As I celebrate my 15th anniversary of sustaining a 92-pound weight loss, I feel unimaginable sweetness in my life.

My journey to my own sweet spot began as a tiny girl when my grandmother and I would sneak candy as a secret.

 

I couldn’t admit to my mother I had developed a taste for candy, cookies, cake, pie, brownies – the list was endless – because my grandmother was diabetic and was not supposed to be eating sugary things!

Not only did I get the message that sweet things weren’t good for you, it had to be hidden. It was shameful!

As I developed a serious sugar addiction, I felt an outright fear around sweet foods – I craved them and I loathed them – quite a double message – and I hated myself for loving sweet things so much.

How could you crave something that so obviously wasn’t good for you?

Sugar was one of my primary drugs.

When I dieted, I tried to omit sugar and sweet things from my diet. This was an utter failure OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

When my diets failed, and practically all diets fail, I’d be right back into sweet foods – HUGELY!

The more I dieted, the more I weighed.

The more I fought my addiction, the more it OWNED ME!

The more I gained, the less self-confidence I had.

My weight loss journey – at this point in time, a 92-pound loss maintained for 15 years! – led me to find my own sweet spot in life. This is a place where life is a pleasure, being in a human body is a gift, and life is experienced head-on, without a sugar coating.

I urge YOU to find your own delicious sweet spot – and let the candy-makers go broke. Having a sweet spot in life, experiencing the sweetness we all crave, is more important than any food. I have come to believe the yearning for sweet food is just a metaphor.

The sweet spot is where health comes first and is highly valued, because it has so much effect on the world.

The sweet spot is where you cherish yourself

The sweet spot is where you hold yourself as precious,

• not because you’ve realized no one can do that job for you – although no one can
• not because you’ve learned you deserve it – because of course you deserve it
• not because the media and fashion industries have determined there’s a size that is acceptable and many that are not – how silly

but rather because you’ve found in your heart the capacity to love and honor your true self.