I was a skinny kid and everyone around me knew I was. I don't remember this being a problem until people commented on it. My best friend was heavy in comparison, and as my parents, who both love food with a passion, became heavy. People all around me complained about their weight and eventually, my girlfriends and I started to compare our bodies and we would know who was heavier and who was thinner. Smaller was decidedly better, and by age 11, I was 5 pound heavier than my 2 best friends. That was a tremendous difference in my mind since I was over the 100 pound mark, and they were in the 90's. That's when it started... my summer of mashed potatoes.

The voice inside my head started fighting and beating myself up for being heavier. This also coincided with smoking pot and getting the munchies. The munchies won the battle, and every day that summer, I fixed myself up a saucepan of those potato buds. You know, the dried out potatoes flakes you boil with water, milk and salt and of course, a huge pat of butter. Every single night I would sit down with my bowl of mashed potatoes. Well, sometimes I alternated them with chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies and milk. That summer, my dad told me I had fat arms. I have had fat arms ever since.

As you can imagine, the weight piled on, I went through puberty, I must have weighed somewhere between 106 and 109 when I started 7^th grade and felt enormous next to the other girls. I started hating my body and started to fight myself. The more I hated and fought, the more unhappy I became, the more I tried to "win" the battle, the harder I fought. Can you see a pattern? I am now acutely aware of every ounce I don't like and the weight continues to dominate my thoughts. I think it is called obsession.

Interestingly, I didn't develop bulimia or anorexia. I just became a warrior, against myself, against the made up weight demons. I didn't want to pass it down to my daughter, but how can you not when your passion, your love is food and a voice inside tells you it is the enemy? How do I make friends with this so called enemy? So, it is like 38 years of battling and I get it is all made up thoughts, those gremlins, that ego that keeps us engaged in the fight. Is there something you have been fighting? How many years? What would it take for you to put down the sword? Please write to me, I want to know.

I had a really fun interview with Eric Dye of Health Podcast. This is a quick 15 minute interview, if you have time, check it out, I give some great relationship advice!

With the advent of facebook, many of us are in touch with our high school friends and people we knew in high school who we weren't necessarily friends with. This is the year my high school graduating class reaches the half-century mark. I turned 50 a few weeks ago and my husband gave me the gift of my friends in Oregon and a trip to the coast. However, a high school colleague, Karen Eastman, gave me the gift of peace when she gave me a Mark Twain quote: "Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it won't matter." And Boom, I instantly felt better, decided not to mind and so far, it hasn't mattered. In fact, I made a pledge to concentrate on what I can do; not on what I can't do. So for example, we walked the beach and up 3 flights of stairs and I was about to complain about my foot hurting (I pulled something) and instead I said, I was able to walk up and down the beach and up the stairs, yeah me!  I felt great!