"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein

Changing your life is not as simple a thing as changing your motor oil. In the summer of 2003, I changed my life forever and I owe it all to a chance encounter with a take-out order of heavenly chicken (I'll explain later). This change represented a triumph of intellect over ignorance, a transformation that has culminated in the creation of this web site and the bidding of a fond adieu to over 120 pounds and counting, of excess body fat--remarkably within the relatively short span of one year. The best news is that I achieved this goal without the "benefit" of medical intervention, cult dieting or back-of-the-maga- zine mail order pharmaceuticals.

Heavenly Chicken
In 2003 I was on a temporary assignment, living and working in Manhattan. I found myself under considerable stress and ate every meal, nearly five days a week at either a sit-down or take-out restaurant. My weight skyrocketed. I suffered the usual obesity related ills: back and joint pain, difficulty walking, shortness of breath, headaches, etc. My daily intake of food fluctuated between 5000 and 7000 calories. In New York where great eateries are as common as pigeons, finding a place to eat is never a problem. Add work related stress, calorie dense foods and the heroic proportions served in most restaurants and maintaining a stratospheric calorie count is really quite easy. In addition, I drank gallons of fructose laced soda at 25 cents a can and launched nightly raids on the snack bar that haunted my hotel room. I was a walking cautionary tale for harried mothers who could point to me on the street and bark at their children, "See, that's what'll happen to you if you keep begging for candy."

I realized my diet was part of the problem. One day I found myself at my favorite deli in lower Manahattan. I wanted something light, a salad maybe, but amidst the heavily sauced dishes of pasta buried beneath pounds of melted cheese, there was little to choose from. Even the solitary pan of sautéed vegetables lay in suspended animation, entombed in a vat of grease. I finally chose a small portion of roast, skinless chicken breast, some vegetables and returned to my room. That night, I drank water with my meal, instead of soda and fell into a restless sleep.

The next morning, I felt better than I had in weeks. I had a light breakfast and skipped lunch, saving myself for what I had come to believe was heavenly chicken. I ordered it again the second night. The next morning, I was beginning to feel like a changed man. When I walked to work, my back pain was nearly gone. I found that I had more energy and even my normally sour disposition had improved. By the third day, I was sold on the belief that a diet reduced in processed foods and junk carbohydrates was the answer for me.

Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." For over a decade I had followed the same course of action: adopting a new diet, sticking with it for a time before collapsing into my old habits, then regaining any weight I had lost, plus a few more.

I decided I would not commit the crime of "just following orders," as I had done so often before. This time I was going to find the answers for myself, so I began to read and as I read, I discovered just how convoluted America's nutrition policy really is. I came to see why my doctor had never been able to give me any useful advice when it came to weight loss.

I saw manipulation by powerful industry groups that influenced what I and my children ate, learned how corporations subvert parental authority by spending millions on child psychologists and sophisticated advertising campaigns in an aggressive effort to market junk food directly to our children. I saw how this influence is exerted on the people we look to for leadership--saw how market economics played and continues to play a critical role in shaping nutrition policy and in misshaping us.

Real personal responsibility means looking past the dogma promulgated by industry interests for their own benefit. As a practical matter, it means turning off the television and learning about basic human physiology and the mechanics of food metabolism. It means adopting an unapologetically discriminatory mindset when it comes to deciding what you put into your body.

I've discovered that the one size fits all model for diet and nutrition advice does not work for me. I learned that focusing on just one food group was a mistake; that the experts really didn't know as much as I thought they did and that they were not telling me everything they did know. I realized that I needed to question all that I knew, or thought I knew, about nutrition.

Through the hard work of some courageous people and organizations, like the Weston A. Price Foundation (Resources) and through my own experimentation and research, I have rediscovered my health. That is the real change. It's not just about losing weight, relatively speaking, that's easy. No, the real value I have discovered are the truths about food and wellness, the ability to see nutrition in a different light and the strength to stand up to those leaders who, through ignorance, greed or fear, have led so many people astray.

As you look around this site, my hope is that the fire of curiosity will be stoked in you as it has been in me and that you will find the motivation to begin seeking your own answers.

