My trip to Savannah to be on TV is another adventure. I still love the south. People are so nice here and seem to be more centered than the hustle and bustle of California. It’s funny that I say that because I have carved out a sanctuary for myself right in my back yard that I become more centered in the mornings. It is true that it matters less of where you are physically than it does mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Maybe it is just easier when I am away from the daily routines and stresses of everyday life. Maybe it is because I realize how important it is for me to be centered when I am trying to bring awareness to the devastating illness of eating disorders. I can’t believe I actually will get in front of the cameras and the nervousness goes away as I focus of the importance of the message. Even if one person hears something that gives them pause to reevaluate their relationship with food and them Self it is worth it.

Having such a mission is exciting. I never imagined that the worse thing I encountered in my life would also become my greatest gift. If I did not know first hand how crippling eating disorders were I would not be so passionate about helping others to avoid these pitfalls.

The general public does not even know what an eating disorder is. They think it is someone starving them Self to be thin or someone who should just say ‘No’ to the food. They think they just need to quit eating so much, go on a diet, exercise more or stop the disordered eating behaviors. What’s more disturbing is that so many people whose lives are so compromised by disordered eating do not even know they have a problem. Some people have lived their life struggling with their weight, diets, body image and obsessive thinking about these things that they think it is normal. Eating disorder awareness is where alcohol and substance abuse was 20 years ago.

When I first started working with patients with disordered eating fifteen years ago I worked with people who were having problems with yo-yo dieting. That is why I wrote the book, Diets Don’t Work. By that time I had years of recovery from an eating disorder myself. I listened to these patients with a different ear than most therapists. My patients were describing the self-hatred, loss of control, obsessive thinking, and suppressing feelings and stress with food. They described how this was affecting their relationships with their families and their Self. They described not being truly available to those around them because of always thinking about losing weight, finding the right diet or beating them Self up because they had once more slipped with their diet.

The statistics are that 66% of Americans are overweight and 1/3 of these people are obese. Most of our health care cost is associated with the results of disordered eating. People are spending 60 billion dollars a year on diets, weight loss programs, diet foods, pills and products but as a nation we are more over weight than any time in history. Eating disorders are skyrocketing. We keep trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results. This is insanity. We keep looking for an external solution to an internal problem.

I am going to Atlanta tomorrow to speak at a conference for mental health professionals about recognizing disordered eating, understanding the neurochemistry changes that exacerbate eating disorders and how to treat this disorder. Again I am so fortunate to have this opportunity. There are so many excellent professionals who have not been able to obtain treatment information or even be aware of this disorder in their patients. I hope I can ignite the desire to learn more about eating disorders so they can help so many more people than I can alone.