 pack of Oreo cookies
Fiber - 2g (Really. Scouts honor)
Water - 8oz

Dinner - Veal with carrots and mushrooms
Fiber - 0g
Water - 16oz

Snack - 1 small apple
Fiber - 3.0g
Water 16oz

Total Fiber - 29g
Total Water - 96oz
Exercise - 30 minutes of walking/running
20 minutes on the treadmill
30 minutes of weights/abs

A Dose of Hateration: Damn Those Men!

Why Men Lose Faster than Women

Men Have Faster Metabolisms
Men are biologically programmed to have higher amounts of lean body mass, or muscle, than women. Lean body mass is the key factor that determines the rate of one's metabolism, the body's calorie-burning system. Since men have more muscle, their metabolisms are higher, and they burn more calories even when they're resting, so the final result is a more rapid weight loss.

How much faster are men's metabolisms than women's? Research has found that on average the metabolism of a man is 5 to 10 percent higher than that of a woman of the same weight and height.¹

Men Are More Active
Another reason men often lose weight faster then women is that they tend to be more physically active. In fact, a study reported in the American Journal of Physiology found that women burn an average of 16 percent fewer daily calories than men.² The researchers looked into that difference, finding that the women's resting metabolic rate was 6 percent lower than that of men (e.g., a slower metabolism) and that the calories burned in physical activity was 37 percent lower than that of men. In other words, the women were simply not moving as much as the guys so were burning fewer calories.

This burns me up. I know it shouldn't. But I'm sure if you've ever dieted with a male friend or significant other and watched while he gets all svelte and sexy and you still look like a chunky monkey you know how I feel.

This is why there will never be a female Biggest Loser. I just don't think it's possible with men burning off more calories at a faster rate. I'm convinced that as long as the game is played the way it is it's just not going to happen.

This particular article doesn't mention it but others do that because women are the birthing ones of the species we keep a higher percentage of body fat which also makes it difficult for us to lose weight. ARRRRGH, I say.

But the more active thing we can work on. Even if men aren't athletes they still get out there and play ball or something physical in nature. Women aren't so inclined to do that. We sit around and talk..lol. And if you're like me and my friends, there is usually some food involved. LOL. So yeah...we gotta take responsibility for what we can.

To read the rest of the article click on Why Men Lose Faster than Women under 'Articles' in the sidebar.

Weight Loss Tip of the Day

Dietary control and exercise. It’s true what they say - all you need to do is watch what you eat, and expend more energy than you consume. It’s really that simple. You now know everything you need to know and didn’t need to fork over $500 for the privilege of me telling you the secret of losing weight. You don’t need to read a 4,000 page book, you don’t have to buy a tape series, you don’t need to stay up late at night to watch infomercials to understand this basic premise. It’s 100% true.

Source

The Beginning of An Abusive Love Affair

I have searched my memory for the one defining moment that moved me from a “normal” eater to a “not-so-normal” one, but I can’t find it.

I don't think there was just one defining moment but rather many little moments that had the cumulative effect of driving me to eat more than my body needed for its health.

My parents, though married for 50 years, have had an acrimonious and contentious relationship which I think created great obstacles to them being emotionally available parents. They fed, clothed, housed, schooled and protected us, but they were almost completely incapable of providing emotional stability, nurturing, support or guidance.

When I look back at my childhood, I still feel keenly my sadness, loneliness, bewilderment and fear. I suspect that my inability to manage so many distressing and destabilising emotions drove me to seek comfort in sweet foods. Of course, I don’t remember the exact moment or circumstance when it struck me that sweets had special powers to anaesthetise pain, but I do remember that from the age of 8, I developed such an obsession with sugary foods that I was driven to steal coins from my father’s trouser pockets to finance my growing taste for toffees, sugar cakes, nut brittle, boiled sweets and whatever else I could get a hold of. I was even willing to risk the wrath of God, by keeping half the money my mother gave me for Sunday School collection each Sunday, to buy sweets on my way home from church.

My mother ran a very healthy kitchen and she rarely gave us snacks or sweets, so I had to be very careful about concealing my habit from my parents and my three sisters. One thing I could not conceal though was my growing body. I moved from an average sized little girl to a chubby one seemingly overnight if you go by my childhood photos. Yet I don’t remember anyone expressing alarm or realising that something must be wrong.

A few years ago I told my mother about my stealing and secret binges as a child and in her characteristically emotionally detached way, she said, “Oh that’s why you used to bring your lunch back home almost everyday.”

I didn’t remember not eating my lunch, but I did remember eating so many sweets between leaving school and arriving home that I didn’t have any appetite for dinner and would often just nibble stuff and push my food around my plate to make it look like I’d eaten something so I wouldn’t get into trouble for not eating.

