6:10 a.m.

Yup, still tough to get out of bed. I’m sleeping hard and having some pret-ty wild, NSFW dreams. My weight loss thus far is a disappointing 3.2 lbs. I’m wondering if I don’t quite have the water balance correct, as I do still feel a little bloated. Ah well. Onward.

8:45 a.m.

The gurus were right – this does get easier, and I can feel my relationship with food shifting, which was such a very, very necessary shift. I am one of those who was, perhaps still is, always considering their next meal or junk food indulgence. Where will it be? What will it be? How can I get my hands on more of it? Food isn’t just fuel to me; it’s medicine, of the psychosomatic kind.

It hasn’t always been this way.

When I was younger, at the agency, it was a running joke how much I could put away. “Tara will!” would be the group response whenever someone asked if anyone wanted a second piece of cake, or if anyone wanted to order lunch. Still, I remained slim while gorging on thousands of not-always-healthy calories. I was very active, and I ate mostly for the sheer enjoyment of it – the sweet, the savory, the crunchy, the chewy.

I did not, at the time, appreciate how lucky I was. My body, which, in retrospect, was likely in the 99th percentile as far as conventional attractiveness goes, was, in my mind, never good enough. I worried about my thighs. I worried about my calves. I worried deeply, after a particular head-scratcher of a rejection, about my boobs. I was, while not shy exactly, extremely self-conscious sexually, just when I should have been embracing my youth and beauty and living it all the hell up.

But I digress! Back to the present.

Yeah, I do feel a difference – a far less obsess-y approach to food. Im retraining myself not to use it to calm me down or soothe me, especially at the office.

We’ll see if it sticks.

11:45 a.m.

We order in our celebratory lunch, and I stash mine in the fridge. I open up the bag of Intense Pickle Doritos (Canadian) I’ve been saving for just this occasion and offer them up to my garbage disposals – a pair of young, animated guys who never pass up food. These two have eaten raw habaneros for fun, so I’m shocked, shocked when they both reject the dilly pile of tortilla triangles. The burly one has given up chips FOR THE YEAR! Blasphemy. The tall, slender other is just trying to clean up for 14 days, and pledges a future binge.

With no one to pass them off to, and certainly not wanting them all to go to waste (they cost $8 to ship from da Nort!) I eat a couple.

They’re delicious.

Yeah. Doritos and Donny Deutsch are my two biggest current weakness. While my celebrity crushes rotate, Doritos’ position has remained consistent for 30 years.

Evening

I feed the kiddo, finish up my steps and find my way on to the couch with a book. I’ve read one actual, tangible, paper book, and have listened to two and a half others, since the calendar flipped. My RHR is down 8 bpm.

This news avoidance, ignorance-is-bliss stuff is working.