The first thing I did was give up sweet tea because I drank so much. I'd start drinking at lunchtime and wouldn't set it down until I went to bed. When you calculate how much empty calories and how much sugar I was consuming, it was staggering. So I haven't had a glass of sweet tea in three years.

Her parents died before Paula Deen was 23 and an early marriage ended in divorce. You tell them to have chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch. In 1989 Paula Deen divorced her husband Jimmy Deen to whom Paula Deen had been married since 1965.

Deen resides in Savannah Georgia where Paula Deen owns and operates The Lady & Sons restaurant with her sons Jamie and Bobby Deen. She has publiPaula Deend fourteen cookbooks.