The big apple turnover it was. I have discovered Zabar’s Chocolate Babka thanks to my friend, Samara. And so, I turned.

For a moment, I got caught in the underbelly of the city, and felt pinned under its weight. Some people overeat under duress. I starve. Why not just take the suffering a step further? Screw the South Beach Diet, the New York City Diet has me down ten pounds in a week! Mix one part anxiety with two parts depression, follow with a sensible dinner of wine. I think carrying a bottle of wine is always wise in New York ; at worst, you can assault your attacker. At best, you have something to take the edge off when you get home.

I saw a woman today, dressed in a business suit, crying inconsolably. Did she just move to New York City ?

My life experience should have informed me, and I should have taken a better history lesson. When I lost 135 pounds, the expectation that the phone would ring, that dates would ensue, the life itself would satiate my every want – it did not happen. This may be what separates the successful long term weight loss contender… that being able to find value in the weight loss internally, relying instead upon internal gratification. It is a lesson learned with each foray onto the elliptical machine; to live in the moment and to feel gratitude for the struggle that achieves a great good in 30 minutes or less.

New York City is not what I expected. It feels angry and smells and challenges me; it offers me every temporal sensation and nothing permanent. And yet, I remind myself that I am the descendant of holocaust survivors that live within me still, and I remember never to forget. That is the goal – make it work. Swim, never sink, and the holocaust survivor that is in my DNA keeps me going on 200 calories a day! I stand proud, ten pounds thinner under the stress of the departure from the South Beach Diet and of the relocation to the New York City Diet – but I have been here only a week. I have accomplished a lot in these 28 years and nothing stopped me – a new country, a new city , a new body, a new life, a new experience, a new challenge; Masters and PhD in Public Health – first in the university – and presented independent research at the Mayo Clinic’s Symposium on Addictive Health Behavior Research. There is not a city big enough to break me.

New York City is my elliptical machine on the highest resistance setting, and come hell or high water, I will get my 30 minutes in and feel gratitude for the struggle that achieves a great good. My life history says so! :-)

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