worry and overeating

Peggy, 27, has the sole financial and care-giving responsibility for her disabled husband, Ben, and whenever she worries about things – losing her job, getting into debt or Ben’s situation worsening – she overeats in a futile effort to make her feel better. It never does. She just ends up worrying that she’ll get so fat she can’t do half the work she does now.

"I’ve been a worrier and a binge eater for most of my life," explains Peggy. "My father deserted my mother, leaving her with seven kids to support – meaning she had to take on two jobs to support us – and being the eldest I took responsibility for the care of the other six kids and I didn’t have much of a life.”

“All that changed when I met Ben,” says Peggy. “We were so happy in the first year of our marriage, doing crazy things, and then he damaged his spinal cord, became a paraplegic and once again I became a care-giver, a worrier and a binge eater.”

"I know that just sitting here passively stuffing my face with food and stewing over something that may or may not happen is a silly thing to do," admits Peggy, "but it’s a hard habit to break.”

“I’m perfectly aware that if I allow this negative behavior to continue I will accomplish nothing other than poisoning my mind and my body – and, because I don't know whether things will get better or get worse, my fears and worries may very well end up escalating a situation out of all proportion – and in doing so making myself fatter than ever.”

“I guess worrying and overeating is a coping mechanism, a bad habit that I should be able to conquer,” says Peggy, “but so many bad things happen, one after the other, that sometimes I feel as paralyzed as Ben.”

"Rather than stewing and overeating, wasting precious time and energy worrying over something that may or may not happen, but most likely is not going to happen," concedes Peggy, "I suppose I should distract myself by doing something enjoyable – more enjoyable than eating – but what?”

“Ben is a paraplegic,” explains Peggy. “It’s difficult getting out with him and I would break his heart if I went out on my own – even to a gym – and left him alone.”

Read more about Peggy:

caring for disabled husband

trusting vs stewing

stewing on the job

hotheaded managers

lumpen masses

As more and more of our rights are eroded, Benita wonders how we -- the descendants of strong, brave and lithe people who once beheaded imperious kings, toppled incompetent governments and struck out on their own for independence -- could have degenerated into such weak, cowardly, acquiescent and lumpen citizens.

"I'm like everyone else -- I admit to being a weak, cowardly citizen and a lumpy one, too," laughs Benita. "For years I have put up with rude behavior from government officials paid from my taxes to serve me. I have put up with being ignored by my representative and by government departments. I have put up with endless queues and cameras everywhere spying on me. And, I have put up with an ever increasing spate of laws designed to rob me of my freedom to live my life as I please. -- and I deal with my anger by eating something nice because I'm powerless."

"Once, governments took notice of protests and marches and complaints from its citizens because if it didn't it wouldn't last long," says Benita, "but these days it can afford to treat citizens with disdain because we are no longer their master and, let's face it, we're all too fat and lazy to get off our couches."

"The notion that we elect governments is an illusion," says Benita. "Whichever party wins is a puppet of global gnomes and, rather than being proud citizens, we are nothing more than glorified slaves -- fat lumps in cubicles."

"Nobody knows exactly who these global gnomes are," says Benita, "but they most certainly exist -- they are not figments of the imagination of conspiracy theorists."

"Some say that they are the remnants of the old royal families, headed by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh -- he who wants to reincarnate as a virus and wipe out half the human race -- but my belief is that the gnomes are international bankers and industrialists who want to break down nationalism, open all borders and reduce all of us to a common denomination of weak, cowardly drones."

"In other words, we're heading back to something similar to feudal times."

"Immigration, or population-shifting as it was once known in ancient times, is a time-honored way in which despots weaken dissent among local populations and strengthen their power," explains Benita, "and it has been used with spectacular success in recent times for the same purpose."

"Why do you think that Europe has seen a massive population shift -- with Europeans emigrating in droves to Canada, South America and Australia as non-Europeans immigrants moved in?" says Benita. "And why do you think that despite our protests, the Mexican border remains virtually open?"

"When every second person you meet is from somewhere else and desperately trying to settle down and make a new life for themselves, we are sunk," says Benita. "These new citizens are not interested in 'rights' because they probably had none where they came from, and they go out of their way to disapprove or make us feel guilty when we complain about the erosion of our rights."

"We are not a cohesive citizenry any more," sighs Benita. "We have been divided, weakened and conquered by our own government, and now it can afford to relax and enact whatever draconian measure it wants to because it knows that every second person is NOT going to support a rebellion."

