Want to diet? Eat breakfast for dinner

If you’re like other Americans, your New Year’s resolution is to shed a few unwanted pounds. With such an array of diet books on the market, how do you know which one’s for you? We took a look at some of them on TODAY. Read an excerpt of “The Reverse Diet: Lose 20, 50, 100 Pounds or More by Eating Dinner for Breakfast and Breakfast for Dinner” by Tricia Cunningham, who lost 150 pounds on this diet, and Heidi Skolnik, nutritionist.

Tricia’s Story
One day six years ago, I woke up and decided to do exactly the opposite of what I had been doing my whole life. Up until that point, I had spent most of my life struggling with a weight problem. I yo-yoed between bingeing and fasting and eventually tipped the scale at 280 pounds on a 5’8” frame. 

Until that time, even throughout my childhood, I thought nothing of being 150 to 160 pounds. I wasn’t one of the thin girls.  My weight became a way for me to protect myself from the abuse I suffered at home. If I made myself ugly, I figured that I was less of a target for my first stepfather’s unwelcome attention. Even though I eventually moved to live with my grandmother, this habit stuck with me. Fear of being attractive created a lifelong struggle with my weight.

My weight fluctuated for many years. I tried everything, including starvation and just about every fad diet, all of which failed miserably. Ultimately I gained more weight than I lost. Nothing seemed to work. My family tried to convince me that I was “big-boned” and that there was nothing I could do about it. But when I married my first husband, Ron, at age nineteen, he didn’t accept that logic. He wanted me to be super-thin, and he wasn’t patient. I was back to starving myself and binge eating. By Christmas 1991 I managed to get down to a size 9 and felt great. Valentine’s Day 1992 came with a special surprise: I was pregnant with my first child, Brittni.  Of course I welcomed this blessing, but it presented a whole new challenge.

Having struggled with weight all of my life and then being told that I had to gain weight, I was in an emotional whirlwind. I thought I had a free pass to eat whatever I wanted. Ron worked as a supervisor for a local snack food company, and just about every night he brought home as many snacks as he could carry. Three-pound bags of potato chips, Slim Jims, cookies—you name it. I was in heaven. At the end of the pregnancy in October 1992, I weighed 220 pounds, having gained 70 pounds. After I had Brittni, my eating habits didn’t go back to the way they were before the pregnancy and therefore neither did my weight.  In March 1993, I learned I was pregnant with my second child. I was delighted, and once again I had a free pass to eat whatever I wanted.

Not long after Noelle was born, Ron was back on the subject of my weight. He hounded me about not losing weight after having Brittni. He was constantly comparing me to a woman in his office and complaining that I wasn’t nearly as skinny as she was. It didn’t take long before I realized they were having an affair, and soon after that my marriage with Ron dissolved. Over the next few years, I had a few short romantic relationships, and my weight would fluctuate accordingly. Bingeing and starving were my two best friends. I ate a lot during stressful times and nothing after I had done something wrong — that is, anything less than perfect. I was a perfectionist and an overachiever in all aspects of life except where my weight was concerned. That was the one thing I felt I couldn’t control.

I was the heaviest I had ever been, maxing out at 292 pounds. I kept starving myself and losing as much as 40 pounds, but it always came back. I just couldn’t keep the weight off.

Then on August 28, 1999, everything changed. I woke up exhausted from a party the night before. We had been celebrating the life of a friend we’d lost, and I was still dealing with my emotions as I slowly made my way downstairs. I moved slowly because I was wearing a cast on my right leg, which I had broken a few weeks earlier during a tumble down the steps. I couldn’t see my feet over my belly, tripped, and went flying. It was 9:30 in the morning and the house was crowded with people over to watch a sporting event. We ordered a pizza, and I had my usual drink, Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi, along with my morning cigarette — I was smoking 2 ½ packs a day. Everything seemed normal. After four puffs of my cigarette, three bites of pizza, and a half a glass of my drink, my heart felt like it was getting ready to burst. Everything was spinning out of control; it felt like there was a swarm of bees in my head, and I dropped everything and ran into the bathroom.

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