I looked at the calendar recently and realized that although summer was still a ways off, it was time to make reservations for our annual beach vacation.

Then I consulted my caloric calendar, and realized, “OMG! I just booked a vacation at a beach! Bathing suit season is only a few weeks away! That is right around the corner!”

Those of you with y-chromosomes are doing the math and calculating that sixteen weeks is plenty of time to tone up for summer in a healthy, responsible manner. I say to you, "Pardon me, Sir, but you are an idiot." Women know that it just doesn’t work that way.

My sisters will no doubt understand that the collective damage on one’s thighs after a season of turkey, Christmas cookies, Super Bowl guacamole, Valentine’s Day chocolates and Mardi Gras libations will not disappear in mere months under normal circumstances. If I was planning to fit into my 2012 Inauguration gown, I may have time if I started now, but the upcoming swimsuit season? You have got to be kidding.

No, we’re past the point of healthy weight loss measures -- we are in full-blown panic mode. No over the counter pansy remedies -- it would be like taking a baby aspirin after open-heart surgery or popping a Sudafed to ward off the Black Plague. Underpowered and ineffective in the face of a Fat Tuesday paczki.

We can no longer rely on anything FDA approved. Perhaps MLB ignored, but not FDA approved. We need products with outrageous claims sold only on late-night infomercials or in Google text ads.

It’s crunch time, and by “crunch” I don’t refer to a delicious candy bar, but rather a half of a rice cake sprinkled with Hoodia. We need a particularly aggressive case of food poisoning immediately followed by a 2400-hour stomach virus.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The next victims of the recession have to be the ice cream sandwich and lard industries. We’re talking Sara Lee and Chester Cheeto convicted in a Ponzi scheme. We need Toll House to be foreclosed upon. The Dow needs to close below eight. Size eight.

Okay, maybe I’m talking crazy (Fen-phen will do that to you). I have plenty of time to go legit. No fad diets -- three and a half months is more than sufficient to eat right, drink lots of water and exercise regularly.

And it also leaves just enough time for standard shipping rates from some of those misspelled Canadian pharmacies in my spam folder….

-- Tracey Henry, Suburban Diva

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