chapter 1

Make no mistake about it, Kelly Simmons was a control freak. She had an iron will. That's how she could resist any and all temptations. She had no bad habits. No smoking. No drinking. No drugs. But she was most especially rigid about her diet. She ate healthy and she ate sparingly. Not surprisingly, Kelly was toned and thin, standing five feet eight inches tall and weighing in at one hundred and twelve pounds.

Alas, Kelly was also somewhat judgmental. She wasn't mean spirited or anything, she just couldn't bring herself to tolerate human foibles. She was particularly intolerant of those people who made lame excuses for their behavior. Kelly's idea was that if you smoked and got sick, it was on YOU. If you got drunk and had a roaring hangover the next day, too bad, it was on YOU! And if you ate like a pig and got yourself fat, well, that was YOUR decision.

In spite of this slight "character flaw", most people liked Kelly. She was bright, cheerful, and for the most part, happy. She might have been rigid, but she was basically nice. Which is why she got along with her college roommate Moira. They had been together for three years and both of them looked forward to graduating together, that is until Moira got herself pregnant. She was in love with the father of her baby so they got married and Moira moved into the house her husband had rented with three of his friends.

Of course, this presented a dilemma for Kelly. She couldn't afford the apartment she shared with Moira, not on what she made at the college library. So she was forced to look for a new roommate.

As it turns out, the College Housing Services found a roommate for Kelly, a girl named Britt Sommers. Britt was what one might call a free spirit. She dressed like a girl straight out of the 60s, complete with VERY short mini skirts and the wildest tie-dyed tops you've ever seen. This in spite of the fact that Britt stood barely five feet tall and weighed something over two hundred and forty pounds, not exactly a 60s kind of figure.

At any rate, putting these two women together seemed like a recipe for disaster. But while Kelly was rigid, she was also VERY practical. She needed a roommate in the WORST way, and that sort of made Britt an appropriate choice. Besides, they had different schedules and hardly saw each other.

By and large, they got along with each other, except for one thing. Kelly couldn't help commenting on Britt's weight. She'd throw out snide remarks about how fast the food disappeared or how much space Britt took up when she sat down on their love seat. For the most part, Britt took it well, at least at first. But about a week before the Thanksgiving holiday, all the little jibes and digs were starting to wear Britt's patience thin. One night, Kelly snidely remarked that Britt was starting to look like their school's mascot. The only problem was, their school was the Hollingshead College Hogs. Well, Britt just blew her top.

She said, "The only problem with YOU Kelly is that you don't know what it's LIKE to be fat. I bet if you let yourself go now and then and put on a few pounds, THEN you'd know how hard it is to lose weight!" Kelly reacted badly to Britt's remark. She said, "Listen lard butt, if I let myself go for a month, and I mean REALLY let myself go, I'd be as trim and as think as I am right now by graduation!". And that's when Britt said the magic words, "Okay, Miss Control Freak, I DARE you to just let yourself go from now until the end of the year, and I mean that you go whole hog, and I DO mean hog. Then you'll find out that it isn't so easy to lose a big pile of flab!!" And Kelly, triumphantly said, "Okay, blubber butt, I accept your challenge. I'll eat like a pig for the next eight weeks and I guarantee that by the summer I'll be as slim and trim as I am right now!"

And so it was that the Kelly Simmons Challenge began. Kelly abandoned the eating habits of a lifetime, eating whatever appealed to her at the moment and eating as much of it as her poor belly could hold. What would Kelly look like on New Year's Eve? More to the point, what would she look like at graduation. Stay tuned to find out!