Nancy was inspired to take control of her life after receiving a computer from her sister on her 45th birthday. Bored and isolated, she logged on to the Internet and began communicating with people who had similar interests.
"I found political chat rooms, and I found people who enjoyed my wit," she says. "We just started exchanging e-mails, and it filled me. They couldn't dismiss me out of hand, because if they'd seen me, they would have rejected me."
The pounds began to melt away as Nancy reconnected with the outside world. "[My friends] nurtured me," she says. "They fed me something, and I learned something about ourselveswe are valuable only because we are human."
Nancy says she became obese "one cheeseburger at a time."
"You were gaining 50 pounds a year," Oprah says.
"Right, and it's not that hard to do," Nancy says. "You do that for 10 years, you're 500 pounds overweight."
