The Skinny Daily Post is the work of health columnist Julie G. "JuJu" Ridl, who began the Post to support friends and family in their own weight loss and fitness efforts a year after achieving her 100-lb. weight loss. Around that time she'd drawn the conclusion that maintaining a significant weight loss is equally as scary, difficult, and lonely a prospect as managing the weight loss itself. This site was her way of keeping friendly, understanding souls close by. Since January 2003, it has drawn thousands of subscribers, thousands more daily website visitors from 90 countries, and attention from media and health and fitness writers from The New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Inc., and many others. The columns are now syndicated by The Tribune Media Service's NewsCom.com, and they are passed from hand-to-hand, used online and off in weight loss support groups of every kind from WeightWatchers groups to Overeaters Anonymous meetings, bariatric clinic support groups and low-carb forums.

Paying it Forward
It's Julie's goal to make sure The Skinny Daily Post remains a free service to anyone who needs it. But it does cost her thousands in out-of-pocket expenses and time to keep this little venture going. If you find a daily dose of support in these columns, and want to give something back or pay something forward, there are two ways you can support the work. You could make a direct donation to JuJu's favorite charity, the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation:

JDRF.org

Or, Write Your Editor
If you think your town could use some skinny, refer your local newspaper's Features Editor to NewsCom through the link below. They can make it available to a much wider readership, and help to offset the cost of publishing this online version. Buying The Skinny Daily Post is mere pocket change per paper. Really. We're talking taxi fare here. Short uptown ride.

NewsCom.com

Julie Speaks
Is your weight loss and fitness gathering looking for a speaker? Have Julie in for a reading, a talk, a Q&A, a chat. We can't really call her a "motivational speaker," because she's got this thing about where motivation comes from. An attitude about it. But she can tell you about that, and talk endlessly about getting fat and then getting fit. Or at least as fit as she is. You should definitely give her a time limit. And there should be someone there to enforce it. We find pepper spray works very nicely. Does that sound interesting? Then write:

info@skinnydaily.com