"Maybe what we need is a famine to slim us all down and then we might be able to roll some heads again!"

This story first appeared as weak, cowardly citizens

pharma pushed fat laws

Like many western women, Clothilde is overweight. She has tried a variety of diets since her teens – all of which resulted in her gaining more weight than ever –and now that she is 48, menopausal, and totally accepting of her size and personal power she is gobsmacked that legislation is being proposed prohibiting restaurants and food establishments from serving food to obese customers.

"It's happening in Mississippi," says Clothilde, "but don't heave a sigh of relief if you don't live there because it won't be long before it's happening where you live, too."

"Take a look at the background of the guys proposing this bill and you'll understand what it's really all about," explains Clothilde. "The three stooges are Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., a retired pharmaceutical salesman; Bobby Shows, a businessman; and John Read, a pharmacist."

"Don't tell me that these guys haven't got a financial motive for pushing this bill?" asks Clothilde. "A pharmacist, a businessman and a pharma salesman together have the requisite qualifications and experience needed to set up and run yet another pharmaceutical business aimed at forcing us fatties to ingest bitter pills rather than delicious food."

"What are these guys doing in government pushing their own barrow?" asks Clothilde. "Okay, we all know that some politicians are businessmen on the side, profiting from whatever self-serving law they manage to get enacted – or self-serving war they manage to foment – but it really sticks in your craw that such guys get elected in the first place."

"Hey, people of Mississippi, did these guys tell you what they had on their mind when you elected them?" asks Clothilde. "I'm not just appealing to all the obese voters in Mississippi but to all the restaurants and food establishments, too, because the proposal is that these businesses are going to be monitored for Fat Law compliance by the State Department of Health and violators will have their business permits revoked.”

“Nasty."

"I think most fat people are going to be thinking just like me,” laughs Clothilde. “Put us in prison for disobedience if you like – but you'd have a hard job finding a prison big enough for us big people!"

Read more of Clothilde's story:

fat red tape

menopausal fighter

Health Nazis

Land of the free?

independence vs nanny states

fat families

Zephira is married with two children and faced with the annual vacation dilemma - where to go this year? - she suggested a skiing trip as a healthy option for her fat family and the kids were enthused but her husband wasn't!

"I expected Joe to turn up his nose at my suggestion," explains Zephira. "He's the type of guy who likes to laze around when he's not working and since our marriage I've slipped into his lifestyle - giving up all the adventurous type of experiences I once enjoyed and as a consequence I'm almost as fat as he is (and so are the kids)."

"Joe's objections were voted out at the family discussion - and faced with the prospect of going away on his own or coming with us he relented but on condition that he was not going to get on a pair of skis."

"Actually he rather liked the idea of going somewhere cold in the middle of summer," laughs Zephira, "and he packed some books and his laptop and looked forward to hanging around the ski lodge while we were out making fools of ourselves on skis."

"It had been close to twenty years since I had last been on a pair of skis," explains Zephira, "and in that time I'd put on a quite a bit of weight so I was more than a little concerned about my ability to cut the snow like I used to."

"Make a fool of myself or not I was determined to give it a go."

"The kids and I hired our ski gear and the first dumb thing I did when we got to the ski lodge was to dress the kids and myself with the ski pants on backwards."

"When we joined the group for our first ski lesson everyone laughed at us," sighs Zephira, "and I got the feeling that Joe had jinxed us with his 'making fools of ourselves' prediction."

"The kids went off with a children's instructor and I joined the novice adults who were being instructed by a lovely Austrian guy."

"He asked whether anyone had skied before and like an idiot I said 'yes' and for this bit of honesty he chose me to be the first one to go down a slope."

"Let me tell you that getting back on a pair of skis is nothing like getting back on a bicycle," laughs Zephira. "Those skis felt like lead weights on my feet and I had no idea how I ever whizzed around on them in my youth."

"I pleaded with Franz, the ski instructor, to let me go to the back of the line because I'd forgotten how to ski - but he insisted I went ahead - and to make me feel better he would go before me backwards to catch me if I fell."

"Well," laughs Zephira, "I took off and you guessed it - I fell right on top of Franz and nearly crushed the poor guy. It's a good thing that Joe wasn't looking because he would never have let me live this down."

"After an hour of instruction I was none the more comfortable on a pair of skis and my legs and back were aching."

"I told Franz I'd try again tomorrow and went back to the lodge to join Joe."

"When the kids came back they were so filled with enthusiasm and joy that I felt like a fat lump for giving in so easily."

