Favorite weight loss tips from a fat guy

Honestly, I'm in no position to give advice on dieting. What I can do is reveal the secret of losing weight. The catch is that knowing the secret doesn't make it any easier.

A lot of the weight loss programs you see advertised will tell you that with their help, you can diet without being hungry. "Without being hungry" is the part I think is misleading. Because the secret of losing weight is simply to remain hungry all the time. That's all there is to it.

It's not the same as starving yourself. That will make you sick. You have to eat enough to keep from getting sick, but you have to stop eating while you're still hungry. And by the same principle, you don't start to eat because you became hungry—if you're trying to lose weight, you're always hungry, and if you eat enough to stop being hungry you will not lose weight.

On the other hand, if you can stand to walk around with that little (or big) knot of hunger burning in your gut all day and all night, then you're all set. As in so many areas of life, your abilities are determined not by what you can do, but by what you can stand to do.

Now, a lot of people get cranky when they're hungry. I think I am one of those people. I don't know for sure. I get cranky so much of the time anyway, it's hard to say. But being hungry all the time will make you a grouch, and I hope you can enjoy your weight loss as a form of compensation. Because by the time you hit your target weight, everyone will hate you. Now you know why willowy supermodels go ballistic so predictably.

I'm not trying to lose weight because I think it will make me happy. It won't. I'm doing it because I reached a point where extra weight starts to cause serious health problems. My doctor is too diplomatic to tell me that these health problems will kill me if I stay fat. What she strongly implies is that if I die before I get old—too old to die young—then these obesity-related problems will be what kills me.

That's what it adds up to, and I know it has none of the optimism of a shiny happy weight-loss-program sales pitch. The Secret of Weight Loss doesn't leave room for that. I don't like it any more than you do, but the difference is, I'm stuck with it and you're not. You can just say, "Hey, what does that idiot know? He's still fat."