Sugar was my go-to comfort, whether I was sad or happy, and its addictive nature along with the health issues it caused made me an abuser from as early as the age of five. For over twenty years after seven, every weight loss intervention failed me, leaving me feeling hopeless.

I was fourteen when I went to my first weight-loss camp. I knew that I would regain all the weight I’d lost when I went home. A little voice inside me whispered, “You should help people. You should make a program that really works.” That voice got louder with each failed diet. It sparked a need to help others who were struggling like me.

Eventually, I recognized that my issue was sugar. I broke up with sugar and dieting and found a way to heal my relationship with food. I finally created a program that would help people in the way that I had needed desperately all along.

That program took off. My clients discovered that their relationships with food could be loving and sustainable. As a result, I was often encouraged to take my message to a larger platform. But when I finally was committed to sharing my story with the world, I knew that I had to tell it all — leaving no stone unturned.

My friend Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Finally, I was ready to tell my story, shining a big and bright light on all the wounds. With anxiety screaming in my ear, I made progress and wrote Breaking Up with Sugar. Now, I receive daily e-mails from readers telling me that they finally feel heard and understood. They’re hopeful for the first time in their lives. To me, this is the truest meaning of life — to be truly healthy and loving. The greatest lesson I’ve learned on this journey is that, by embracing my truth, loving and sharing it, I am able to become the best version of myself — someone whom I love and cherish.

A Wisconsin mom makes mini--me toys as unique as the children who embrace them.

As a social worker using play therapy in the 1990s to help children through their cancer treatment, Amy Jandrisevits wished she could comfort her patients with dolls that bore their all-too-familiar hair loss and surgery scars. ''I would clear up Goodwill for bald Cabbage Patch Kids because that was the closest thing I could find. ''she says. ''I thought these kids need something that looks like they do. ''The idea stuck with Jandrisevits after she left social work in 2001 to start a family. Then in 2015, a mom whose daughter lost a leg to amputation(截肢)asked Jandrisevits, handy with a sewing machine, if she could craft a mini-me doll for the girl.

After Jandrisevits posted a photo of the legless doll on Facebook, orders poured in for likeness with everything from albinism(白化病)to birthmarks. ''Differences make kids feel isolated and judged, '' she says, ''with a doll, a child sees I am not the only one who looks this way...and beautiful enough to be a doll. '' Jandrisevits, 46, has since crafted nearly 400 custom dolls with her New Berlin, Wis, dining room table, with donors often covering the $ 100 cost through Jandrisevits' nonprofit A Doll Like Me. The mom of three insisted on making each doll herself with help from her mother and a friend.

For Keagan Cameron, 2, whose rare skin condition has him covered in birthmarks, Jandrisevits matched the doll's spot exactly. ''That was the most amazing thing, '' says Keagan's mom, Joy.

Brian Grassi of Coventry, R. I., says she wept like a baby when a doll came in the mail for his daughter Emma, born three months later in October without her lower left arm. ''Seeing my daughter with her doll, it makes me think about her future, not her limitations. ''

It was hard not to notice the 8-year-old boy across the street who stormed in and out of his own house. He did it often enough that a neighbor, William Dunn, wondered what was going on in his life. So Dunn asked him. “He told me that he didn’t have a father,” said Dunn, now 58,“and I realized there might be something I could do for him.”

That something was fishing, a passion Dunn’s father had shared with him.“ Fishing always brought me peace and patience. When you’re on the water, you can forget about your problems and just appreciate the moment!”   Dun n then got permission from the boy’s mother to take him fishing.

During the past 16 years, Dunn has taken groups of kids out almost every weekend to fish. Most didn’t have father figures in their lives and had never fished before.   “They’d been through a lot, and their lives were difficult,” Dunn said. “But when they were fishing, all of that faded away. Out on the boat, they’d be laughing and smiling and making new friends. I knew I was on to something.”

Jayden, now 13, has become a devoted fisherman and credits Dun n with helping him mature. “I hope he knows I mean it when I say thank you,” he said.

Dunn became fatherless too as his own father passed away this past December. As a result, the fishing trips have taken on new meaning for him.   “There’s nothing like feeling that first tug on the line and seeing a kid light up with a smile,”   Dunn said. “I feel lucky to witness that every weekend!”