You read it here first: The dark horse in the 2009 Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest will be food-loving newspaper reporter and amateur eater Jen Cullen.

Those of you familiar with the holiday face-stuffing contest know I have some stiff competition in six-time champion Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi and defending champion Joey “Jaws” Chestnut.

These boys each ate 59 dogs and buns in 10 minutes, then had the stomachs to go head-to-head in a five-hot dog “eat-off.”

But I’m confident I could give those dog eaters a run for their money.

Consider my credentials:

• I may only be 5-foot-3, but my height is deceiving. I once ate an entire box of Super Pretzels — that’s six pretzels with gooey cheese — in less than two hours.

• I know how to wiggle and jiggle to make room for more.

• I have more space — a bigger stomach — to house those hot dogs than Chestnut and Kobayashi combined. Beating a small-framed competitive eater from Japan — where does all that food go anyway?

Seems suspicious to me — and an overly confident American who looks more like he works out every day than practices eating?

Place your bets now, people. And place them on me.

Consider the training I put myself through earlier this week.

Tuesday started off slowly with a can of vegetable juice to lubricate my insides. Then came a tuna sandwich, lots of grapes, a piece of string cheese and two Chips Ahoy cookies.

Later that day, after 40 ounces of water, I consumed three pieces of licorice. Then four handfuls of sunflower seeds and three handfuls of honey BBQ peanuts went down the hatch.

A few hours later I was hungry. I had a big salad and two servings of spaghetti with meat sauce. Five more cookies for dessert. A little later, some cranberry-raspberry applesauce and a piece of string cheese.

I finally collapsed from food fatigue. And we won’t even talk about Wednesday.

Seems like I’m failing, doesn’t it? Like I’m falling off the wagon.

I’m not. I lost 5 more pounds and

5 more inches at my weigh-in on Monday.

We all have days when we could win competitive eating contests. On Tuesday and Wednesday — for several reasons I am well aware of — I could have eaten until I popped.

But I don’t feel bad about my marathon. That’s the key. Eat it, enjoy it, get over it.

Now I’m back to my healthier, smarter ways.

I’ve never really been a big hot dog fan anyway. Where do I sign up for the pretzel-eating contest?

There are several different video clips of me posted on YouTube. Footage from my most recent weigh-in will be available soon.

My next weigh-in is Sept. 2.