Julia Griggs Havey

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Biography

She was born in Colorado Springs, to Colonel Leonard L. Griggs, Jr. and Virginia Spicer. Her weight problem started when she was 11-years-old, while her father was on duty in the Vietnam War. She and her mother would stay up late into the night, watching the news from Vietnam, and eating ice cream to improve their mood.

Havey attended Parkway Central High School, graduating in 1980 and then going on to the University of Missouri, studying communications and journalism. She left college in 1984 to work for TWA as a flight attendant until 1989. Maintaining her weight at the required 125 pounds was difficult, and she often resorted to purging before weight checks. ["I Lost It," 2004 profile on Discovery Health Channel]

She met her first husband, a union representative, during an airline strike. They married in 1986, but her weight further increased during her pregnancy with her daughter, from 175 to 260 pounds. They later had a second child, a son. At the time of his birth, Havey, at age 32, weighed 290 pounds. Shortly after that she learned that her husband was having an affair. [ [http://juliahavey.com/about/aboutme.aspx Profile at juliahavey.com] ] After separating from him in 1994, she went on a diet and lost 130 pounds, then dating Dr. J. Patrick Havey, whom she married in 1996. She sent her story to "Woman's World" magazine, which published it in 1997 under the title "Now She Has Her Dream Body!" and launched her writing career. ["Now She Has Her Dream Body!", July 1, 1997, "Woman's World"] She went on to write and self-publish several diet books describing her weight-loss regimen, with her most successful book being "Awaken the Diet Within," which was bought and distributed by Warner Books. In 1999, she entered and won the "Mrs. Missouri" pageant. [ [http://www.mrsunitedstates.com/history_states.asp?year=1999 Mrs. United States 1999 contestants] ]

She worked as a "Master Motivator" for the diet-loss website eDiets.com, writing a weekly column from 1999-2006. [ [http://www.ediets.com eDiets website] ] In January 2007, she was interviewed by Dr. Mehmet Oz on XM satellite radio's "Oprah and Friends" [ [http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=6503 The Vice Busting Diet debuts on Oprah & Friends XM radio] , January 6, 2007, commonvoice.com]

She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and moderates a team on SparkPeople.com. [ [http://juliahavey.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/01/ediets_diet_for.html Job change press release from Havey's blog] ]

Works

* "The Easiest Diet I Never Went On"
* "Take Control Recipes"
* "The Vice Busting Diet" (St. Martin's Press) ISBN 0-312-34836-3
* "Awaken the Diet Within" (Warner Books) ISBN 0-446-69122-4

Notes

References

* [http://www.juliahavey.com/ Havey's website]
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* "Pound for pound, must read diet books", January 2003, "USA Today"
* "Woman's World", September 10, 2004
* "Woman's World", November 1, 2005