"The next day I got up early and did a lot of practice on my own and by the time Franz turned up I showed him what I could do and he was very impressed - in fact he gave me a wink!"

"That wink really boosted by spirits," laughs Zephira. "It reminded me of all the fun I used to have on the snowfields with the guys."

"I forgot about my aching legs and back and stayed out on the snowfields for most of the day after that - if I wasn't going to have a mad passionate affair with Franz then I was definitely going to lose a lot of weight on this trip!"

Zephira's story first appeared as zephira: the skiing trip and is reprinted with permission.

big fat virtual protesters

Bethel makes the point that the Internet provides a harmless release valve for social outrage that would otherwise topple imperious or incompetent governments, and she feels that our governments actively encourage virtual worlds in which we vent our spleens at virtual governments rather than the real-life ones -- and in passively protesting in this way, rather than being out there marching with placards, we become fat and ineffective citizens.

"Why do you think that the Internet has been left alone -- without any government constraints on what, in some cases, is downright vile criminal behavior?" asks Bethel. "I'll tell you why, it's because the Internet provides a harmless release valve for all of our outrage at the government's erosion of our rights and failure to keep to its part of the social contract."

"All of the outrage that our ancestors once used to behead imperious kings, topple incompetent governments and strike out on their own for independence we are now releasing harmlessly into the ether -- having no impact whatsoever on our governments, but quite an impact on ourselves in terms of fat gained from spending hours online."

"Because our complaints to our representatives and government departments are ignored, we get online and vent our anger in discussion groups and blogs," explains Bethel. "Because we never meet our fellow dissenters, except online, we are powerless to form any group capable of being a real-life threat to the arrogance and hubris of what are now our political masters, not our public servants."

"We vent, we rant and rave and then we switch off our computers, calm down and go about our daily lives until the next outrage from the government makes our blood boil."

"And then one day, when all of our rights have been removed -- and every pleasure known to man has been banned -- the government behind the government will show its face," says Bethel. "It won't be pretty, and when we whisper together, how did this happen?, we may remember how we put up with so much, swallowed so many lies and went along with every one of the changes foisted upon us -- most for our good, of course -- and how feebly we protested or supported those who were being persecuted as we stuffed our faces with food to fuel our virtual protests."

"The only life we will have left to call our own will be lived in a 'virtual world' -- as so many of us are already experiencing, especially our children," sighs Bethel. "In the virtual world we can cowardly act out being the type of citizen we would like to be in real life, and our political masters encourage this to the point, actually, of providing free Internet access."

"In Orwell's masterpiece, 1984, it was drugs that turned us into weak, cowardly and acquiescent citizens," says Bethel, "but we never saw the Internet in this respect, did we?"

"We thought it was a power of good that would lead to greater freedoms," says Bethel, "but it has weakened us in the most insidious of ways. The more time we spend online, the less we exercise ad the fatter we become."

"From time immemorial, there has been a ruling class and a slave class and what happened last century was a blip in history," says Bethel. "All of the rights we fought for and won last century are slowly being eroded. Our success is leading to our downfall because no society can operate successfully when it is top heavy and too privileged -- and the rest of us are bottom heavy and becoming more and more useless every day."

"What I'm trying to say is that right now there are too many of us wanting too much and resources are getting thin," explains Bethel. "When our population was smaller we were able to turn the tide and call the tune because our labor was needed -- and our work was labor intensive. Now, with every job that goes offshore -- or is taken by a guest worker -- our rights become irrelevant and what work remains is soft, just like our bodies."

"When all of our real-life rights have been eroded, and the only life we have to call our own is in a virtual world, our political masters will interfere with that world, too," says Bethel. "Moles will enter our virtual worlds and enslave us there, too, and when we are totally demoralized we will make easy slaves."

"A virtual citizen is just that -- an illusion -- but an overweight body is anything but."

weight loss analysis

When she retired at 60 Gypsy was at her heaviest weight ever (80kg/176lbs) and with time at her disposal she tackled her weight problem with the same analytical skills that she once used at work.

"I made weight loss my full-time job," laughs Gypsy, "but it's no laughing matter really because my health was being seriously compromised by my weight."

"Because I approached weight loss with a professional accountant's eye," explains Gypsy, "my weight loss spreadsheet took into account everything about the food I ate."

"My base year comprised the contents of my last shopping cart when I weighed 80kg (176lbs)," says Gypsy. "I listed every item in the cart along with its weight and nutritional content."

