Duckman Bill - Clean Comfort: An Adventure in Food, Courage, and Healing: Finding Peace, Balance, and My Perfect Weight

Copyright

2014 Stacey Morris

Edited by Bill Duckman

Designed by Robert McLearren

Photography by Joan K. Lentini

Dedication

First and foremost, this book is dedicated to anyone ever caught in the cycle of despair known as dieting and binge-eating. Only those whove walked this road know the frustration, self-recrimination, and shame that comes from ping-ponging back and forth between the two extremes. This book is for you...I share my experience, long-term results, and hope (as well as recipes) with you so you know there is indeed a way out. Motivation is the wild card, though, and it kicks in only when youre ready. Thats how it happened for me and dozens of people Ive met through Team DDPYOGA.

And to Diamond Dallas Page , creator of DDPYOGA and Terri Lange , Godmother of DDPYOGA, how can I put thanks to you in a single sentence? Both amazing examples of reinvention and being jaw-droppingly fit at any age, you guided, mentored, and cheered me on during my 18-month journey of shedding the physical burden of excess weight and taught me what it takes to keep it off. You had the answers that diets du jour and celebrity fitness books did not. And you wanted nothing in return other than to see me succeed. Thank You with all my Heart for caring and for taking the time out of your own busy lives. As you know, my Life has blossomed in ways I never thought possible.

A Massive Thank You to Team DDPYOGA member and all-around technical wizard Robert McLearren for his generous and patient help with all the myriad things Ill probably never fully grasp. Thank You for making this book, and my website a reality! To my second-grade English teacher, Trudi Egan , Im forever indebted, because it was YOU, all those years ago at Lake George Elementary School, who recognized that I was a writer. Thank You with all my heart, Mrs. Egan. Thanks also to Team DDPYOGA member Steven McEvoy for your invaluable advice in how to self-publish. And to my wonderful nutritionist, Nancy Guberti , for helping take my already much-improved health to a higher level!

And a special note of Gratitude to Chef Suvir Saran , who taught me through example, the art of honoring myself and foodin that order. Your amazing cookbooks and approach to Life set my healing in motion that fateful day in 2008 when I visited you and Charlie at Masala Farm on assignment. Thank You, Suvir!

To the members of Team DDPYOGA, thank you for supporting me along my journey, especially in the beginning when I was feeling rather low, and needed it most. What a gift it is to have an instantaneous network of cheerleaders. Your presence and support continue to inspire me: to stay connected to the community, do better, and meet new challenges.

I also owe a debt of thanks to the Big Beautiful Women in the public spotlight whose confidence taught me to be proud of who I am - no matter what the scale said: Roseanne Barr, MoNique, Nancy Timpanaro-Hogan, Rosie ODonnell, Conchata Ferrell, Totie Fields, and Oprah Winfrey - the light you exuded when society said you shouldnt, helped me exude mine.

And to my teachers, mentors, and soul-explorers from every walk of life, who helped me find my way by guiding me through the slow but unstoppable process of learning to become comfortable with who I am: Loretta Grabowski, Julia Assante, Kadea Metara, Loretta Grabowski, Stanley Werner Jr., Natalie Reid, Dorothy Randall Gray, Uzuri Amini, Jan Phillips, Belvia Jane, Anette Carlstrom, Shelley Cummins, Danielle and Esmond Lyons , and J udy Joy WyleThanks for sharing yourselves.

I want to thank my friends who were there for me during the thick and thin stages. You know who you are. You saw me for ME, and not my size, and that made an irrevocable difference in my life. And to all the friends, former co-workers, classmates, school bullies, and strangers who looked down on me, took a cheap shot because you could, and in some cases, deliberately humiliated me simply because you didnt like how I looked...Im vetoing the predictable thanks for the adversity because it made me stronger soliloquy. If I had to relive it all, Id choose the happy childhood option. But since Im still standing, I may as well send a pearl of great price your way by saying: Its never too late to redeem your soul.

And closer to home, I thank my family, immediate and extended, who were witness to all the dead years I was shut down, trapped, and not really my true self. Thanks to my Mother, Margaret McComas Morris for surviving all the unpleasantness. My obesity and food addiction was surely an unexpected derailment for a mother. Ill bet it wasnt in the motherhood script you envisioned when you were decorating my nursery, and there was no manual for dealing with it once it unfolded. Ill probably never fully know how it hurt your heart as a mother to see me so unhappy, but now I can say, we survived it! And I Thank God you are enjoying this new chapter with me. Ditto for my siblings, Dory, Mike, and Jeff , who got their share of viewing the underbelly of human nature while I was, ahem, maturing. Thanks for hanging in, and for your forgiving natures. A big Muchas Gracias to Antonio Ruiz for giving me the necessity of unconditional acceptance when I needed it most desperately. To my Angelic cousin, Anne Lundahl Higgins , for your unwavering support of both my journey and my recipes - Your loving comments and pats on the back mean so much to me. And to the newest additions to my family: Bill and Zach Duckman ...The Duckmen - I Love You - and not only because youre such willing test-drivers for the new recipes I invent! Chef Bill, my Jewish King, much of the inspiration in this cookbook comes from your passionate genius. I could not have written this cookbook without your input. You make my life more delicious in so many ways. And to The Zachster, thanks for giving me a gift I never knew I was missing - until Jan. 13, 2012.

And to those who have passed before me: Thanks go to my Aunt Alice Snively Winsor for believing in my ability to be a writer; to my grandfather, Donald Emory McComas for being a prolific and sensitive writing role model; to my grandmother, Edith Knabb McComas , who taught me discipline and patience; to my beloved Aunt Mary Frances Morris Garlick , who walked the path of struggle with me, from you I learned what it means to live with gusto. And to my father, Barr S. Morris , who never got to see the newly minted, transformed version of his daughter: your life and what you taught me helped me get here. How I wish I could prepare you a meal made from this book. We would sit down to a bowl of Bills New England Clam Chowder, then maybe a bit of cherry cobbler topped with coconut whipped cream for dessert. Youd marvel at how good everything tastes, and then probably do your own personal version of rejoicing when I told you how foods like this had a direct hand in my transformation.

What all the years of trial and error have taught me is theres no one answer to living in balance, but good, clean food is a big part of the mosaic. Loving food, preparing it with TLC, looking forward to an evening meal or post-workout snack keeps me sane, happy, and on track. I finally did it, Dad, I finally did it. I built a house of bricks. Its real this time. And Im never going back.

Forward

I remember the first time I heard about Stacey Morris. Terri Lange had sent me an email letting me know that there was a woman on Team DDP YOGA who had lost 30 pounds during her first two months. Terri knows I love to call my team members to give them extra motivation when they demonstrate theyre putting the work in. So I called...and I thought Stacey was going to crash her car when she realized it was me. Once I realized she was driving I asked her to pull over, and we talked for 20 minutes.