Cindy developed an unhealthy attitude toward dieting as early as junior high, partly as the result of the strict standards imposed by a dance teacher. She suffered with a full-blown eating disorder in college, during which time she weighed as little as 100 pounds. She overcame the eating disorder and maintained a more healthy weight for a number of years but then gained about 20 lbs. in 2000 due to the stress of starting her business and a break up of a relationship. Recently she has been eating late at night as a way to wind down after long work days.

After years of secrecy, Cindy feels like it’s high time to share her story. She’s a woman on a mission: to show the world that it’s possible (and necessary) to forget the tyranny of the scale. Sure she wants to lose weight – but she wants to do it without triggering her eating disorder and being sucked into the cycle of denial and self-loathing that characterize the illness (and mirror the experience of many “normal” North American women.) Closest to her heart is the need to model good behaviour for her pre-teen daughter. Cindy “wants to be the hero of her own life.”

First and foremost, Cindy must be careful not to trigger her eating disorder by dieting. (She hopes to accomplish her goals by increased physical activity and healthy eating.) She needs to find the time to take care of herself in the midst of a punishing work schedule – even while she’s in the midst of major business expansion. The stress of risking everything in this venture – it’s “do-or-die-time,” she says – threatens to trigger her eating disorder and also severely limits the personal time Cindy needs to take care of herself and her daughter.

“It couldn’t get any more uncomfortable! How much tighter can it be? Can I show my gut? How much more could my butt stick out? Not much!” “It’s like I’m going to bust out of my skin. I know it’s affected me in relationships because when I can’t stand being in my own skin, I don’t want anybody touching me. How could they possibly want to touch me when I give myself the creeps?” “I went through so much of my life hating my body and fighting it.”