Like many men of a certain age, I struggle with maintaining a healthy weight.

That makes it sound like I struggle with ordering a second and third beer to go with my bacon double-cheeseburger and fries. I do not struggle with this.

No, what I struggle with is adding five or 10 pounds of ballast to the midships per year since high school, which I attended IN A PREVIOUS CENTURY. Keep in mind it’s not technically fat shaming when it’s you looking in the mirror and then saying a lot of bad words.

Weight gain is, of course, a delicate subject to be handled sensitively, like conversations about how the Vancouver Canucks have reached the Stanley Cup finals three times but lost each time because they are terrible.

Likewise, it’s hard to know what to say when you notice a friend has put on a couple of hundred pounds. My best friend Mark’s Grandmother Ruth addressed the matter with me in the gentle, kind way she was known for.

Grandmother Ruth: Dave, you’re getting fat.

She was right, and I have noticed the fatter I get, the more space I take up in life. This means less room to move around, so I’m bumping into more furniture and more people. These little moments of social friction can........

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