It is true that much of the commercial weight-loss industry is composed of charlatans who lack evidence to back up their come-ons. But that's not the same as saying that there is no way to reduce one's body size sustainably.

As you know, I did (am doing) it, and I have lots of friends who have as well. But there's also the long-term, legitimate, National Weight Control Registry, which is coming up on 20 years and tracks more than 10,000 people who've lost significant weight and kept it off for significant time.

I use Pocket to save articles to read later. It is helpful but also a crutch with its own faults, or, I should say, a crutch for my own faults to lean on. Which is to say, I put stuff in my to-do basket, and there it sits, not getting done.

Final notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters”ment that seeks to address issues around obesity is that our issue is not about — and shouldn’t be regarded as — fashion, but about health. Some obese people escape the many adverse health effects related to the condition, and people who are not obese do experience those conditions.

More notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters” conference in Dallas...

They played the Jennifer Livingston video (she’s the Wisconsin anchorwoman who was flamed in e-mail for being overweight) at the opening session, declaring her as a hero for standing up to the cretin who wrote to her.

OAC isn’t the only weight-advocacy group to praise Livingston, and I continue to struggle with that stance.

Our booth neighbors over the fence at the Obesity Action Coalition's "Your Weight Matters" conference in Dallas last weekend represented Take Off Pounds Sensibly, or TOPS, as it is known.

More notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters” conference last weekend in Dallas...

The "Center for Consumer Freedom," the Big Food-funded mouthpiece whose falsehoods begin with its name, cites the “latest study” when it serves its purposes, and mocks it the rest of the time. Sometimes this happens in back-to-back posts. They deserve the scorn of every thinking person on earth. But anyway.

More notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters” conference last weekend in Dallas...

Even though my chief topic is fast becoming sustainable personal change, and has never been strictly about weight loss, one of my “selling points” is that I’ve lost 155 pounds. The number tends to grab people’s attention, and then my challenge is to capitalize on that attention for the forces of good.

You may have noticed — and more likely not — I placed an addendum in my recent post about having gained weight, to identify the amount in question as about five pounds. Could even be 10 — I haven’t weighed myself with any regularity for years. What I know is that my clothing still fits, but a paunch that had left has now returned.

I avoid celebrity news like the plague it is, but I found a couple of angles to discuss in this story about Miley Cyrus, which popped up on a Google Alert I have running for mentions of eating disorders.

The gist is that Cyrus has lost weight, forcing her Sunday to address rumors that she has an eating disorder. According to that impeccable source Us magazine, she tweeted,