"I rarely drink, eat junk food or obviously fattening things like ice cream, cake and chocolate," says Gypsy, "so I couldn't understand why my weight over ten years had ballooned from 60kg (132lbs) to
(80kg/176lbs)."

"It was pretty obvious even at that early stage of analysis that the main culprit was bread," sighs Gypsy. "It accounted for twice as much in calories or kilojoules as the next culprit, full cream milk."

"Just by cutting out bread and increasing my fruit intake -- and substituting full cream milk for skim milk -- I lost a huge chunk of weight within three months," says Gypsy, ''and I managed to continue to lose weight for the rest of the first year."

"By the end of the first year of this simple diet I weighed 69kg (152lbs) and looked and felt great," says Gypsy. "My gaol was to slim down to a healthy 60kg (132lbs) and I naively believed that by reducing my calorie/kilojoule intake I would achieve that goal by the end of the second year."

"My base year's average daily intake was 10,101kj, my first year's average daily intake was 7,472kj and my second year's average daily intake was 7,165kj," says Gypsy, "and guess what, I gained weight."

"I was so disappointed and couldn't believe that by literally starving myself for a year -- keeping my average daily intake well below the previous year -- I now weighed 72kg (159lbs)."

"In my third year I experimented with a variety of diets -- high protein and then a nut diet -- and because my weight didn't shift much I then reintroduced bread in moderation and at the end of the third year I weighed 73kg (161lbs) with an average daily intake of 9,621kj."

"Hello? What's going on here, I thought," laughs Gypsy. "In the base year my average daily intake was 10,101kj and I weighed 80kg (176lbs), in my first year my average daily intake was 7,472kj and I lost 11kg (25lbs), in my second year I reduced my average daily intake to 7,165kj and gained 3kg (7lb) and in my third year I increased my average daily intake to 9,621kj and I gained just 1kg (a few pounds)."

"On the basis of my calculations, with an average daily intake of 9,621kj I should have gained heaps and be almost back to my base weight," says Gypsy. "That I wasn't pleased me, but it just goes to show that there is much more to weight loss than counting calories."

"I then looked at the amount of food I was eating -- it's weight -- and took a simplistic view that if I was eating more I might weigh more," says Gypsy, but that didn't pan out either."

"In the base year my average daily intake was 1457g, in my first year my average daily intake was 1,575g (more!), in my second year my average daily intake was 1,483g (less) and in my third year my average daily intake was 1,882g -- which was far more than my base year!"

"Right now I'm in my fourth year and almost ready to give up," sighs Gypsy. "So far, my average daily intake is 8,710kj/1538g, I weigh 76kg (165lbs) and it looks like I am soon going to be back to 80kg (176lbs) despite watching everything I eat."

"My only ray of hope is a factor I have just discovered," confides Gypsy. "It's the kilojoule per gram ratio which you arrive at by dividing the average daily kilojoule intake by the average daily gram intake."

"In the base year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 6.93, in my first year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 4.74 (less), in my second year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 4.83 (more), in my third year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 5.11 (more) and right now it is 5.66 (more)."

"The kilojoule per gram ratio is the only factor which can explain why I have been gaining weight since my first year of dieting," says Gypsy. "I won't know until my fifth year of dieting whether or not it is going to be the magic bullet, but in the hope that it is I am now in the process of cutting out all food that has a high kilojoule per gram ratio and increasing all food that has a low kilojoule per gram ratio."

"And guess what?" laughs Gypsy. "The dietitians are right about eating more vegetables. By increasing my fruit intake -- especially grapes, melon and plums -- I was inadvertently increasing my kilojoule per gram ratio!"

"If a gram of mushrooms has a ratio of 1, a gram of grapes 5 and a gram of bread 10 then you don't have to be a mathematician to work out that you can eat the equivalence of a loaf of bread in mushrooms and feel full as well as losing weight."

"My initial weight loss was due entirely to substituting fruit for bread!"

"The only fly in this theory," sighs Gypsy, "is that when I weighed a healthy 60kg (132lbs) I ate a lot less vegetables and far more bread than I do now."

"At 76kg (165lbs) I may not look too good but I feel a lot better than I did at 80kg (176lbs) and everyone says I should be grateful for improved health," says Gypsy, "but I do want to look good as well."

"I'm now using my analytical spreadhseet skills to look at other factors in my life since I turned 50 that caused me to gain weight," says Gypsy. "I think stress was a huge factor in my last 10 years at work -- I literally worked, ate and slept -- but that's all behind me, now."

