It was over thirty years ago that someone handed me a book that seemed to have the answer to the greatest problem facing people like me — how to lose weight. The book promised a miracle cure with no pain. Eat all you want and lose more than you can imagine.

The best thing was that this was secret knowledge. Those who read the book were right and everyone else was wrong, wrong, wrong. There was a special delight in being one of the elite, in knowing something no one else knew.

Let me emphasize right off the top that I am not a medical doctor and this sermon contains no medical advice. However, I am an expert in weight loss and weight gain, because I've had plenty of both over the course of my life. That's because I am a fat person. As an adult I've weighed as much as 300 and as little as …