703
By: Nancy Makin

A moving, funny, tongue-in-cheek, and deadly serious story about how one woman lost and found herself by going online.

Nancy Makin weighed an astounding 703 pounds in May 2000. She was forty-five years old and suffered from diabetes and other obesity-related maladies. Thanks in equal parts to shame and logistics, she'd been homebound for a dozen years.

But all that changed after a gift from her sister: a computer. A technophobe, Nancy ignored it for months, until finally boredom and curiosity pushed her into cyberspace. And there, in a political chat room, she found the friendliness, the connection, the acceptance she'd been missing for so long. Nobody flinched when Nancy spoke up; people treated her with the same respect accorded to anybody else. Thanks in great part to these new emotional connections, Nancy's life was transformed.

She followed no particular diet plan; no pills, potions or ab-crunching exercises played a part. There was no silver bullet, no magical, elusive ingredient-and yet today Nancy has lost more than 530 pounds. Nancy's tale is one of redemption, a story of reevaluating her worth and insisting she had value simply because she was human. It will show a growing America that there is hope, there's always hope... if you believe! (edited by author)