"If my weight gain since 50 was just a hormonal thing then there's not much I can do about it -- or want to do about it," says Gypsy, "but if it's a matter of eating more vegetables and starting a solid exercise regime at the same time then I can do it."

"I have to bear in mind that it took ten years to put on weight and might take another ten years to lose it."

fat police and lawyers

Leisha and husband are in their thirties and have two children. They are pleasant people, they attend church regularly, they work hard and mind their own business and their blood boils when other people -- the fat police -- sneer at them for being overweight.

"Sure we eat convenience foods, who doesn't?" says Leisha. "But I don't believe eating lettuce leaves every day is a healthier way to live and besides which obesity is nothing new."

"People have been fat since time immemorial," laughs Leisha, "and in most other cultures -- except ours -- obesity is a sign of wealth and importance."

"I've heard of a tribe in Northern Africa that actually force feeds its little girls to ensure that they're fat enough for marriage," says Leisha. "Now, that's a place the fat police and the child abuse police should be focusing their attention on and leaving us alone."

"My grandparents and probably yours, too, nearly starved to death last century," explains Leisha, "and for a long time someone who was skinny was considered unfortunate or, in other circumstances, suffering from worms."

"I can't understand the fat police who think Marilyn Monroe -- the blonde bombsell of the 1950s -- was overweight and wouldn't be a good role model for women today."

"Hello? My husband thinks Marilyn Monroe would have been more attractive with a few more pounds and so do I," laughs Leisha. "And the sort of women the fat police are putting forward as good role models for women -- the anorexic catwalkers -- are an insult to all women and especially for little girls."

"We're told that being overweight is a health hazard," says Leisha. "Hello? What isn't a health hazard? We're all going to die and I'd rather die fat and happy than thin and miserable and nobody in their right mind believes that these people actually care about our health."

"Who are the people responsible for the fat police and the shift in our cultural values?" asks Leisha. "What changed our country from a free society to one where you can't do anything without being criticized or sued?"

"Is immigration to blame for this? Are we bringing in too many people from communist countries who grew up being dictated to and don't know the meaning of freedom?"

"I heard that in rural China they're still enforcing the One Child Policy -- aborting babies in late term pregnancies," sighs Leisha, "and if our government has employed immigrants from this sort of environment is it any wonder that our social policies have changed?"

"Actually, the One Child Policy in China has resulted in a lot of fat little kids," laughs Leisha. "So maybe I'm wrong on this point -- and Mao, himself, wasn't exactly skinny, was he?"

"I do know that the anti-fat movement grew out of the anti-smoking movement started by Professor John Banzhaf of George Washington University Law School and his ASH organization," says Leisha. "Puffed up from his success suing the tobacco companies he turned to the food industry and already has had success in eight fat law suits -- if not personally, then through the students he teaches."

"I agree that consumers need to know exactly what they're buying and that Banzhaf did good in exposing negligent and criminal behavior," says Leisha, "but why did legal action against companies have to translate into social sanctions against consumers?"

"The government has ruled that health insurance companies can charge fatties more in order to encourage us to lose weight and pay more of the medical costs of obesity," says Leisha. "Is this fair?"

"What evidence do they have that fat people cost more in medical costs than thin people -- or old people or any other type of person?" cries Leisha. "And what right does the government have to encourage us to lose weight? That's not the business of government!"

"We're happy and healthy at the weight we're at and nobody is going to tell us to lose weight," says Leisha. "And if any fat person is ever denied medical help on account of not being thin then there's going to be a revolution like you've never seen before."

"We're told that fast food is addictive in the same way that drugs are," says Leisha. "Well, hello, tell me what isn't addictive? Sex, the internet, computer games, gambling, even sport -- one of our neighbors is so hooked on the gym that she goes crazy if she misses a day -- and if addiction is the foundation of these fat laws suits then what is going to be next?"

"In order to save their own skins from laws suits the food companies -- like the tobacco companies -- have issued warnings to consumers about eating too much," says Leisha, "but in doing this they're blaming us for being fat -- making us social pariahs -- and it won't be long before every Big Mac carries a graphic warning about possible diseases we can contract from eating their product."

"Sure, I take personal responsibility for being fat," says Leisha, "but why do the lawyers, the government and the food companies have to make out that being fat is a some sort of social failing for which I should be penalized and turned into a social pariah by the fat police?"

