I am both criticized and praised for the way I write my columns. You see, I'm not content with simply regurgitating health and weight loss information in a very dry, impersonal manner that does not give people any practical context for using it in their own lives. Instead, I make every effort to share from my own experiences to help others who may be going through similar circumstances.

Some say they don't care what some former fat guy has to say about diet and nutrition because all he is basing his comments on is what he has gone through and not basing his writings on any professional medical opinion. That's true and I've never claimed otherwise. Plus, I make that point abundantly clear every single time I write a new column. If you don't like what I write about, then nobody is forcing you to read it.

Drink's big claim: It burns calories Skeptics don't buy Coca-Cola ...

Consumers cruising the aisles of supermarkets this week will find a new green tea beverage with an astounding claim -- drink it and burn calories.

The Coca-Cola Co. and Nestl say consuming three cans a day of their new product, Enviga, will burn 60 to 100 calories -- and you don't have to run laps around the track, pedal a stationary bicycle or even bench-press weights. These calories can be burned merely by lifting the cans from table to mouth.

It seems too good to be true, and some say it is. In fact, one watchdog group already has filed a false-advertising lawsuit against the two companies, and Connecticut's attorney general has launched an investigation into the calorie-burning claim.

But Coca-Cola representatives insist that the drink has been scientifically tested and that it works.

Diet blogs: Her mama thinks she’s cool

Who is this "uber" cool gal? Well, in one post Rachel describes herself in detail using nothing but music lyrics. She is able to effortlessly infuse comic with a twist of snark into her blog. Add this one to your list of favorites:

"I think one of the reasons I let myself get as fat as I did is because I thought of my body as a sort of finite vessel.

Food for thought

One of America's most articulate thinkers about food, Michael Pollan, writes that we lack a culture of food, a set of deeply rooted traditions surrounding food and eating. We have instead a set of national anxieties about food: about weight and nutrition and safety. The origins of food in supermarkets, processed and dyed, preserved and packaged, have become increasingly opaque. The economic and social realities of food's production are too often invisible. In a country whose origins were in agriculture, that boasts some of the richest and most productive farmland in the world, most Americans no longer have any connection to farming, and little understanding of it.

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Take this low-fat diet and shove it

Is diet season over? I'm weary of ads touting how low-fat this or that food is. If Jared tells me one more time that I ought to eat those sandwiches because they have only 6 grams of fat, I'm going to reach through the screen and smack him.

Many high-fat foods are healthful. Nuts are high in fat, but five servings of nuts per week cuts heart disease risk by as much as 39 percent. Olive oil not only reduces heart-disease risk but lowers inflammation, as well.