Losing weight can be hard for some people. I've tried eating it off, I've tried resting it off. Nothing seems to work!

And still you get: ring around the collar!

Rich people live beyond their means all the time. See: Michael Jackson, Trump, numerous sports stars that eventually bankrupt. Remember, it's not how much you have that counts, it's how much you can borrow. At the moment, I am practicing to be rich by living beyond my means as well, carrying on a rich American tradition. Of course, if I quit spending that extra $35 a month, I'll be in line with my income, so the World Bank doesn't have to worry about me knocking at their door with a loan application.

So if we ignore your tongue being planted firmly in cheek, we get sarcasm?

Any weight you may or may not have gained is surely no fault of your own. Metabolic changes, plots by unseen forces, conspiracies by clothing manufacturers all play a role. Besides, it looks good on you. Only you! Don't you just love it when all their handiwork fails?

Wiping my neck with rubbing alcohol on a paper towel usually prevents those nasty rings.

I can't get over how upset people get at the crushingly obvious fact that fat people are eating too much.

Some of 'em are, and some of 'em aren't. My relatives who are fat do happen to be overeaters, but there are a lot of people whose meds mess them up, and if they are going to get enough nutrients, they need to eat normally, so they gain weight.

And you persist in removing exercise from the equation in your drive to oversimplify, oversimplify, oversimplify.

crushingly obvious? Ann, baby, trust me, you are so wrong on this it ain't funny.

Sure, there are a lot of fat people who can't stop shoving shit in their faces. But that's not true for everyone. Not everyone is fat because they eat too much. I could give you a hundred scenarios that disprove your theory.

You're making yourself look really foolish by persisting with this argument.

CTG, she's a law prof! She knows EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING!

I guess I might be more inclined to believe all of this if I hadn't lived for two years with forty pounds of excess weight on a strict 800 calorie a day diet that I never cheated on, all while exercising, only to find that it was the medication I was taking - a little fact my physician never bothered to tell me. I blamed myself. It never once occurred to me to look outward for the problem because that isn't the way I operate. I kept trying to change my own behavior because that was the factor I thought I could control.

Stopped the medication because I suddenly had a feeling something was wrong, lost 40 pounds in under one month and became so ill that it took me eight weeks to get over it and lived through six months of insomia after that, after a lifetime of never having had any trouble sleeping.

Everything sounds so simple when you're obscenely healthy, Ann. And I have been, my whole life. You don't really understand some things until you experience them for the first time yourself. All I know is that I will never be quite so quick to judge again.

After that my body chemistry changed and it is all I can do now to keep weight ON. I eat the most unhealthy, fatty foods in the world. Ten years ago if I'd eaten like this I'd have been a blimp. Any fool can see that if one's chemistry can change in one direction, it can change in another, and if it can be changed by drugs it very likely can be affected by things like heredity or hormones.

And if someone can't lose weight on 800 calories a day and is running and lifting weights six days a week with active duty Marines, you kind of have to wonder just how much "willpower" would satisfy you?

Maybe - just maybe - the causal connection isn't quite as clear-cut as you want it to be.

Thank you, Cassandra.

I was pretty chubby until I realized that chinese buffet's are not 'all you can eat', but 'all you want to eat'. I stopped being competitive about it after that :)

Wait until Ann hits menopause ....

If there is any doubt, science confirmed the fact long ago:Some people has amazingly efficient bodies--extremely-low caloric burns for a given level of activity. Volunteers(from a particular Native American tribe with an obesity rate approaching 100%) were sequestered in a sealed laboratory room for long periods of time(3 to 6 months) and a complete input/output analysis was performed, including exhalation gases. Even on a complete fast, monitored 24/7, the volunteers lost very little weight--ounces, as I recall. And there have been many more studies since, with similar observations.

Some people are given a much tougher row to hoe in life. We can't assume anything when we meet an overweight person, and there are no universal or quick solutions to the problem.

We can't assume anything when we meet an overweight person, and there are no universal or quick solutions to the problem.

Thank you, Darrell. Nice to hear a little straight talk, as opposed to the faux variety Ann is dishing out.

Well, eating less, certainly, or burning more (calories)and eating the same amount, or burning more AND eating less, dynamite!!
Anyway, eating less and burning cals, that'll do it. Guaranteed.

Again--barring a thyroid problem or a serious reaction to medication, that will usually do it.