Guys, I’m going to need you all to sit down for this one. I’ve got something important to tell you that I just discovered about myself and I thought it would be better if it came from me (before you heard it from a friend) and that I told you all at the same time – in this very private forum. If you need to come to me afterwards and ask questions, express concerns or offer well wishes, then my mailbox is always open.

Guys, it seems that I’m fat.

I know, I know, it came as a huge shock to me, too and I’m here to tell you it’s all going to be ok. I’ve had some time to really research what that term “fat” means (thanks to Google and some quality time on WebMD) and I think I’m finally coming to terms with it. Telling you all is the next step on my journey to well-being.

I’ll be honest with you, like you, when I first heard the news, I thought, “you’re WRONG! My high school prom dress (along with many other clothing items) progressively shrunk over the years – that’s what old clothes do – it has something to do with the fibers contracting (you’ll have to forgive me I was never good with Textile Science and didn’t understand that this couldn’t possibly be the case; I mean, I was a liberal arts major). Are you saying I’m NOT still a size 7? Seriously, I thought I was still a size 7! The clothing industry is just doing something hinky with the numbering these days in order to make me believe (silly them) that I was wearing bigger clothes. Whatever!”

But I was on the elevator leaving work and a co-worker cleared everything up for me. Apparently, my weight had to do with bad food choices!!! WHOA! Talk about lightning bulb going off. And a great example of those bad food choices were the items I had purchased for Christmas gifts and was carrying out to the car (chocolate covered caramel popcorn) “Tell me more!” I thought to myself and fortunately didn’t have to vocalize, because I was followed into the parking lot as great wisdom belched forth. Get this, according to this weight loss guru this popcorn contained something called “HFCS” (for those not in the know as I was before this great enlightenment, that’s High Fructose Corn Syrup – but if you’re hip to the health lingo, they shorten that down into a nice little acronym – seems like it would sound like “hefcus” to me, which isn’t particularly clever, but how often are you going to get a big hit like RADAR or SCUBA?)

I gleaned all sorts of health tips as I took what seemed to be a mile long hike to the car, and between you and me, I swear that vindictive little car moved further and further away with each step. THANK GOD is all I have to say, because I would have surely missed the part of the speech that dealt with binge eating once a week to “trick” your body (along with several other important tips that I can’t get into because they might be copyrighted or cause a nutritionist’s head to implode – either way, I can’t share).

All in all, it was a darn fine lecture and now that I know I’m this thing called “fat” thanks to the elevator intervention (that was a close one – I could have had a quadruple bypass while slurping down a 3 liter bottle of soda and never known), I can move forward and make the right choices (which might involve a few hand gestures, but they’re all nice and non-provocative – probably hard to tell with my pudgy little hands anyway).

Thank you all for your support and understanding. I know you’re probably all reeling from the news – let it settle in – it’ll be ok.