Maureen Sullivan, M.A.,
Certified Nutritional Consultant

Maureen grew up in sugar-induced fog in the San Francisco Sunset District—you must read the story of her sugar addiction below! She tested well as a student but her grades were terrible as she lived from one Coca-cola to the next. When she went to college, she befriended a girl nicked-named, "Pudge," by her father because of her lifelong battle with her weight. Unfortunately, Maureen discovered that Pudge and she were exactly the same weight and height—that did it!

Through pure vanity, Maureen kicked her sugar addiction, lost the weight and met a young man on campus who couldn't eat any sugar at all—ever! A juvenile diabetic who kept her at arm's length. "I'm married to the needle," he would tell her. A few years later he proposed.

Maureen's fledging interest in nutrition now took on ever greater significance as she attempted to use nutrition to lessen her new husband's dependence on insulin—this was in the late 1950's, when there was precious little information available about such things. Despite her efforts, she was widowed at 35, with four small children and a tool company to run. At the funeral, a friend who knew of Maureen's sweet tooth, handed her a box of brownies through the open window of the limousine. She wouldn't touch them.

Two years later, Maureen married Howard Sullivan, a medical equipment salesman who studied Pre-Med at Stanford University before the war. Maureen and Howard moved to the suburbs where she taught school, raised her kids, and . . . suddenly, began gaining weight again! And this time with a vengeance: 40 lbs. But worse, she couldn't think clearly anymore—it was like grammar school again, only this time no diet she tried improved things. Howard ushered her from doctor to doctor, none of whom could find anything wrong with her. Then Maureen happened upon a nutrition book dedicated to Dr. Seale Harris, M.D., who in the 1920's, predicted the scourge of obesity that would befall us and the rise in Type II (Adult Onset) diabetes.

The message to Maureen was quite clear: follow a diet which controls pancreatic activity or join the growing ranks of the diabetic. Maureen had nowhere else to turn, so she put herself on a regime he recommended—this was 1978. The weight came off easily for Maureen—just as it did for me—her mental clarity returned, and, Howard, who had a professional association with physicians, concluded, "Honey, I think we've got the makings of a business here!"