Chapter One

"Gaining Weight?"

Last summer my sister and I were painting in my studio in the backyard, commenting on this and that. We got around to health issues since she has been teaching in that area, to college students, for about 32 years. Both of us always struggle to keep our weight down, and, had been discussing the trend in weight gains among students. She told me about her students who had lost weight by just giving up high fructose corn syrup. Thus, the idea for this book was hatched. I begin with a story about my son.

Last year, my son had been searching a popular free dating website and was growing discouraged by the fact that prospects were worse in the smaller city where he was now living. My husband suggested to him that he just let me take over, for him, on the site. To our surprise he agreed. Being his mother, of course I looked at all the best looking women who said all the right things. I was thinking about having beautiful grandchildren and being able to get along well with my future daughter-in-law. I was also worried about the fact that he was looking a lot at women from outside of his geographic area, because he could find women that were more girlish looking for their ages. I didn't want him to drive too far, after all, I am his mom.

The few women that he had dated previously were hard to talk to because they weren't accustomed to our family habit of sarcastic humor. They did appear, however, to be slimmer and more feminine than the group of women listed on the website as living nearer to him.

I've struggled to m