"My husband and I are scared that our children may be encouraged by the fat police to sue us for negligence or child abuse one day," sighs Leisha. "They're not yet old enough to understand the legalities of it all, but they are definitely old enough to be hurt by fat taunts."

"Who is to say that being overweight is purely a food issue?" asks Leisha. "Don't genes play a part in it all? How come some people can eat like horses, without exercising, and never gain weight?"

"As far as I'm concerned, these law suits are all about money -- greedy people wanting to use whatever they can to bring a case against multi-million dollar industries, and greedy lawyers only too happy to help them do it," sighs Leisha. "And we mustn't forget the gullible public at large -- the fat police -- who have been told that obesity costs the country billions of their hard earned tax dollars each year."

"Take money out of the equation and nobody would care less."

"As Banzhaf said: 'we already agree that smokers should pay more for life insurance; those who live in older wooden homes should pay more for fire insurance; and those who drive expensive cars should pay more for automobile insurance'," relates Leisha. "Doesn't that tell you what it's really all about?"

big fat fast food mom

Along with millions of married working moms around the world, Brenda went through a process of rethinking work, looking at new directions, re-assessing her priorities and striving for a more balanced and authentic life when she realized that her health and that of her husband and children was being seriously compromised by her inability to successfully juggle a job, a home and motherhood. To put it bluntly, they were all seriously overweight.

"I know it sounds horrible, but the only vegetables we ate were french fries, and the only fruit we ate came in pies!"

"And if that wasn't bad enough," confesses Brenda, "we watched television for recreation rather than going out and doing something. It was a whole lot easier to do nothing than plan family outings. I felt like a big, fat lousy mother!"

"It was obvious that I had to take control of the family's health by giving it priority over everything else."

"As soon as Cory found a job I really got down to business," laughs Brenda. "By then I knew exactly what we needed to live on. Cory was earning just a little bit more than our budget, and that really pleased me."

"I worked for a month more, just to make sure that Cory’s job was safe, and then I resigned my job!" laughs Brenda.

"I’m home cooking decent budget meals for the family and planning cheap, action-packed family weekend outings. I’m weaning my family off junk food and television and getting everyone involved in a healthy lifestyle  It’s great fun and it’s working! We're losing weight, looking good and feeling great!"

Brenda believes that the solution to most problems inevitably involves getting back to basics and making simplicity a new lifestyle.

"I know that a lot of people think that simplicity means eating mung beans and living in poverty but it's not like that for us," says Brenda. "It means no more fast food, no more endless hours watching mindless television. It means getting back to basics and taking charge of our lives, living authentically as honest to goodness, simple-living and independent human beings who would rather do without worldly trappings than become a prisoner of a workplace and a lifestyle that destroys what really matters in life - a healthy and happy family."

"Because I’m now home full-time, taking care of everything," says Brenda, "Cory can cope a lot better with his job. At times he feels like the walls are closing in on him, but when he comes home at night there’s a nutritious low-fat meal waiting for him and a happy and loving family to relax with."

"It took us ages to get where we are today," explains Brenda, "and we put a lot of planning into it, but it can be done. You can resign your job, lose weight, get healthy and enjoy life again. We’ve cut our expenses in half and we’re not missing anything that we once thought we enjoyed."

"I’m particularly losing weight fast because I’m not tied to an office desk all day long," says Brenda, "and Cory and the kids are getting there. I can’t begin to tell you how much of a relief it was to quit that job."

"Another great outcome of simplifying my life is that I can now spend time with my girlfriends," enthuses Brenda. "I always used to envy them being stay-at-home-moms and now I’m one myself! We take turns getting together at each other’s houses after we drop the kids at school and we just hang out, share recipes, count calories, brainstorm new ideas to keep our families healthy and, of course, compare budgets. I’m thinking of starting a Mrs. Thin Miser of the Month competition between us to see who can squeeze in belt notch and stretch a dollar the most," laughs Brenda. "I'll win hands down every month!" 

Read more of Brenda's story:

a joyless, toxic job

capitalize on beauty not obesity

Gaynor is 22, just out of college and newly married. She is well aware that men are hired on qualifications and women are employed on their physical appearance, and she's gearing her job search towards making sure that employers pay attention to her beautiful face rather than her overweight body.

"From the neck up I'm OK," laughs Gaynor, "and I'm not worried about my weight at all. It didn't stop me finding a great guy, and it won't stop me finding a great job."

Without her husband's support, though, Gaynor would be having a really bad time looking for work.

"He's an ace guy," explains Gaynor, "and says I don't have to work, but I really want to get the house paid off as quickly as possible so that we can start a family."

