I am making muffins! Apple cinnamon to be exact, and low fat, so I don't blow my latest excursion into my "I'm on a diet" world.

Losing 6 pounds in the last three weeks, has been like seeing a small light in the darkness. I have to keep reminding myself, that no one is setting the scale back, in the attempt to just trick me into thinking I am doing well.

Still, it's hard to escape the mental programming that has existed in my mind for the past 28 years. I better than anyone, know how I have used my weight as both a weapon and a shield.

"I open my mouth and I am empty."

I said this to myself one night, as I was alone, lying on my living room floor looking up at the ceiling. Whatever hurt I was still carrying inside, could not be appeased by an appetite that consumed calories in order to eradicate the pain, the disappointment and my fears long unspoken.

Curled up on my stomach, pen in hand, I wrote my thoughts down on paper. A brutally honest poem I entitled "Dissecting the Dinner Table", the place I felt sure, my dependency on food began.

I've been riding that roller coaster ever since, making excuses up for it as I went. Still I was haunted by my own words.

I open my mouth and I am empty.

I could lie to myself but the proof was always there. No amount of food could fill the hollow of my soul. I wasn't a car running on fumes, to be filled at the service station and ready to go.

I was a woman, a little girl, still fighting invisible demons by making myself as undesirable as I could be. If I could look into a mirror, and not recognize myself, I secretly thought that I had won. No one will hurt me ever again. No one will ever get close enough to try.

I made my own prison. I fed it well.