Intro

Hello and WELCOME to my new blog!  I'm Suzi, and if you already know me, then you know that I am 51 and about 100 pounds overweight.  Yeah, I don't look THAT fat or even that old, but I am. 

Once upon a time I was not this heavy.  Just two years ago I was only 40 pounds overweight.  Yeah, I know.  40 pounds is still a lot to carry, but life was good!  I had a hot young boyfriend keeping me real happy.  I had a great dental hygiene job in Burbank, Ca.  I worked out with a personal trainer 3 times a week.  I was clicking right along and POW!  The trunk of my car lost the hydraulics and came crashing down on my dental-hygiene-working-arm (crushing my radial nerve).  Party over. 

I was home on my butt for over a year.  I gained 60 pounds.  I was inactive, depressed, in pain, and messed up.  The trunk incident happened on top of two previous whiplash injuries:  I was rear-ended in 1999 and T-Boned in 2006.  My doctor told me that if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.  With each of these accidents, plus rounds of painful physical therapy, excessive boredom, and an inability to work in my profession, I started packing on the pounds.  I tried dieting, but the only thing I lost was about 2 solid years of income. 

A few years before THAT I was looking good!  I was working in Miami as a plus-size professional model, walking the runways for Saks, Macys, Lord & Taylor, Tommy Hilfiger, and others.  I was in magazines and catalogs and TV commercials.  Not bad for a size 14 / 40 year old, right?   I joined the Screen Actors Guild and had a blast.  I was working out with a trainer three times a week and I was in the best shape of my life!  When I got rear-ended in 1999, I couldn't wear high heels anymore.  I started gaining weight during that time of recovery. 

Now, my body hurts, I have acid reflux, I can't tie my shoes anymore the way skinny people do, I've stopped working out, I wish I had a bidet, I avoid stairs because my ankles hurt on the way down and I feel unsteady (and this really sucks because I live on the second floor so I have to take the stairs everyday), my blood pressure is almost at the verge of requiring medicine, my hot young boyfriend dumped me because I gained too much weight, and boo hoo...the list goes on. 

Here I am.  100 pounds and packing.  I can't stop eating.  I've lost all control, and for a while I lost all desire to be fit.  It's a chronic daily battle.  It's frickin' hard work when you're exercising and working with traumas to your body.  Sometimes it was enough just to get up and out of bed in the morning.  So yeah, I leaned on food for comfort.  I turned to food for companionship.  My current social life revolves around food as it does for many people, especially in OHIO!  Let me tell ya, it's not like living in California where it's easy and convenient to eat healthy.  OK, that's a lame excuse.  We can all make healthy choices if we want.  I chose to make bad choices.  Dammit,  I guess I can't blame it on being in Ohio with my Jewish family and overweight friends, can I?   ;-) 
OF COURSE in my lifetime I have tried dieting, but when it comes to food and overeating I have more issues than "People Magazine."  I get sad when my plate of food is almost gone. Does anybody else feel sad to see the amount of food on their plates dwindle?  "Aww.  I'm going to have to stop eating now."  I just want to keep eating and eating and eating...

 I think about food all the time.  I salivate all day long when I know I'm going to eat at my favorite restaurant at some point in the day.  I eat until I want to puke like the Romans in ancient times.  I gorge myself everyday...and my life is a total mess.  I have no money, no man, no prospects.  All I have is me and sugar and salt and fat and a sweet convertible.  And I have MolarTron.  If I didn't have MolarTron, I think I'd really sink into the abyss.  MolarTron is a children's dental super-hero who fights Dee Kay, plaque, and other crimes of the mouth, and now MolarTron is helping kids fight diabetes, too.  I have two MolarTron & Friends books published and I go out into schools and teach kids about good dental and general health. 

MolarTron gives me a reason to get up every morning, even though I hardly sleep the night before due to two new conditions I've acquired:  menopause and sleep apnea.  Hot flashes are kicking my ass!  All night long it goes like this:  Covers on.  Covers off.  Get up and pee.  Covers on.  Covers off.  Get up and pee, turn on fan.  Covers on.  Covers off.  Shit.  The alarm's ringing.  ALREADY??  OMG!  I gotta pee!!  Gotta shower off the sweat. 

Menopause is bad enough because my hourglass shape has gone wild.  I'm an apple now.  OMG!  I have no waistline anymore.  I am all belly.  But I can't stop with the sugar, fat, and salt addiction.  I need help, big time.  So, a charitable guy I know named Danny Bobrow suggested I try "Take Shape For Life" using the Medifast 5 + 1 meals, and I have decided to do it.  And I'm gonna do it publicly...

Danny is my coach and one of his cool mantras is:  LEAD BY EXAMPLE.  Ok, so that struck a cord with me.  I was like, "Suzi, how can you stand up in front of a group of kids and tell them about the hazards of sugar and being overweight when you're overweight yourself!  I mean, COME ON!!"  So when Danny said, "Lead by example," a light went off in my head and voila!  Here I am, about to go on an incredible weight-loss journey...with YOU!

I am doing this publicly because I am a great starter but a lousey finisher, so if I have YOU to help me be accountable, then my chances for success are much higher. Remember, I'm the girl with the luck problems, so right now I need all the good luck and help I can get.

I hope you'll come on this journey with me.  If you have some weight to lose we can do it together, and encourage each other, and inspire each other!  Maybe we can make our own little group therapy session on here.

Stay tuned.  I have some video blogs to download.  I've been pigging out this week, as I know many of us do right before we start a diet.  Why do we DO that??!!!  I am so annoyed with myself.