I have always loved FOOD. Learned it well from my Mom, who during her lifetime has been overweight and dieted numerous times. I spent most of my young life perched on the counter in the kitchen, watching her every move. She's a great cook.

So, my joy comes from reading cookbooks like a novel, shopping for food, watching food shows on TV, preparing food, serving food to family and loved ones and best of all - EATING food! Which undoubtedly contributed to me finally getting to over 180 (see before pic) - I had stopped weighing by then, who knows, I may have been in the 200 neighborhood. At 5'5" not a great neighborhood for me to make home!

DH meanwhile had also ballooned up. Finally "SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE" (according to DH) so we bought several different books - Atkins, The Zone, Protein Power - and read up. We tried them all, in succession. The one DH did best with was Atkins, because it so effectively killed his hunger. He has real problems with insulin sensitivity, and diabetes runs on both sides of his family.

But I digress! We loved Atkins - what's not to love? Plenty of cheese, butter, steak - TOO MUCH in fact. We ate with total disregard to portion control! So initially, we lost a little, but ultimately, back up went the weight. When I hit 173 and DH hit 270, "SOMETHING ELSE HAD TO BE DONE!" so DH decided that Weight Watchers would be good. And I went along with him. This was February of 2001.

We were both successful! I reached my WW goal of 150 and kept right on going down - finally reaching my personal goal of 140, and then stopping at a comfortable 137. DH lost nearly 40 pounds as well, but he was CONSTANTLY HUNGRY - and I had to admit, I was also not finding eating low-fat, high-carb, processed JUNK very satisfying either.

DH allowed himself to go off plan - and gee, guess what? Back up went his weight! Finally, last May, he said, "I have to do what works for me, Atkins!" but THIS time, we had learned a valuable lesson from past experience AND from 2 years of weighing and measuring on Weight Watchers - PORTION CONTROL is also important, as well as STOPPING EATING when you're full!

Now I'm satisfied totally with my food choices, still maintaining my weight loss, feel better, sleep better, and DH is seeing his weight dropping back down a bit at a time. We bought a CrossBow resistance training setup, and recently an elliptical trainer - ME? EXERCISE?!! Heaven forbid! But I'm finding that I like it once I get going. I know that will help me to firm up some areas that need looking after - hey, at 50 years old, it's never too late to start new GOOD habits!!

So that's my tale, hope it's worthy of inclusion with the rest of the LC VETS!