Free Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life by Valerie Bertinelli Page A

or ask me for advice. She just cut her calories and started to exercise.
    Toward the end of 2007, around the same time I reached my goal, she reached out to me for help. She had dropped close to 16 pounds, which was great, but she thought she could do better on Jenny Craig and asked if I could help her. My mom turned out to be my biggest fan, explaining that I had inspired her. She also turned out to be a tad competitive.
    “Val, if you can do it, I think I can handle it, too,” she said with a playful chuckle.
    “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
    “It means the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she said.
    My mom was so right—more than I cared to admit. As a young woman, she had been drop-dead beautiful. Her wedding photos still take my breath away. However, by the time I was in my teens and twenties, she had lost that figure and dressed in large, formless A-style dresses, the same thing I had done when I had packed on the pounds, except that I wore over-sized men’s dress shirts.
    Both of us had been hiding our pain under our weight and bigclothes. At eight years old, my mother had lost her mother and she had had to learn to soldier on without complaint. She handled the loss of her child the same way. Later, as she raised four children while my dad, a retired GM executive, rose up the ranks, there were issues in her marriage. At each juncture, walls went up—and gradually so did her weight.
    I had resented her for not taking better care of herself. Now, of course, I looked back and saw that my anger was incredibly selfish and self-centered. How dare I be offended at her for not being the way I wanted her to be! Fortunately, our communication skills had improved since then.
    Of course, I got her on Jenny Craig and she embraced the program. One day I called and she said she had just finished riding her stationary bike. She said she’d pedaled for forty minutes and was working up to an hour. She wanted to know how long I exercised for each day. I knew what she was doing, because I did it myself, and I reminded her that dieting wasn’t a competition.
    “I have more weight to lose than you,” she said.
    “Maybe now,” I said. “But I’ve just spent a year working my ass off.”
    “And now I’m doing the same thing.” She laughed.
    Her determination impressed me, especially at her age. But she explained that age was her biggest motivator. She wanted to feel better and healthier. She mentioned her heart problem. She said she heard the ticking of the clock. As she knew, at some point, she would need surgery.
    Well, I didn’t like to hear her talk that way. She told me to shush and be real about things. By getting fitter, she increased her chances of an easier recovery, not to mention bettering the odds of surviving the operation.
    “I wish I’d done this sooner,” she said.
    “I’m glad you’re doing it now,” I said.
    I remember when she called to let me know that she had lost another five pounds. She was bursting with pride. I knew the feeling. I smiled.
    “You go, Mom!” I said.
    “I don’t care if you’re nineteen or ninety,” she said. “You have to want to do it—and I do. I’m not ready to go yet.”
    “Glad to hear that,” I said.
    We kept trading information and encouragement. I liked the way we were talking to each other. It might have sounded superficial, a mother and daughter discussing their diets, but as I came to realize, we were relating to each other differently and more positively. For the first time, we were able to open up and talk.
    I finally saw my mom as a woman with her own full and complex life, and in her own way, she felt similarly about me. It was no coincidence that each of us felt better about ourselves.
    She called one day after seeing me on TV to let me know she was pleased to see me “out of my cocoon,” as she put it, “And no longer hiding out at home and making excuses that you had to take care of Wolfie.”
    “I did?” I