It is with great pleasure that I welcome our incoming freshman to OSU. Here you’ll spend some of the best and fattest days of your life. You have all heard about the “Freshman Fifteen,” the standard amount of weight gained during the first year of college.

Your humble Masticator wants to inform you that it need not stop there. By closely following The Masticator’s Diet, I can have you, dear readers, out of your new back-to-school clothes and into sweatpants before Thanksgiving – that’s my promise.

Today, I have reviewed the OSU Dining Commons – your partner in plumpness – a veritable All-You-Can-Eat temple of gluttony.

The morbidly obese, and Resident Advisors using their 19 Meals Plus-plan, are afforded the opportunity to belly up the buffet thrice daily and twice on weekends. Luckily for the rest of you, The Masticator’s Diet was developed with only half-hearted use of a 14 Meals Plus-plan, keeping the promise of triple chins alive for even novice eaters.

After moving my younger brother Zack into Houck House, he, our mom and I brunched in the North Commons, widely recognized as the flagship of the Housing Food Services battalion.

The first step of our program recognizes that, to cut down on long, calorie-burning trips back to the buffet or drink stations, you should always take no less than three glasses of high-calorie juice or pop on your initial pass as well as two plates for entrees and side items.

Scrambled eggs and bacon was for many years a staple part of The Masticator’s balanced breakfast. The commons do a remarkable job at providing eggs that are neither runny nor overcooked along with bacon that perfects the delicate balance between rubber and carbon.

My mom agreed finding the eggs to be “yummy and warm” and noting the bacon was “fried crisp, just the way (she) likes it.”

Dieters would be well-served to take a heaping plateful of this stellar combination and drench it in regular maple syrup. Rather than overpowering the taste of the eggs and bacon, the maple syrup actually mixes quite well.

Zack tried the hash browns and said this, “The hash browns taste a lot like those at Burger King and I found it easy to load an entire plate with them. The grease was a bit much.” What my brother fails to recognize is that the grease, far from being a drawback, is a key element in the Masticator’s Diet.

Hash browns without grease would be akin to blithering mouth-breathers without visors. My mom noted that the surface of the hash browns nearly matches the same pattern on her cellulite-ridden legs – leading her to believe that the hash browns are, in fact, “little cellulite tablets.”

Zack moved on to try the pancakes commenting, “These were cold yet still good with warm, gooey (regular) syrup. Very filling.” Like the proverbial Chia Pet, I could almost watch my sibling swell before my very eyes. I’m so proud. As the full effects of the Masticator’s Diet began to set in, his eyes rolled back in his head as he moaned, “I’m so full I can’t move.”

For those of you eating on the run, Buckeye Express offers perhaps the finest sausage croissantwiches around. The buttery pastry is crammed with a sausage patty, scrambled eggs and cheese. Mmm, mmm, good. Two of those daily and I can guarantee you immobility by Christmas, coronaries by Easter.

In conclusion, when embarking on this new diet – remember, you’re not in this alone. Look around you and offer support and encouragement to others as they go back for that second or third helping of sausage gravy, fried chicken, or what have you. Commit to be fat, Buckeyes!

Hank Mylander is a senior from Westerville majoring in Management Information Systems and a long-standing member of the Clean Plate Club. He can be reached via email at [email protected].