I didn't know Bart Hoebel well; anyone who did might be offended to hear that I think I knew him at all. But I did spend a weekend with him, and about 50 others, a few years ago, and he left an impression.

Hoebel, a psychologist at Princeton who led ground-breaking research on addiction to sugar, died last week at age 67.

I like to spout that I’ve lost 155 pounds and kept it off for almost 20 years without having weight-loss surgery and without going on a diet. The trick is in the word “diet,” of course, which is used in parlance as a temporary change — often in varying stages of craziness— in response to what, for many, is a recurring problem.

I had a great time talking about "Fat Boy Thin Man" with Jimmy Moore, the creator and host of "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show," who has a wide following and a winning manner. The audio is here.

This study finds that regular exposure to sugar-laden drinks dulls the drinker's sensitivity to sweetness, requiring more substance to get the same hit.

You wouldn't necessarily know this, but that's one of the seven official standards the American Psychiatric Association uses to diagnose addiction: Increasing tolerance.

This is not an endorsement, and I won't be attending, and if it was for almost any other substance, I wouldn't even be posting. But for bacon, OK.

I've said before that I don't oppose weight-loss surgery, and understand that it is sometimes the best hope for some obese patients' survival. But my solution wasn't surgical, and my experience tells me that surgery isn't the only remedy available.

Because of its prevalence — in part because it is supported by insurance while the methods that helped me no longer are — I'm often interested in studies on these surgeries.

Via a pointer from my friend Phil Werdell, I mention AARP's June newsletter, which assures that misinformation can appear anywhere. The topic is weight-loss surgery.

... and likely of little interest to most visitors here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/weddings/elizabeth-oliver-sara...

But it's my blog, and I'm excited for my niece and her bride.

They did a video, too.

Jesse Tannenbaum, a casting producer working with ABC-TV, is looking for young people who have worked through a difficult health issue and turned the experience into a positive in their communities.

A reaction to the USDA's "MyPlate" concept, which replaces the failed "food pyramid" for communicating what we should eat in a simple way, that I've seen several times is that the next chore of food and nutrition advocates is to get federal agriculture subsidies to mirror federal advice for what we should eat.