I asked my mother if she didn’t find it strange that I didn’t eat lunch and sometimes didn’t eat dinner, but was growing fatter by the minute. She just shrugged which I took for a 'no'.

When people talk about obesity being a family illness, they are usually referring to parents who overeat and cultivate the same habits in their children, but what you hear less about is children eating to comfort themselves in a dysfunctional environment or parents who are themselves a healthy weight but watch their children growing fat without acknowledging that something is terribly wrong in their child’s life.

My mother did try to intervene a few times when I was a teenager, after doctors warned her that I was too heavy for my height, but whatever strategy suggested by the doctor she tried to enforce never worked because it did not take into account the reason for my eating.

When I left primary school for high school at 11, I no longer had to steal to acquire sweets because I got an allowance and could buy whatever I wanted. It seems to me though that when I entered high school my consumption of sweets slowed down and though I did continue to have what I called at the time a “sweet tooth”, it didn’t seem quite as intense as it had been in primary school. I went from what I now understand was "binging" to "grazing", which essentially means that while I still needed sugar I no longer felt the need to eat huge amounts of it all day long. I just took smaller quantities throughout the day. So for example instead of having 5 bags of M&Ms for lunch. I would have lunch and one packet of M&Ms after for a treat. If my friends and I went out for ice-cream intead of ordering a double cone in front of them and then when they were gone doubling back for two more double cones, I was satisfied with my double cone while they ate their singles.

I was definitely still attached to sugar and I was still overweight but as I grew less emotionally dependent on my parents and began to develop my own life and perhaps some emotional resilience, sugar played a more minor role in my life ... that is until I moved to the United States for graduate school.

Speaking of Compulsive Eating....

Hey All!

It's been like a rollercoaster these past few days! Yes, I fell off of the wagon, but I am back on and holding on to the reigns!

"Oh goodness, Tracy, how ever did that happen?" I can truthfully say that it was not my fault....It was my Uncle's fault....He died. The wake was last Friday and the funeral was on Saturday. All weekend long I was up to my ass in fried chicken, sweet potato pie (I ate a whole one by myself), greens, dressssinng, and every kind of cake you can imagine.

Ladies, it was not pretty. Now I know how drug addicts feel when they relapse - I totally lost control. And I kept telling myself "Okay, just have one more piece of this pie, then stop. You can cheat a little, it won't hurt". Next thing you know, Sunday morning I'm at the all you can eat breakfast buffet with two plates full of french toast sticks and a bowl of maple syrup. The maple syrup was my beverage...

What stopped me dead in my tracks was two things - I started to feel dizzy and lightheaded from all of the sugar and carbs that I was eating, and I totally forgot about a certain purple sequined dress that I had to squeeze in THAT NEXT SATURDAY!!

Soooo, I put that weekend behind me, and started fresh last Monday - four pounds heavier!! have managed to shed two of those pounds so far, and my goal before the next weigh in is 10 lbs. I want to be in the 2-teens by the end of the month. I can do it....but for right now, I gotta get in that dress!

It's a cute little number...I was going to post pics this time, but the dress wasn't fitting as smoothly as I would have liked. But no problem!! I came up with a solution tonite as I was retrying the dress on.

Now, ladies, Moi is a firm believer in foundations - ya know, girdles! Put one on, drop a size and smooth out the love handles, plus they help your posture. You won't be able to exhale, and you are probably crushing some major organs, but who really needs a liver and a pancreas anyway? You are looking good, that's all that matters!

The dress is a little snug around my problem area - the middle! I swear, I look like an apple on two sticks. I am doing 50 crunches a night and it is helping some, but I gotta look good by Saturday, so I needed a quick fix. Now, the girdles that I have are pretty much for support, so if you have a belly and no waist line, they kind of meld into one round like shape. For this dress, I needed some hips and a waistline, so I went to the tried and true method for fakin' the funk.....

That's right, I reached for the Saran Wrap! Laff if you want to, that stuff is better than Spanx! And cheaper too! Five or six go rounds around my middle and WALA! - instant waistline! And as an added bonus, once you are wrapped like a mummy, you don't want to eat as much because you are scared of the whole thing rolling into a big tourniquet and cutting you in half!

HAHAHA! Don't ya love being a girl? I'm not even going to mention the purple suede matching shoes that deform my feet as I walk! By Sunday morning, I'm going to have hoofs (hooves?) but Saturday nite, I'm gonna look great!

Well, I think the lesson we all can learn from this is :

a. When you are dieting, try not to have relatives die. If they can't help it, don't go to any funerals til after you have reached your goal.

b. When you fall, get right back up, forgive yourself, and carry on. No one is perfect, and the road to success is paved with little slip ups.

c. French Toast sticks RULE!!

d. Saran Wrap is a girl's best friend.

Til next time, keep up the good fight ladies! YOU CAN DO IT!