Once upon a time in a far off land called high school a certain Marquette columnist was a meager 145 pounds. If he turned his body just so he could hide behind a lamppost.

Then this certain Marquette columnist came to a new land called college. All of a sudden he found hundreds of empty calories. He found them at the bottom of cups from house parties and on top of plates at greasy spoons. And most of the time he wound up at greasy spoons because he drank too much from the cups at house parties.

Five pounds there, two pounds here, eight pounds there and all of a sudden this once scrawny high schooler had to shop in the "husky" section of Walmart. By the middle of his sophomore year he had found so many pounds that the only clothes he could wear were muumuus and pajamas. And even the muumuus were snug.

Finally it hit this not so pleasantly plump columnist he had to lose weight. It may have happened when he broke a park bench, it may have happened when his friend said, "Wow you put on the freshman 15…again." And maybe it happened the night he had to grease up his dorm room door with butter so he could inch his way in. Regardless of when it happened, he made a resolution to lose at least one chin and a pair of love handles.

So this dedicated Marquette columnist squeezed his way into the gym. He lifted weights and ran on ellipticals and generally poured out enough sweat to fill Howard Taft's bathtub.

It was hard at first but our columnist pressed on in the face of house parties and greasy spoons. Instead of drinking from red cups he drank from water jugs. Instead of eating cheeseburgers he ate broccoli. Within a few weeks his stomach didn't look quite so much like a hot air balloon.

One day he stepped on the scale and he couldn't believe it: 30 pounds had disappeared. He celebrated the only way he knew how; he went out to a house party and drank from red cups and then got a cheeseburger to celebrate all the calories that he had lost by avoiding the red cups and cheeseburgers.

OK, I'll be honest. I am the columnist you've been reading about. And believe it or not there was a point to all of this other than for me to toot my own horn. I just wanted to explain how hard it is to actually lose a substantial amount of weight on a college campus.

So for those of you at Marquette that also want to lose weight remember it is possible to do. Somewhere between Atkins and Z there is a diet and exercise program for you. And it will all be worth it when somebody takes a look at you and says, "Wow, have you lost weight" rather than, "What are they feeding you up there."

This viewpoint was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 20, 2005.