• I, like millions of others, used to say, "If only I could lose "X" number of pounds I'd be so much happier."  What I've learned along this crazy meandering path of self-discovery is just the opposite.  Rediscover your birthright, your innate value as having been born human, valuable only because you are human, and the excess weight comes off easily, as I believe that overeating is only a side effect of a deeper emotional inner turmoil.

• My message is not just for the obese person out there.  It is also for anyone who knows or encounters someone in my former condition or any other debilitating condition for that matter.  Reach out to these souls because they need your "touch."  Use any means at your disposal to make an impression on lives around you.  It will "fill" you and in turn help someone else realize what they've carried inside and misplaced so long ago is still there within, begging to be recognized.  They will rediscover their dignity, their humanity.  And you, by reaching out in that selfless act, may heal your own internal demons, whether you display them on your shell or carry them each day within.

• Americans spend 30 billion dollars per year on weight loss items; pills, potions, self-help books, treadmills, any and every diet plan known to man, and yet statistics show that each year we grow heavier as a nation.  Worse yet, there is an avalanche of weight gain occurring now in our most precious commodity: our children.  Obese adults have a hard path; society's reactions to them are terrible.  But our children face even more pointed ridicule and at a time of life when all they are trying to do is "fit in."

• Keep your focus off the scale; I weigh myself every six months or so, and then at the doctor's office; I don't even own a scale... I find it counter-productive.  Obsessing over a "number" is unhealthy.  You are more than pounds registered on a scale.  Re-direct that focus onto someone else's needs.  There are plenty of people out there with problems worse than yours (believe it or not!) and you have talents that can help these people.  Just listening to others can help enormously.  By refocusing your attention, by refilling the stores of "value" within, you will find that the pounds come off your frame like creme de cacao sliding off a mound of French vanilla ice cream.  And it will feel more delicious than the substitute ever has.  Your outside, your shell, will come to reflect what you have re-discovered within.

          Please think about it, and if it makes sense, act on it!  If you wait for all the stars to be in alignment, for everything to be "perfect," you will never begin... By the time all is perfect, you'll be in heaven... Nothing is ever perfect in this life... but, it's good enough.  And you are "good enough" just as you are.  Start "acting as if" and all will fall into place.  You have to change within to change your outcome.  Believe.