Health

It’s an old and infuriating story. You’re trying to lose weight. It seems like you’re always trying to lose weight — you’ve been trying for a year, or five years or three decades.
 

Local cardiologist and community leader Willie Lawrence, MD, saves lives each and every day. Named the American Heart Association’s 2011 Physician of the Year, Lawrence works tirelessly to advocate and fulfill the association’s mission to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
 

Every night, after 6:30 p.m., I am effectively a prisoner in my own house. I have a four-month-old baby who lays his little self down in my arms and closes his eyes at exactly 6:30 p.m. There are no more spontaneous trips out to see a band or late-night runs to the grocery store. My husband works late, so it’s just me and my sleeping baby boy in the house most nights.

It is 11 p.m. I’m achy from my workout yesterday and feeling pretty good about it. I ate well today, except for three large squares of chocolate from the Pound Plus Trader Joe’s 72% Dark Chocolate bar after dinner. My waistline is blissfully unencumbered by elastic-waist, cotton and spandex yoga pants.

There isn’t much that I love more than a wedding. I got married over three years ago, but I can still be found covertly recording Say Yes To the Dress on my DVR every Friday night. It’s a sickness, really, but there is something so alluring about the romance of it all.

After dodging pregnancy for my entire adult life, I am pregnant. Glee is not the word I would use to describe my reaction to this news; stunned silence is more like it. When I saw that second glaring line show up on that little pink stick, everything stopped.