I'm an FFH: a Formerly Fat Housewife.

You take away the handicap of obesity, and this person becomes someone else. Take a jolly fat man for instance. You talk to him, and his heart is breaking. He wants to be thin.

I was fat, so I have the right to tell other fat people not only that they should lose weight, but also that they must lose weight because I was fat, and I lost weight, and I saw the difference.

For the first few years after I lost weight, I would feel for my hip bones every morning when I woke up so I would know I wasn't fat. It was like pinching myself so I'd know I wasn't dreaming.

We ourselves hold the instrument that makes us fat. I just shake my head when I see someone eating cake and saying, 'Oh, I wish I wasn't heavy.' But they keep eating the cake!

At the age of thirty-seven, I was fat, and since the age of thirty-eight, I have never been fat again. That's the whole idea of effective weight loss - it's permanent because it's part of your lifestyle and the way you think about yourself, with pride and a sense of accomplishment. The goal you achieve is your own - you own it.