Lost Weight, Hard-Won

I'm down 10.5 pounds from 2/19, one month ago, the day I started my horrifying Zone diet. It's been really hard, as I've discovered the difference between "being hungry" and "wanting food." Food is good, god-dammit. It's hard to think of it as only fuel.

I have to disassociate "going to the gym" with "deserving pizza." And I have to disassociate being thin with being unhappy, and being fat with being happy. This is the way it is with certain cultural and religious iconography, after all... (I'm thinking of the numerous statues of the Buddha, whose attained Nirvana apparently comes with it a certain gastronomic recklessness. But maybe these things no longer matter once you find the Lotus Way.)

I have to change this way of thinking, and learn to love Crystal Light. Despite my recent tendencies toward more natural foods and greener choices, this fact remains, that I will require large quantities of aspartame in the short term. If it means that overall I get healthier, then so be it. Here's my koan: what is the sound of one dry-roasted almond falling into a tiny Tupperware container? There is no answer. I catch it before it falls.