I haven’t commented in a while although I have faithfully checked in from time to time to giggle at your always fresh hilarity and to feel sympathetic about your crappy headache.

On February 7 I will celebrate my fativersary (although since I had lap band surgery to help get rid of my fat – our community calls this a “bandiversary”). Goodbye 75 lbs of chub and good riddance to you.

Thanks for the warning about accai berries. The new fake blog marketing tactic is a sneeky one.

Stay warm,

I’m a year behind you. I started this three years ago and about halved myself.

OMG. I never thought about remembering my fativersary until you mentioned it. (Is it a holiday? Can I stay home from work?) It’s coming up Wednesday–4 years. It took 2 1/2 years to lose the weight and now I’m holding steady. It’s so good to see an honest, non-defeatist blog out there to inspire the rest of us. Thank you.

And I think publicising the scam list is a public service.

What is prompting me to finally post to more than a friend’s blog is your comment about depression and compulsive eating. It struck a familiar cord with me. I’ve always had food as a friend and comforting source but about six years ago I went through my own depression and gained about 40 lbs in one year. I got through it though. Time does heal a lot of things but we have to do our part too. Your constant quest for self awareness, your willingness to seek help, your creative way of expressing yourself. All these things will help get you to the other side of the moon. That time in my life is behind me. I’ve lost the weight. Gained a little. Am on a quest to lose again. That’s life. That’s me. But that time in my life was very dark and very real and I sense it all over again when someone refers to their own dark period. Just know that emotions pass. Events pass. We have ourselves. And that’s the saving grace (even if sometimes it’s the burden too).

Your story is a really cool one. That you share it with the world is a gift to us. Thank you!

As an aside I live in a very small town, we all know each other, or know of each other, or are related to each other. It’s a rule. Well one of the Acai Berry “blogs” lists the owner as from my town. Riiiiight, never heard of her, she doesn’t live here, trust me.

Off subject. I was thinking more about your post about the headaches that won’t go away and then I thought about the time that these chronic headaches started, after major weight loss. I was listening to a podcast on Jimmy Moore’s site about the dangers of aspartame and just how deadly it is which got me thinking about artificial sweeteners and the side effects.

I know you’re not into comments full of advice but question: During weight loss and even now, have you/do you consume a lot of artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and splenda in diet pop, diet flavored water, sugar-free gum, foods, etc? If you want to listen to the podcast about aspartame, it’s on Jimmy Moore’s podcast list but would you be open to cutting all sugars and fake sugars for a whole week, maybe two (due to detoxing from the stuff) to see if the headaches subside? One whole month sugar and fake sugar free would be an even better “experiment” just to make sure that’s not the cause plus I bet you drop some easy weight as well since there’s proof that even fake sweets cause weight gain.

Anyway, if you choose to ignore this or pass, that’s definitely your choice but I really have “women’s intuition” on this because the headaches came on into your weight loss and I’ve read some posts where you talk about diet pop.

Would you be up for a little experiment?