Reynolds, who weighed 307 pounds at her heaviest, says her ''out-of-control behavior'' began around her 40th birthday in 2002. Feeling lonely, she turned to food for comfort and gained 75 pounds over the course of 17 months.

''I used to look in the mirror and take pride in my figure, but that was when I was legitimately a full-figured woman,'' she says. ''I'd gradually gone from full-figured to morbidly obese.''

Reynolds opted for surgery after a friend expressed concern about her weight. It was a success, she says, though she found she was ''still consumed with the same anger, shame and insecurity as before.''

Her husband, banker Al Reynolds, encouraged her to begin psychological therapy in the summer of 2005. She learned, among other things, that she ''couldn't control what others thought,'' she says. She began to heal by talking openly about her weight loss to strangers.

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