It’s been my concern for several years, ever since the dawning of The Flabbifying of America, that people are carrying around too much weight.
    A recent visit to the Golden Corral’s all-you-can-eat buffet in Rio Rancho convinced me that an abundance of food addicts people who become so overzealous that they gorge on whatever’s available, prompting enforcement of the painfully simple rule: take all you want, but eat all you take.

    One child, under the approving eye of a parent, filled a plate with pies, didn’t like how they looked, dumped them, and refilled.
    It was disturbing to notice parents, each easily weighing 400 pounds, doting over their under-10 brood, each of whom was carrying more than 125 pounds — of food . . . well, actually, of body weight.
    It’s easy to pass judgment, easy unless I’m among those packing too much weight. It would be a cop-out to say, “But I’m six times the age of those kids who’re filling up large plates with soft-serve and toppings.” But that would be unfair and sanctimonious. As Dr. Pangloss was advised in Voltaire’s “Candide,” he must cultivate his own garden. So must I.
    I’ve been including my current weight near my byline in this column for months. After writing a column on Sept. 11, 2003, in which I listed my weight at 234 pounds, I included the number each week, but not the word “pounds.” My friend Clarence Falvey, who worked with me at the Optic in the 50s, asked me about the number 222, or whatever. “Is that your I.Q.?”
    And David Giuliani, my managing editor, advised me to be less elliptical, “so people will know you’re referring to pounds, not years.”
    When I put in print that my weight was 234, I got a call from my sister, Dorothy Maestas, who at once praised me for my candor and said it’s a risky act to flaunt one’s weight: it obligates me to do something about it.
    Others have noticed. My neighbor, Grover Durham, a daily patron of the Abe Montoya Recreation Center, chides me when he sees my numbers going up. Em Krall, my chiropractor, has stopped praising me in the past several weeks, because my weight is stalemated. Former Immaculate Conception School schoolmate Alfredo “Chemo” Gallegos, recently asked, “What’s your weight up to? 286?”
    And Dr. G. Michael Lopez said he hopes to see less of me — literally.
    So, why is this week’s weight noticeably higher than last week’s? It’s because I have grandchildren. The littlest one, Celina, apparently wondered about that funny dial on my bathroom scale. It’s an adjustment: When there’s nothing on the scale and the arrows line up, it’s balanced.
    Ah, but anything that spins is a toy and fair game for a 3-year-old, and inadvertently, Celina made the scale read about 5 pounds lighter.
    Now, the hideous truth is that 225 is closer to this week’s weight. And I no longer wonder why the scales that are built into the treadmills at the rec center seemed to exaggerate.
    That fact bothered me enough to visit with a health-care professional whose practice is weight control. His conclusion, if I expect to ward off diabetes, heart disease, cancer and the myriad other ailments that age is heir to, is dieting.
    I realize that’s easy to say. And I know that nobody’s being fooled when my byline box score fluctuates three pounds up, then three down, etc.
    The weight specialist, Dr. Willard Dean, who said that doctors’ scales used to top out at 300 pounds, urged me to decide on a regimen and to tell people about it. He urged signing a contract witnessed by members of the family, to the effect that “I will attempt a strict regimen in which I conscientiously effect a healthier lifestyle.”
    Losing pounds alone should not be the goal, Dr. Dean said. Eat sensibly, keep active, and forego those biggie fries, supersized burgers, 44-ounce drinks and German chocolate cake.
    Ever a creature of excesses, I make this aspiration much more public than merely telling family about it. Yet even as I write these words, I’m not totally optimistic the plan will work.
    And let’s be fair. There are always detractors. A diet I attempted years ago, which succeeded as long as I worked on it, collided with a number of people who would say, “I bet I can get Art off his diet,” and who applauded at every setback.
    Rather than having my weekly weight totals ping-ponging, I plan a sensible program which will not necessarily bear a fancy name like South Beach, Atkins or the Zone.
    To be sure, when I last wrote on such a weighty issue, I got bombarded with recipes and diet plans:
    “Try this diet, Art. If you eat nothing but chocolate for 12 months, the pounds will simply melt off.”
    “Eat a grapefruit every morning. That’ll cancel out anything else you eat all day.”
    “Remember, eat one Hershey bar and you’ll need to run around the Highlands track eight times.”
    “Try Jenny Craig.”
    “Join Weight Watchers.”
    “Remember, anything you eat in the process of clearing the table automatically becomes calorie-less.”
    Discussing diets has become as popular a pastime as dining. However, I would like to keep the reading public posted on whatever progress I make, without turning this column into a weekly recipe swap meet.
    A headline on my office door at Highlands, contained a main head:
    Woman loses 140 pounds
    The smaller head below it read:
    One-half of her left behind
    We assume her right behind was about the same size as the left.
    Ah, these wretched English pronouns and ambiguous verbs are so inconsistent that this headline wouldn’t mean the same if referring to a man.
    Regardless, my hoped-for weight loss will include areas beyond just the left behind.