Hi!

I am the featured Motivator of the Day and I am so humbled I could cry. What an honor.

We are all in this together and we have so much in common. This is where we can carry on about what's going on and we understand. Not much is bizarre to me. I've probably done it, thought of it, etc.

But you know what? It doesn't matter how many diets I have tried, or how many times I have been this weight, or a higher weight, or a lower weight; how many times this has seemed like a wonderful weight, a terrible weight, a good weight, a bad weight--and it was always the same weight regardless of how I was viewing it at the time! I remember when 188 was a horrid weight! I was obese! I remember when 188 was a terrific weight. Oh, if only I could be 188 again!

I've gotten on the scale and exhaled--thinking maybe my breath weighed! LOL! I've weighed with different outfits on, trying to find the outfit that was the lightest. This was when I was weighing in weekly at Weight Watchers. I would joke that I was willing to weigh naked if it wouldn't bother other people!

Tell people that you used to weigh 300 pounds and they will exclaim over you and how wonderful you look and ask how you did it and tell others about you and they will be so proud of you! Otherwise, they will sneer at you and think you have no will power and wonder how you could let yourself go like that. And yet, you just stood there. You weighed the same with both versions-whether you were on the way up or on the way down.

If one more person tells me it's calories in and calories out, energy in and energy out, they better duck because I might throw my salad fork at them! Losing weight is way more than the sum of its parts. In fact, it doesn't add up no matter how you do the math--unless you starve. I've tried that. Wouldn't it be easier if we didn't have to eat at all? I'm fine--until I take my first bite! When I wanted to stop biting my nails and when I wanted to stop smoking, I would crochet and do other things with my hands. What if I'd had to learn to smoke five cigarettes--no more, no less. What if I'd had to learn to bite only four fingernails? No biting, no smoking, no feeding the bears! Piece of cake. Oops! There must be another expression that doesn't have food in it.

Everything is about food. Let's have lunch. Let's do dinner. Come over for brunch. No. I'm not eating this week. I don't bite my nails. I don't smoke. Hallelujah! I quit smoking on January 13, 1989, at 5:30 p.m.! TWENTY YEARS AGO. I quit eating. I quit eating. I quit eating. But I always started eating again. Rats!

Someone said, "food is my friend." Someone else said, "Well, food just hates me!" Is food your friend? How do you befriend food? It's an inanimate object, for heaven's sake! Geez. It's just sitting there. What gives it power? Well, I guess I do. I want my power back. What stops me? Big sigh.

Don't tell me about using a smaller plate. Don't give me platitudes about nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Poppycock. That one doesn't even make sense. Don't talk to me about small bites. Don't tell a compulsive eater that one may eat anything as long as it's in moderation. Moderation, schmoderation. If I could do moderation, what would be my problem? Are moderate people fat? I cannot eat one cookie. I cannot give up food. But I can give up cookies. Don't tell me about how I will end up bingeing on cookies. That doesn't change the fact that I can't eat one cookie. Shall I binge today or tomorrow? There is more to this problem than the lure of cookies.

Self love? Self care? I love and approve of myself. I take good care of myself. I give myself the gift of a pause. Pause. Before I go where I really do not want to go, I pause. A breath. Just a breath. Do I really want this? Will I still love me in the morning? And, if I go ahead? Yes. I still love me.

And so it goes...AND thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm the FEATURED MOTIVATOR! Woohoo, woohoo, woohoo! Hot diggity dog! I'm flying!