A year ago, I weighed about 185 pounds. Since I stand nearly five-foot-eleven, this weight didn't look particularly bad on me. While I felt a wee bit heavy, I didn't think that much about it.

Today, I weigh about 165 pounds. I lost twenty pounds in one year, and the only thing I changed about my life was that I drank more beer.

This is a genius diet. Drink more beer and you lose weight. Nothing to it.

Well, there are mitigating factors. For starters, I have a high metabolism. And my body doesn't process fat very well. So I can eat lots of food (especially high-fat food, the most satisfying kind) and I don't gain much weight. Even when I've been my most sedentary, I've never tipped the scales at 190. I can only imagine what I'd have to go through in order to hit 200.

There's also the fact that I'm a stay-at-home dad with two boys. It's nothing for me to go outside and pitch batting practice for an hour or two. Every morning, I walk my older son to school, which is about a two-and-a-half mile round trip. My younger son generally wants to be active (playing baseball or soccer or basketball or...), and so I'm active, too. So when I say "even at my most sedentary," that's a relative statement.

Still, I lost 20 pounds and all I did was drink more beer. I got the first hint of this weight loss early in the summer, when I picked up my younger son from his summer preschool. He and his friends wanted me to chase them around, and I did. Until my shorts fell around my ankles. I guess I'm solidly back in the size 32 camp, though I've simply resorted to wearing belts--just in case some of the weight comes back.

"You're sure it's not cancer or HIV?" one friend asked. A fair question, but still mostly a joke. I feel healthy enough. I don't have any strange pains and I haven't gotten any exotic illnesses. So I'm pretty sure it's none of those things. It might be a tapeworm, I suppose. But I haven't seen any segments in my stool, so I think I'm clear there, too.

But maybe I ought to visit a doctor and see if she can figure out why I lost the weight. I mean, twenty pounds is nothing to sneeze at.

It is possible that I am eating less in addition to drinking more beer, though I really can't say. When I'm hungry, I eat. And I don't think I'm reducing my portions. The truth of the matter is that I've never paid attention to what I eat. I cook with olive oil, I eat lots of salad and vastly prefer vegetables and tofu to fruits and meat--but I've been that way for a long time. There's nothing that has changed in the past year. Except, you know, for the more beer thing.

It used to be that I drank a beer or two every day. And one or two extra on the weekends. These days, I usually drink a couple beers a day, with one or two extra on the weekends. I don't really pay much attention to how much I drink--kinda like the eating thing--but if you make me think about it, I'd say I drink two or three more beers a week. Nothing huge. Nothing that explains the loss of twenty pounds.

So. I can't explain it. But the facts are plain. I made no conscious changes in my lifestyle, and yet my frame is 11 percent lighter. Might as well be the beer.

I guess I should write a pitch and sell this puppy. Drink more beer and watch the pounds melt away! I mean, that's what happened to me. Which means it'll happen the same way for everybody else, right?

Right.

Jon Worley needs to sharpen his satirical skills.