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A relationship can often cause people to get fat. Couple weight, I like to call it. It happened to me once. An ex of mine, who was tall and lanky when I met him, gained several pounds midway through our coupledom. Even though I stayed skinny, I consider it couple weight because his fat ass gained enough for both of us. It wasn't good or sexy.

It's a well-known scientific fact that when a relationship ends and you feel like your heart's been squashed like a cockroach, you either gain weight, or you lose it. Last fall, I totally lost it. It was one of those things where I could cry my eyes out, but then totally love how good I looked in those hip-hugger jeans that I didn't even fit into when I bought them. They were a size 0.

Three months passed. Things started to get scary. Naked, I walked by the full-length mirror on my way to the shower one morning, and I noticed that I could see my ribs. "That might be bad," I thought. My therapist called me Skeletor and immediately prescribed some fat-making meds. By the second week I was eating entire boxes of mallomars. Entire. Boxes. I'm not joking.

Of course, I wasn't only eating mallomars last winter. I was eating everything within reach. When I went out to dinner I practically licked my plate clean every time, even when I was already full. I was constantly shoveling food into my mouth.

I put on thirty-five pounds. I'm only 5' 4." Okay, fine. It was 15 pounds. That's A LOT.

I've never had to worry about my weight before. I was always skinny, and usually, self-consciously so. In college one year I tried drinking a milkshake a day to add a little junk to my trunk. It didn't work. Since high school, I maintained between 99 and 103 pounds. People always assumed I was anorexic. But I was always trying to gain. When bigger people said they wished they were as thin as I was, what they didn't realize was that I felt just as bad about my weight as they did about theirs.

I knew I'd gained a little extra, but I was in complete denial about how much. I thought 10 pounds, tops. Despite the fact that I couldn't see my feet when I stood in the shower. When I went to visit my mother in Florida, the first thing she said about my weight was when the red star on the right side of my belly was showing. "Your tattoo looks bigger," she said. Later she asked, "Do you want me to take you clothes shopping?" Holy fuck. Fat clothes.

Then I skipped town for a month and when I came back it was spring in New York. Boo was the first person I saw upon my return. I'd started wearing t-shirts I hadn't worn since college because they were roomy and could hide my secret fat. I no longer fit into any of my jeans and when I wore skirts, which I usually do in spring and summer, I could feel my thighs rubbing together. My thighs rubbing together. I'd warned Boo beforehand that I'd gained a little weight and even when he saw me, he didn't believe me. You couldn't tell by looking at my face; my face didn't change at all. I lifted up my old acme tee and showed Boo what my stomach looked like. He blinked several times. Then I went and bought two pints of coffee Haagen-Dasz.

I don't want to encourage young girls to develop eating disorders, or whatever. I'm glad Mary-Kate Olsen came clean about having anorexia because it may actually save some mean girls' lives. I'm neither suggesting nor endorsing the Binge and Purge Method, or any other habit involving diet pills, laxatives, or lipo, for that matter. But if you were one of my best friends and had gained thirty five pounds, I'd totally recommend starving yourself.

The first thing I did was to get off those fat-lady meds, but they'd already changed my metabolism. I forced myself to eat as little as possible throughout the day. I was hungry all of the time. I'd call Boo crying because I was so hungry. I'd check in with him regularly. He was my sponsor.

"Boo, can I have Indian food for dinner?"

"What did you eat today?"

"I had cereal for breakfast and I had a banana this afternoon."

"Hm. Shouldn't have had that banana."

When I did eat, I had meat or fish or fruit and not too many carbs. Luckily, Ben & Jerry's came out with their lowfat and light lines around the same time. I'd eat a small breakfast and then wait until nighttime to eat again. Or, I'd wait until early evening to eat a meal. Then my whole day was covered. And instead of having ice cream for dessert, I'd have it only if I skipped dinner. I shed the poundage just in time for summer. Boo said, "Remember when you were so fat I almost threw up?" And we laughed.

I lost, like, 95% of what I call the 2004 Fat, but I could stand to lose the last of the pudge, as you can see from the July 4th panty moment picture. You can click on it to enlarge it. Although the smaller it is, the skinner I look.

The leftover pudge is stubborn. And food still calls me constantly. I'm like Ellen Burstyn in "Requiem For a Dream." I could gain it all back in a week, I'm sure. A lot of people say that when you're stuck with those last 3 or 5 stubborn pounds, that's when you should really start working out like crazy. I don't like to work out. I do walk everywhere, though. I walk a lot. But basically, my regiment is kind of like: No Gym. No Food.

It works.