I've been big as long as I can remember. Even though I played soccer as a kid, danced in audition-only children's shows, and ran a nine-minute mile in PE, I was always big. My parents — San Francisco yuppie types — fed me a steady diet of farmers market vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins

Growing up, I always felt like food was forbidden. My size-zero mom, who had the self-control of a monk, did not stock our pantry with a lot of "junk." Everything was low-fat, low-calorie, and low on taste. A splurge was an extra piece of fruit; enjoying a second (or third) helping was a bigger

I have long been a champion of brine in cocktails, particularly gin cocktails, and have been drinking pickle-tinis for quite some time now. I usually just use the juice from the Clausen jar, causing me to usually run out of brine before I run out of pickles, but now I can leave my pickles in

The day I turned 29, I made a vow to myself to lose 70 pounds by the time I turned 30, hoping to drop from 190 pounds on my 5'3 frame down to 120.The fatness of my body was very much tied to my psychological well-being. When I was a senior in high school, I went on the Zone Diet and got down to 128

Since hitting puberty like a brick wall at the age of thirteen, I have struggled with body image. I have never been terribly overweight; my insecurity came from developing so quickly. I went from an A-cup to D-cup in under a month, and the sudden flood of comments from girls in the locker room and