Shirley,

When a man, (ANY MAN), thinks you are younger than your actual age, well, you wouldn't eat another piece of cake, another piece of pizza, or another anything!!!

It's all about staying motivated. I mean, yeah, it's all about health, and being fit, and keeping the weight off, yeah, that plays an important part, don't get me wrong. But nothing works better for a woman's self esteem, than to have a perfect stranger give you a compliment. I never had any of those. Even my family (well, I was always the biggest, tallest one), so I stook out like sore thumb. Then, last year, when I went to family reunion and no one recognized me (or Alan, for that matter), well, they all had gained 50 lbs, and I had lost 50 lbs.

Do you thing anybody in my whole family gave me one word of praise, encouragement, or said 'wow, look at you"?? No, but growing up, I was called Mel-a-Roll, or Melody-Bells, or something not appropriate. It gets to you and you grow up with a lot of low-self esteem issues. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to know that self esteem issues lead to depression which can lead to either over or under eating. It's hard to get the mental thing to click.

But it is fun when a 42 year old man says nice stuff to you. And oh yes, when I met up with Alan at Dunkin Donuts this morning, I told him the whole conversation. He laughed and said "oh, I know you, you ate this up, right". And I said 'absolutely". We can laugh about this because we each know that we trust each other.

And you should see Alan when we are walking in the street and all these people (who I absolutely don't know and can't remember), well I love it when one of them is 6'5 and handsome and he goes "oh hi there". Now I don't know these people from a hole in the wall but I always smile and go "well hi right back at you".

Alan goes "Who is this guy?" and I always go "How am I supposed to know?, you know I can't remember anybody".

We laugh our heads off. (Thank god I can laugh about this). God help me when I"m 70 and I don't even know Alan. lol

Melody