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There and Back Again: Mary's Story

"I've seen the debilitating effects of poor diet and lifestyle choices, pounded the chests of obese patients trying to get their overworked hearts started again, helped bring some back to life and watched others die."

I had been steadily gaining weight for years, working in the high pressure environment of medicine and managing a household, but with all the changes and added pressure in my new east-coast life, I soon found myself tilting the scale at 193 pounds. My doctor tried to be conciliatory, but I could see in her eyes a deep concern for my health. I was further troubled by the fact that words like, "hypertension," "medication" and "obesity" had begun creeping into our conversations, words that I thought would never apply to me.

As my weight gain continued, my health steadily declined. I used to love hiking the rugged desert mountains of central Arizona, but I found myself these days, spending more and more time hiking to the refrigerator and the grocery store. I would not describe myself as a heavy eater. Instead, it was the combination of the wrong foods, a persistent mental fog that kept me rooted in the grip of inertia and too little physical activity that ultimately earned me entry as a not-so-proud member of the 200+ pound club. I was wearing a size 18.5 dress and knew it was only a matter of time before the phrase, "do you have that in a size 20?" would become the latest addition to my vocabulary.

My epiphany came on a cheerless Monday morning after I bid my husband goodbye for the week. I received a call from my sister to notify me of the death of an uncle. Just before we exchanged goodbyes, she told me about how good she and her husband were feeling, how they had lost weight and regained their youthful energy. In search of some small bit of good news, I asked her, "What have you been doing?" She replied that they had simply gone back to eating the type of food we all grew up on. They had eliminated processed foods from their diet, cooked most of their meals from scratch and to my horror, ate real eggs. "Mary, don't be afraid of real eggs, she said. That was so liberating to hear. Everything she said made sense to me and seemed so simple.

After the phone call, I rallied my daughters to me and announced that things were about to change for us. The next two hours were consumed with what has come to be known as, "The Purge." We descended upon the kitchen with large trash bags and raided the refrigerator and cabinets for any prepackaged foods with unpronounceable ingredients. Not since the good citizens of Transylvania voted to send Dracula and Frankenstein's monster packing, has there been a more enthusiastic ferreting out of the unworthy and the unjust. In short order, our cupboards were as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's. Next, we restocked our food supply with eggs, butter, cheese, whole milk, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables. That evening, for the first time in a long time, I cooked with a real purpose in mind.

Over the next few days, I cooked real food and followed up on my sister's advice to read and learn for myself everything I could on the subject of nutrition. Unknown to me at the time, was that my husband was experiencing a similar epiphany, hundreds of miles away, by way of a take-out order of roast chicken.

I knew if we could get healthy again and lose weight, we would feel better and life might actually be better, but how can you believe in something so simple as eating whole foods as a means to restore good health, when so many diets before have failed? Despite my reservations, I couldn't stop. Where else was there to go but forward? When Richard returned home, we shared our stories and believed then, as we continue to believe, that we were finally on the right track.

That was over a year and a half ago. We discovered the Weston A. Price Foundation halfway through our journey and really began to uncover the miracle of traditional foods. "Miracle" is no exaggeration. For years, I worked as a respiratory therapist in several major urban hospitals. I've seen the debilitating effects of poor diet and lifestyle choices, pounded the chests of obese patients trying to get their overworked hearts started again, helped bring some back to life and watched others die. Later as a polysomnographer, I sat helpless in the middle hours of the morning and watched my patients struggle to breathe as sleep apnea slowly drained their body of it's vitality. Many of these patients were overweight, just like my husband who suffered from the same disorder. Life is no joke. When you come close to losing it, to have it back in all it's God given glory is truly, truly a miracle.

In 17 months, I have seen my health and the health of my family improve dramatically. In some cases, it was doing the opposite of the established medical consensus that made the difference. My weight floats around a comfortable 150 pounds these days. I wear sizes 8 to 10, depending upon how generous the clothing manufacture decides to be. We cook all our meals, get plenty of exercise and revel in each new day as another opportunity to simply enjoy life. My new relationship with my husband and my children is like the best of all Christmas gifts that I am blessed with each new day. The fog of depression that had settled over me like the mournful tears of a grey morning has finally lifted.