I Am What I Chew

Facsimile Bingo Wings - like I'd show you MY arms. Hah!

If you’re overweight, you’ve had one of those Kodak moments when someone catches you unaware and takes your picture before you can suck in your stomach and lift your chin. Seeing this objective portrait of yourself either sends you screaming to the gym or shuffling to your bed to brush away the Dorito crumbs and have another nap.

My Kodak Moment was a photo of myself where I looked like my own grandmother.  I had upper arms that kept waving long after I did.  I had a belly that I could no longer pass off as third-trimester pregnancy because of my age. I had those darn canckles.

I didn’t recognize myself.  I knew I had a weight problem, but all efforts to control it had failed. Sound familiar?

I had survived (with excess poundage intact) Weight Watchers, Fat Fighters, and Cellulite Stopper.  I did all the drugs, including the one that turns your bum into a chocolate fountain and those innocuous “diet pills” in the ’70s which we now know were speed.

I needed to try something else.  Then I had a revelation.  Twenty years ago, I had quit smoking cold turkey by changing my mind-set.  I woke up one day and started thinking of myself as a non-smoker.  Would a non-smoker carry cigarettes and use every coffee break to sneak outside and smoke one?  Of course not.  As a non-smoker, I was disgusted by the smell of smoke and never craved a cigarette again

What if, I wondered, I started to think of myself as a healthy person who exercised and ate a diet of mostly vegetables and fruits? What if I started to live as a Fit and Fabulous person?

And what if I shared my journey with you?  Thus, this blog–a chronicle of what goes into my mouth and into my head.

OK, technically my mouth IS in my head.  Let’s move on.