Gaynor has read just about every book on the market about job hunting, and all of them seem to say that it is not considered proper to include your photograph in your CV.

"Well, for men maybe that's good advice," says Gaynor, "but for women it's very bad advice as it's totally inconsistent with what employers really need to know about you."

"Let's face it," she says, "men are employed on credentials but women are employed on their physical appearance."

Gaynor has discovered that she's gained more opportunities for interviews since she's included an image of herself on her CV.

"You should never send a regular photograph," laughs Gaynor, "just a small digital image that you insert at the top left hand corner of your CV."

Gaynor would be the first person to admit that she's playing on her beautiful face to get a foot in the door, and it works. Before she got smart and changed her CV to include a picture of herself, she never got invited to interviews.

"Two out of three job applications I send with a photo-CV are acknowledged with an interview," says Gaynor. "And whether or not I get the job doesn't matter. It's getting a foot in the door that's important. They will remember my face and hopefully forget my body."

Prior to having her photograph professionally taken and included in her CV, Gaynor had relied on two basic CVs that she altered slightly for every job she applied for. And she had no luck whatsoever. Not one interview.

"When everyone's CV looks the same, with just a name on the top that distinguishes it from everyone else's," explains Gaynor, "you really need an edge and a photograph is the way to gain it - especially if your face is your one good asset like mine is."

Gaynor had a choice to go to one of those glamor studios and have an airbrushed photograph of herself taken, but she chose instead to go to a regular photographer and have a natural picture taken. Of twenty shots, she chose one that she liked - actually the photographer chose another one, but she felt more comfortable with the one she had chosen - and had it digitally sized to suit her CV.

Until she figured out how to embed her image in a text document Gaynor had a lot of hassles sending the image-CV by e-mail. She send two files - her CV in doc format and the image in jpg format.

"Mainly, I prefer to target employers directly by snail mail because the image-CV looks fantastic in printed format," says Gaynor. "I could have printed it in color, but chose to go black and white instead because I feel that black and white photographs are generally more attractive than colored ones."

"What employers want to know about women is not whether they're raving beauties," says Gaynor, "but whether they're reasonably attractive. And just about every woman can make herself look reasonably attractive in a photograph. Nobody will guess in a million years from my photograph that I'm overweight, and I'm just banking on the fact that my face will launch me into an interview and ultimately a good job."

Usually Gaynor wears glasses but she took them off for the photo shoot. Of course, if she gets a job she's going to have to wear glasses but the object of the CV is to gain the employer's attention and get an interview, not to expose all her faults.

"Because education doesn't count for much these days, anything you can do to improve your chances of getting a foot in the door is well worth trying," laughs Gaynor. "And I don't believe that being overweight is going to disqualify me."

"I got a husband, didn't I?"

stress eating

Margaret is single empty nester, 51, who threw herself into being a success at work when her daughter left home. She thought it was really odd that she developed headaches and started eating twice as much when Mike joined her department at work.

"He was such a nice guy," explains Margaret. "All became clear when I got laid off and he got my job."

"He had been angling for my job all along, but I was too blinded by his apparent niceness to see the connection between him and the headaches."

She will never discount her intuition again, or numb her headaches with painkillers. Those headaches were telling her something she needed to pay attention to.

Margaret's job wasn't fantastic, but it was better than Mike's, so she should have intuited that he coveted it.

The first thing we all need to do in order to guard ourselves against manipulators like Mike is to take stock of our assets and take steps to value them and protect them.

Margaret’s self-esteem was low due to obesity.

"I didn't feel good about myself because I was overweight," explains Margaret, "and because I didn't feel good about myself I was unable to see my job as being of any importance to anybody."

The first thing she learnt as a result of being manipulated out of her job was to become more aware of her worth and assets and more assertive in guarding them.

"Self-esteem is a vital asset," advises Margaret, "so I've been building it up every day. It's no great secret that high self-esteem women rarely if ever get screwed."

Margaret has used her between-job period to good use. She's paying attention to her health, particularly her weight.

"The second thing I've been doing," explains Margaret, "is honing my intuition and learning body language. Not only does the behavior of screwers offer clues, but ours as well."

Paying attention to her obesity and doing something about it is a good way to concentrate on body language.

Margaret believes that our behavior is something we have a responsibility to monitor at all times. We must learn to trust our intuition.

