That's what I wanted to call this blog, but the name was already taken. So after checking the availability of a few different ways to spell it, I decided on "Cooking With Kick", the title of the book I've been writing. At the pace I'm going now it's probably going to take years to write and I'm sure I would run out of steam way before that. The whole purpose of writing the book was to share what I've learned over the years about cooking and more recently, about losing weight. I've decided that a better (and quicker) way to share that is by starting this blog.

I've heard people say they've struggled with their weight their whole life. The longest I ever struggled with mine was a couple of days because that's how long it took me to decide that it was too hard to diet. Somewhere I heard that my body had a memory and even if I lost weight I would have to work hard to maintain it. It would be a constant battle erasing my body's memory of how big it used to be. I was already battling other things in my life so losing weight was the least of my worries.

The most I ever weighed was 225 pounds.  That was almost five years ago. I had reconnected with my husband to be and emotionally we both had become healthier, so I guess it was only natural for us to want to be healthier physically as well. I don't remember exactly how it came about, but we found a website called Body for Life. I took some of what it said to do and tweaked it to our tastes and lifestyle and it actually worked. In 6 months I lost 90 pounds.

Eventually, because life is always changing or it could be that body memory (I knew it!), I did gain some of the weight back. We had started eating out more often and disregarded our healthier way of eating. Looking back, we had almost let becoming healthier get to the extreme of eating tofu and bean sprouts so it was just a matter of time before it all fell apart. I'm just not a tofu and bean sprout kind of girl.

I now weigh 177 pounds. A week ago I weighed 182 pounds. Last night we were at my in-laws house.  I told them that we were back on "our diet" and losing weight. My father-in-law said that he knew I could do it because he had seen me do it before. My mother-in-law wanted me to email her everyday what we ate so they could eat it the next day. I wanted to write a book about cooking and weight loss. So behold, a blog has been born!