[Diamonda]

Hi, everyone. I've been thinking ... what I really, really need is contact with real human beings who know what I'm going through. I lost 135 pounds a few years back and I've been struggling to maintain the weight loss and to learn how to live my life as a thin person, after YEARS of hiding behind all that fat. I lost my teens and 20s to fat, and now I'm in my 30s and finding the "learning curve" to be steep. I want to talk to other people who have had this experience too. Internet support is great, but I would love to find out if there are people out there somewhere in this big city (Chicago) who need in-person support the way I do.

There's a new book out -- Passing for Thin by Frances Kuffel. She, like me, lost half her body weight as an adult and had to learn how to live in a thin person's world in her 40s. Dating, flirting, buying designer clothes, becoming athletic, learning to feel ownership in areas of life she had previously surrendered -- all new to her. I was browsing through the book and noticed that she had a support group in New York where she could go and kvetch with like-minded women about the whole process.

I need that! Weight Watcher meetings don't do the job, because there are very few people in my position there. Most attendees are only slightly overweight and very few of even the heaviest members have lost an appreciable amount of weight or kept it off. I tried therapy, but that didn't get me where I wanted to go, either.

Is there anyone in Chicago who has lost a lot of weight, is deadly serious and focused about maintaining, is trying to live in this strange new world of being "normal," and would like to try an in-person support group?

I hope so! Please respond or give feedback if you find this idea appealing.

Diamonda
266/135/145 (see, I need to lose 10 pounds! Winter sucks)