Karen:

What's with the court thing? (if you don't mind sharing), if you have, I missed it. And yes, I do know what stress can do to a body.

Years and years ago, when my son still lived at home, I had bladder spasms that drove me to specialist after specialist. I thought I had this, I thought I had that. I had every x-ray, bladder test, trans vaginal this, I went nuts.

It was all stress. Everything came back negative. I now know that having my son living in my home was not condusive (is that a real word??) to my being healthy. I have learned to let go, and let god (if indeed there is a god, I have my days when I do doubt that, but then I have my days where I give Him thanks).


All I do know that stress is a killer. I once had a nurse tell me that when I was all of 19 years old, a secretary, and working in a medical department. I was having a chat with a nice older woman and she said the one sentence that I never forgot. She said "Melody, stress kills". I never forgot that.

Little did I know that my own son would be a direct cause of all the stress in my life. But I have dealt with it in my own way. We have no choice.

And believe me, I do know about not eating and you don't lose.

Don't know if you heard this story, (I've told it before on these boards). When I was around 50 or so, I began a really healthy way of eating. My doctor had gotten on my case, so I joined a gym. Now I have arthritis so this is no easy task. So I did the gym and I never looked better in my life. I had previously weighted 203 at the doctor's office, so here I am about a month or so later, looking quite trip and fit, wearing spandex shorts, and a tank top (very revealing), I walk in, he takes one look at me and goes "whoa, look at you, you look great, hop on the scale". I proudly jumped on the scale and what did it read???? 223. I never in all my life saw that number and looked the way I did. NEVER!! I went absolutly crazy in the doctor's office. I made him get on the scale, I made the nurses get on the scale and I made everybody in the waiting room get on the scale. Everybody knew their weight and I weighed almost 30 lbs more than my 6 foot 2 inch doctor. Like I said, I went nuts. He looked at me and said "what on earth are you eating to have gained all this weight?" I just looked at him and said "are you looking at the same body I'm looking at?" He just said "the scale does not lie".

So I went back to the gym, grabbed the bigges muscle guy I could find, he was about 6 feet 5 and all muscle and I said "can you please help me?" and he looks at me and says: "sure, little lady, what can I do for you?" LITTLE LADY???? no one has ever called me that in my life. I said to him "Tell me why I weigh 223 lbs". After picking up his jaw, he took me over to the scale and sure enough it said the same weight. He scratched his head and in five minutes, I had 10 bodybuilders walking around me in a circle scratching their heads. All of a sudden, one of them looked like a lightbulb went off in his head and he said to me :"have you been working out?" and I said "of course, three times a week". and he said "show us exactly what you have been doing". So I walked over to the weight machines and put on 40 lb dumbell things and I started lifting weights. I did that with about 10 machines. After they stopped laughing, they explained that I had replaced fat with muscle and one pound of muscle weighs 6 times more than one pound of fat.

Oh, by the way, I have never, never never, picked up a weight since that date. I have never never weighed myself in a doctor's office that I know what I weigh. I went back to my doctor, told him what happend. He looked dubious. Then of course, I went back to my old habits of compulsive overeating. So fast forward a few years, I go to Cornell Medical center in NYC, I stopped eating the bad stuff, started eating the good stuff, and I lost weight. Now I don't look as good as I did when I lifted weights, but I don't weigh 223 either. Thank god.

Some day, I'll get down to my fighting weight of about 150. I will look like Gwyneth Paltrow if I ever get down to that, but I'm determined.

It's all about bone structure, body mass index, muscle vs fat, all that, blah blah. I don't care. I want to be thin and look like Mariah Carey. That's all I know. So this year I turn 60. I don't dress like I'm 60, and I certainly don't feel like I'm 60. I wonder what I'll be like if I live to be 70???

What a hoot!!!

Melody