If you don't have a plan, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years, and before you know it you're looking back saying, I should've had a plan.

Reality check: you can never, ever, use weight loss to solve problems that are not related to your weight. At your goal weight or not, you still have to live with yourself and deal with your problems. You will still have the same husband, the same job, the same kids, and the same life. Losing weight is not a cure for life.

Like an enemy I knew as intimately as any friend, I came to know the nagging, constant emptiness of the incongruent life. I ignored myself and lived for people, purposes, and goals that weren't my own. I betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in.

You cannot be who and what you are unless you have a lifestyle, both internally and externally, that is designed to support that definition of self.

People create their own experiences.

Effective negotiators have a style that those whom they are trying to influence, relate to and admire.

Relationships are negotiated and if you deal with ultimatums and authority all the time, then you're not going to get anywhere.