I've been a nutritionist for more years than I care to admit. I've studied food, the stuff in it and its relationship to the body until I'm dizzy.  So you know I know what to eat to be healthy. That said, I confidently accepted the challenge of whipping the Heart & Soul staff into shape as they set out to get fit and inspire readers.  Drunk with my own power, I met with them regularly, doling out advice and fruit and fiber, convinced I could put them on the straight and narrow. Piece of cake, right? Wrong.

First, let me say the editors of this magazine had the best intentions when they vowed that by hook or crook, they'd lose weight and get fit. Their proclamation to do it with you, their readers, was admirable. But girls, can we talk? I knew even health magazine editors occasionally enjoyed savoring a hunk of chocolate cake or a fried chicken leg. But a half of a pizza in one sitting?

Dare I say that when I asked these women to write down everything they ate or drank for three days—and be generous with a little thing called "the truth"— the task was, well, daunting.  Instead of telling me what they ate, they recounted how they made "sacrifices" for their "downtrodden" families—by taking trips to ice cream parlors. They told how they crafted complicated schemes to hide giant bags of candy in cellars (and God only knows where else), allegedly to protect their innocent children.  They wrote that they just had to drink those mega-sized orange sodas—you know, to get their vitamin C.

Now the truth did sneak in here and there. One journal entry simply blared, "I ate all day!" Another: "My hormones are raging, my face is pimple city—and I'm downing a cup of coffee and a doughnut."  Ah yes, the Heart & Soul magazine crew was on the bumpy road to recovery.  But truth be told, I knew their pain, for even the "good Dr. Ro" occasionally joins the ranks of sisters who eat what they want with reckless abandonment then gaze in the mirror and wonder, "Who's that behind me?"  

Luckily I knew that as long as the women stayed on course, not the seven courses, they would be okay. And by and by I'm here to say they did.

One finally purged the Pizza Hut phone number from her speed dial. Another boldly kicked her mother out the house because she was turning her lovely abode into a high-fat snack factory. Still another vowed to give up her favorite hobby: clipping KFC coupons and then promptly redeeming them (and not for the coleslaw).

It's not to say that these women didn't get through my grueling tutelage without becoming a bit salty at times.  But in the end they were making real commitments—to fast once a week on just fruits and veggies, to eat more healthful foods, to drink more water.  You see, turns out that the problem wasn't that these good sisters didn't know that eating ribs and chitlins meant there'd be more of them to love. They just love to eat! And that's okay.  We’re human, after all.  When we fall off the wagon, we get up, dust ourselves off and keep pressin.'  Now, I'm no advocate for chiltins, but whatever your dietary skeletons, trust me: you can join the Heart & Soul staff, get fit and "keep hope alive!"