A huge difference between the traditional and self-publishing routes is where the books sell. Authors on the former path can expect to have their books sold in thousands of bricks-and-mortar locations, by virtue of their mainstream publishers' solid distribution deals with very large retailers.

I point you to a pop-culture-filled discussion on obesity over at designobserver.com. Obesity is an topical outpost for the site, which comments from a design perspective. Business reasons brought me, just in time, to two posts in recent days by design heavyweight (but very fit person) Jessica Helfand on the over/under nature of problem eating. 

If you and I are hooked in via the Fat Boy Thin Man Facebook page, or my personal FB page, or fatboythinman on Twitter, then you may already know this: We approved the proof of the paper version on the book last night! I ordered 100 copies to start, to be used almost entirely for promotional purposes.

Now that I actually have the book and am no longer hoping to see it "sometime soon," we can set an official release date, and I'm aiming for the latter half of October. I hope to be able to announce a date, well, "sometime soon" — next week, maybe.

One way I'm trying to spread word of my book, "Fat Boy Thin Man," is by reaching out to people who have portfolios in the field, ask them to read an advance copy, and offer an opinion. This is, of course, how authors get blurbs for their back covers.

Frequent readers know that my bottom line is that food addiction is real, and that ignorance underlies its lack of acceptance in mainstream medicine and popular culture. So it's fair to say that anyone doing research on obesity (the main, but not only, result of food addiction) is a friend of mine, and that's essentially true.

The question of my headline was posed to Ed Ugel, author of "I'm With Fatty," by Bev Sklar, a writer at AOL-constituent thatsfit.com: If you only had the money for one which would you choose, a personal trainer or a nutritionis

The problem with studies, especially around food and nutrition, is that so many have contradicted other studies from over the years that no one knows what to believe.

I have almost certainly mentioned before that I typically weigh or measure the food I eat, because I have way too much data on what happens when I wing it. I'm quite sure I've said before that I don't mind high quality food, but I'm much rather have unlimited piles of mediocre food and dainty portions of the finest cuisine. That's just true, period.

So anyway: We'd been searching for quite a while to replace the two food scales we keep in our kitchen, which were of the same type and gave out within perhaps a month of each other after long years of operation.

Me and Georgie ... and Shmuley Boteach? At Huffpost, as passed on by my sister, reading from Israel.

Georgie and I have instituted 'Friday Night Dinner" at our house, which consists of a date — not romantic (well, not necessarily), but a commitment to dine together, at the dinner table, without any electronics on, at least on this one night. As often as we can, we share this repast with friends, and look forward to when Joe is part of the tradition — he's a big reason we're doing it.