I spent half my teenage years eating crisp bread, cottage cheese and celery sticks... and the rest chowing down on chocolate... It was years before I could tolerate the thought of cottage cheese... still not a favourite even now. I've done all fruit diets (once turned red from head to toe because I'd been eating nothing but strawberries all day and I had a reaction... red skin, red hair... was a charming picture, let me tell you. High carb, no carb, low carb, high protein, no protein... low calories, no calories – ever had the shakes and chills because you weren't getting enough calorically to drive your body? Join the club.   The things that always worked best were balanced programs, that preached moderation... and somehow even though they worked during the weight loss itself, the message inherent in the program never reached me. It was always “when I get to goal, I'll be able to eat this, or I'll eat that”... However, it's the nature of the overweight personality to want everything all at once - “I should be able to eat anything I want and still be thin! It's not fair” (insert picture of pouting 6 year old here). Not now – but right now!!” The current estimate of people who actually manage to keep the weight off for a lifetime isn't encouraging, it's about 5%. The reason that this is so is that people do not grasp that the changes they are making have to be permanent life style changes, not just a diet that they can go off. Remember, just because you've lost 20, 40, 75, 100 or whatever pounds, the essential “you” of your body has not changed – you are still addicted to sugar, still react to preservatives, still want that bowl of ice cream when you're feeling lonely, and still gain weight when you eat more calories than you burn off... That sad to say will never change. What has to change, can change, and WILL change is your coping techniques with all of that. You'll learn new ways, or even just how to incorporate MORE ways of coping with stress, emotions, the food temptations that are out there in the “real world”. You;ll learn that saying no to that food that you once thought of as a treat, and now think of as poison is not saying no to happiness or love or comfort, it is instead saying yes to being thin, healthy, happy... there is real value in the peace of mind that comes with control over this addiction to food that we share. My soul feels like it can breathe now... Don't you want that? Of course you do, or you wouldn't be here (silly me). I mentioned addiction – I don't use that term lightly. Because we are food addicts. Both on a psychological and a physiological level. And we need to be realistic about this. Expecting us to do well with cookies and ice cream and cake and chips and whatever sitting in our kitchen calling our name is like expecting a recovering alcoholic to do well while having a fully stocked liquor cabinet in his or her home. Or a recovering drug addict to do well with instant easy access to his or her drug of choice. Food has been OUR drug of choice. And we are kicking the habit, one step at a time, one decision at a time, one thought at a time. So consider yourself a recovering addict and make choices accordingly – the biggest choice here being to put yourself first, to put your recovery first. When I started this my decision was that if you weren't part of the solution then you were part of the problem... just about the only example of black and white, all or nothing thinking that I'd encourage you to embrace. If you're reading this then I assume that you've trod a path quite similar to my own. It's okay. This site, this program, Emerge! is dedicated to taking you down the RIGHT path. It doesn't matter what you did yesterday, IT'S WHAT YOU DO NEXT THAT COUNTS! Welcome to Emerge! Let's get started. Become A Member