's motd Sunday Jan 24, 2010

[Guest guest]

IN DENIAL

Sunday, 24 January 2010

A sweet lady, named , who has been on several of my cruises, E-mailed recently and asked me to do her a favor. She wanted to know if I would call her mother.

", my mother is, I'd say...beyond overweight. She's a rather short Italian lady and I'm sure she weighs over 300 pounds by now. She doesn't attend church anymore and hardly even leaves her house. She lives only a few miles away but came to my house maybe only three times...all of last year! No one can broach the subject of her weight with my mother. I have two brothers and, I'm telling you, neither of them would dare say a word to Mom about what she's doing to herself. , I wonder if you'd call and talk to her. I'm including her name and phone number."Well, about 15 minute after reading 's E-mail, I dialed that number to talk to her mother, Donna. R-i-i-i-n-n-n-g!I got a woman's voice on the line..."Hello?""Yes, may I speak to Donna, please?""This is Donna.""Well, hello Donna. This is calling to say hello to you from Los Angeles.""Yeah, right! So, ' ', why are you calling me?""I received an E-mail from your daughter, and she really wanted me to give you a call.""Oh, really? And just why did want you to call me?""It's because she felt that you could really use some help with your weight, Donna."

"Oh, did she? Well, let me ask you something else. Did tell you how much I weigh?""No, she didn't, Donna." (Okay, so I told a little white lie!) In the meantime, the tone of Donna's voice was getting, shall we say...a little testy!"Okay, . Whatever may have told you, let me tell you something! I am doing just fine and I don't need anyone's help. But I thank you for calling." CLICK!Boy, I have to admit I was a little taken aback by that conversation with Donna so I went straight to my computer to send a little E-mail to . I told her I'd called her mother and about how "well" the conversation had gone. Within half-an-hour, I received an Email back from . Apparently, she had spoken to her mother again. Her mother told how very sorry she was for the way she'd talked to me over the phone. said her mother was really hoping I would call back. Well, I was more than happy to give it another try.

When I got Donna back on the phone, she was weeping. First of all, she asked me to forgive her being so rude to me the first time. (And of course I did!) We then had a heart-to-heart talk for about 20 minutes. (It went much better than our first conversation.) She promised that she was going to get to work on her weight. had given her a FoodMover and even some of my workout DVDs. So she already had the tools she needed to work on losing the weight. She just had to go to work...using those tools. Donna's now going to write me every few weeks to let me know how she's doing. You know, there're lots of people who're in denial about their weight. They often look cheery with a smile on their faces and act as if they're not overweight or obese at all. And that's not a good thing. Please, don't you be in denial about your weight. If you're overweight or obese, you must make a plan to fix it. And, believe me...it can be fixed! But not without your helping yourself.

To help snap yourself back into reality, make a list of the things you can't do anymore because of what you weigh. And if you go on program starting today, soon you'll be able to start crossing some of those things off your list because you're able to do them again! (And won't that be grand?)So when's the last time you weighed yourself? Well, weigh yourself today and write that weight and today's date on a sheet of paper or in your journal. And make a "weight-date" every week to check your weight. Every week you stay on program, you'll be amazed at how the pounds will drop...off of you. And I know you want that to happen.It's time to end the denial! It's time to "face the fat" and...go to bat. Love,