myjourney

My Journey:

At age 30, I was lost within my own body. I dreamed of climbing
mountains but the only thing that went up was my weight -- to
about 360 pounds.

During one New Year's Eve, it all changed when I wrote down
what wanted to do instead of how many pounds I wanted to
lose. I decided to look at weight loss as a lifelong journey and I
got moving. I resolved to climb mountains.

My path led me back to the terrain of my childhood, and I
climbed to the top of Camel’s Hump and Vermont’s highest peak,
Mount Mansfield. I've also been to the bottom of the Grand
Canyon and back up again. Recently I conquered Africa’s
highest peak—Mount Kilimanjaro—the tallest freestanding
mountain in the world as a fund raiser for AIDS orphans.

My 120-pound weight loss has inspired me to help others on their
weight loss journeys through my Web site, publications,
coaching services and speaking engagements. It has also
inspired my Save the World Diet initiative, encouraging others to
take on physical challenges for charity as fitness goals. I am
taking on an event for charity -- from a 5K to a 220-mile bike ride,
and of course mountain climb -- each month of 2009.

I am currently writing Fat Woman on the Mountain: How I Lost
Half of Myself and Gained Happiness, a memoir recounting my
journey up mountains and down the scale and The Save the
World Diet: How You Can Get Healthy and Help the World.

I am the founder of www.fatwomanonthemountain.com, a
website to inform and inspire others on their weight loss journey,
and a contributor on www.raisedpath.com. I am excited to be a
finalist in the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women
Casting Call competition. I often speak about my journey,
including a recent appearance at the American Heart
Association's Go Red for Women Luncheon, where I also
introduced Olympian Joetta Clark Diggs.

I have been a newspaper journalist for a decade. My story of
conquering Camel's Hump a decade after it had left me winded
and beaten was featured in Self magazine. I grew up in South
Burlington, Vt. and am a member of the Green Mountain Club
and the American Hiking Society.

I live in New Jersey with my husband and daughter. We recently
moved from Short Hills to Summit. (Really).

Rock Bottom: It took a train to get me
to the base of this mountain in
Switzerland! December '96 -- 360 lbs

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
-- Henry David Thoreau