SCOTT LUDWIG: Super-duper size me

Morgan Spurlock directed and starred in the 2004 film “Super Size Me,” a documentary in which he ate only food from McDonald’s for 30 days. Over the course of a month, Spurlock, age 32, gained 24½ pounds and increased his body mass index by 13%.

Spurlock also experienced other changes in his body that weren’t particularly healthy. However, they’re way too complicated for someone like me who barely passed anatomy to even try to explain. So you’ll just have to trust me here.

Now, I’d like to take a moment to address Mr. Spurlock directly.

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Dear Mr. Spurlock,

Sir, there’s no doubt that what you did in your documentary was interesting and informative. But I have a news flash for you: You weren’t the first. Been there, done that.

By comparison, sir, you are merely an amateur. You’ll understand why I say that once you know my story:

When Cindy and I were married in the summer of 1977, I weighed 164 pounds, which seemed about right for someone a couple of inches shy of 6 feet. One year later, after our first two semesters of graduate school — I was 23 at the time — I spent the summer working at a fast-food joint serving far better burgers than McDonald’s: Burger King. (Incidentally, a king trumps a clown — seriously, Ronald? — every time.)

Burger King, as you know, is the home of the Whopper. A Whopper paired with an order of fries, the two together tip the scales at just over 1,100 calories. According to the USDA, that’s about half of my daily allotment. Add a vanilla milkshake — keep in mind that as a BK employee, I ate for free, so for a newlywed grad student, that was a pretty big deal — and we’ll call it an even 1,800 calories.

That’s the meal I had for lunch every single day — a Whopper, fries, and a shake — the entire time I worked there. Remember, your regimen lasted only a month. Mine lasted for three.

After work each day, I downed a beer or two because, well, I deserved it. According to the USDA, that left me with hardly any calories for anything else. Like breakfast, dinner, fruits or vegetables. Basically, anything with nutrition. I only had one chance of staying within my daily allotment of calories, and it was a fat one.

Speaking of fat, that’s exactly what happened. By the time classes picked up again in September, I was carrying around an additional 31 pounds and my waistline had grown six inches. I have no idea what my body mass index was at the time — I suck at anatomy — but I was well-aware that my weight had increased by 20%. At the rate I was going, in another year I would have doubled my original weight. (Unlike anatomy, I was good in math.) I can’t imagine what my waist would have looked like, but it probably would have been in the neighborhood of, say, Jackie Gleason.

Over the course of the summer, I turned into a super-duper-sized version of myself. In case I had any doubts, Cindy was there to remind me.

Toward the end of my 90-day Whopper-palooza, she pointed at my reflection in the mirror — specifically at my stomach that had done lapped over my belt. (That was the origin of the medical term Dunlap’s disease, incidentally. The more you know …) Four words came out of her mouth: “You’re fat; go run.”

So I did. Over the next six months, I lost all of the pounds and inches that I had gained during the summer — and then some. Running shoes replaced the Whopper and fries in my daily regimen. Suddenly, instead of consuming a couple thousand calories a day, I was burning that many off.

It’s not like I had a choice. And it wasn’t only because I was overweight. I was also getting tired of hearing fat jokes. I imagine you heard your fair share as well, but I doubt they could hold a torch to some of the ones I heard.

I was at the beach and a lifeguard asked me to move so the tide could come in. A friend said to me, “I heard you wanted to lose 30 pounds — and you only have 40 to go.” A complete stranger once asked if it was true that when I got on the bathroom scale it read “One at a time, please.”

This was always my comeback: “I might weigh 200 pounds on earth, but I’d only weigh about 75 pounds on Mars. I’m not fat; I’m just on the wrong planet.”

OK, so it wasn’t the greatest. But there wasn’t a lot of material to work with.

Now that I haven’t been called fat for more than four decades, some people think of me as skinny. In some cases, too skinny. Occasionally, acquaintances who don’t see me on a regular basis ask me if I’ve been sick.

However, I never hear any jokes about being thin. “You’re so skinny you have to run around in the shower to get wet,” for example. I guess that’s because they’re not very funny.

But I’d rather be called skinny than hear even one more fat joke. I can’t tell you how many times people used to say to me, “You’re not fat, you’re just three feet too short.” (True confession: I thought that one was pretty funny.)

Now, Mr. Spurlock, you know my story. I think you’ll agree with my original assessment that you, sir, are merely an amateur.

Leave fat to the professionals.