"No matter how much it conflicts with logic - or whatever other people are telling you - if your intuition is giving you the feeling that something is wrong and your behavior is becoming erratic as a result of the conflict between thoughts and feelings," says Margaret, "stop whatever you're doing and listen to your inner voice. It's a survival skill that's there for a very good purpose. Use it. Never, ever suppress it or deny it like I did."

Margaret says that we all have an erratic behavior pattern that's activated when our intuition is telling us that something is wrong about a seemingly normal situation or a seemingly normal person.

Do you start blinking? Twitching? Stammering? Or do you go cold? Develop a headache? Get butterflies or a knot in the stomach? Or do you just 'go funny'?

"I certainly never discounted hunger, thirst, tiredness or terror," says Margaret, "but it is amazing how many women like me can discount their intuition."

"That's just another reason why screwers like Mike can screw us so easily," explains Margaret. "They know that fat women - especially older fat women - have low self-esteem and that all women, fat or not, have been conditioned to discount intuition with rationalization."

"Losing weight and getting in tune with my intuition has certainly changed my life," smiles Margaret. "The next job I get is going to be much better than the one Mike took."

divorced, fat and frazled

Veronica is a divorced mother with two young children and she complains bitterly about wasting hours commuting to and from work each day and being so stressed by work that she is eating twice a much in order to keep up her energy and make her feel better.

"I've put on a hell of a lot of weight since my divorce," confesses Veronica, "and I'm fed up to death with the daily dramas at work and at home. I'm fat and frazzled!"

She suggested to her boss that she could quite easily take her work home and be in the office once or twice a week, rather than five days a week, but her suggestion fell on deaf ears.

"At 160lbs it was not as if I was the office pin-up girl,” laughs Veronica, “and I certainly didn’t fulfill any pivotal interpersonal role that necessitated my being there in person.”

Veronica works eight hours a day in the noisiest environment imaginable doing painstaking editorial corrections. She is constantly interrupted and stressed and goes home tired and bad-tempered - more so because of another two-hour commute in heavy traffic.

As part of the divorce settlement Veronica gained a full-time nanny who acts as a substitute mother during the day, but by the time Veronica gets home and takes over the care of the children they often have to bear the brunt of her tiredness and bad temper.

"It isn't a good scene for my children," admits Veronica, "and when I'm overwhelmed with guilt guess what I do? I stuff myself with comfort food - that's what I do!"

Her performance on the job as a result of this stress is not 100%. She figures that what she achieves in eight hours at work could quite easily be achieved in five, possibly four, hours at home and she would not only save three hours of working time each day but also a further four in commuting time.

Veronica feels very guilty about not being able to spend more time with her children and the nanny wants more time off, too.

“My weight problem is due to all the stress I have had to put up with since the divorce,” explains Veronica, "and I can't see an end to the downward slide I'm on."

“The more stressed I get, the more I stuff myself with fast energy foods like cake and chocolate. If I could work from home, not only would I remove some of the stress but I’d also be more likely to eat carrots and celery between meals than sweet stuff.”

Veronica was even prepared to be paid hourly rather than receive a salary by working at home. She would be producing the same amount of work, possibly more, but what she failed to take into account was the strange notion that if people were not seen to be working they would be assumed to be not working.

Bearing in mind that she would have turned up later in the week with a pile of edited manuscripts similar to the pile she would have amassed over a week at her workplace, it confused Veronica how she was supposed to have accomplished that task without working but that was the impression she gained from management's response to her request to work from home.

Most of the staff at Veronica’s workplace are married working mothers who also grumble about their lot. It was generally understood that if everyone wanted to negotiate more flexible hours, or wanted to work at home, there would be nobody but management at work.

Veronica's new single working mother status did not entitle her to special treatment.

Research seems to prove that mothers who work from home are often less available for their children than a mother working outside the home - and they are not necessarily less stressed or slimmer either.

So, had Veronica been granted her request she may very well have ended up doing twice as much work, giving her children less attention and gaining more weight than ever as a result of losing the exercise she gained from commuting to work each day.

A part-time job would be a far better proposition for Veronica. Getting out of the house, and away from the children, for a few hours a day is really important for the health and well-being of both mothers and children.

"If I worked part-time though," sighs Veronica, "I'd lose the right to have a nanny. My ex pays for the nanny and he sure wouldn't be prepared to pay that money if he knew I wasn't working full-time."

"Life's so difficult - I wish I could just stop working altogether, park the kids with my mom and give myself the freedom I need to get back to being the slim, calm and collected woman I was before I got married."

"I can't cope with all these dramas!"