HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MY CHOLESTEROL?

I knew that my life had changed....not necessarily for the better or for the worse...when I couldn't wait to tell my walking group that my cholesterol had dropped 85 points.

Forty years ago I would limited this kind of "breaking news" treatment to stories about my boyfriend. Twenty years ago to accomplishments of my children. Now it was my cholesterol.

And no I'm not going to tell you some Birkenstock story of how I changed my diet and started exercising and eating flaxseed and drinking pomegranate juice. I took a pill. A generic pill. And the little sucker went from 280 to 195. Who'd a thunk it?

The problem is that I am not really in favor of taking pills. I think in another life I must have been a Christian Scientist. Certainly my mother brought me up to believe that being sick was a sin. It has made me intolerant of sick children, sick colleagues and all manners of other people. I do make occasional exceptions for inherited maladies but in general I would just rather avoid the medical profession all together. And I am to medicine what most Americans are to government. I am not fond of doctors but I adore my own doctors and my family members who are doctors. And of course family includes all my young friends who are applying to med school or newly minted physicians. They're different....

But here was my problem. I'm fat. There. I've said it. I'm fat. I used to be skinny. People used to feed me because they thought I was wasting away. And so I'm the opposite of an anorexic. When I look in the mirror I see a thin person, no matter who is staring back at me. For this reason I don't look in mirrors too much. Which means I overlook a lot of runs in stockings and sagging hemlines.

And then finally I found this great diet that was the answer to my prayers. The South Beach diet. You could eat all the eggs and cheese and meat you wanted and lose weight. What's not to like (well, the part where you don't eat bread or pasta or drink orange juice....) The other downside was that all those things were cholesterol-laden. So I was finally persuaded to "go on The Pill."

No, I'm not skinny. Staying on that South Beach thing isn't all it's cracked up to be although I don't eat much rice or bread anymore. Except when I do. So I'm still fat, but boy, you should hear about my cholesterol. Have I told you.....?