The Big Bonanza of Yum

As of this morning, I have lost 21 pounds – or, in the British terms that so amuse me, a stone and a half.

This afternoon I celebrated with a treat from Ben’s Cookies.

Well, not exactly celebrated.

But in diets past I have gone hell for leather (well, hell for cotton or wool or premium brand denim, I guess, because no matter how thin I get, you won’t catch this body in leather) toward my goal, desperate to lose as much weight as quickly as possible. I like to get unpleasant things – life without cheese, chocolate, and frosting – over with fast.

The life without foods I love has been my undoing in the past, though. I deny and deny and deny – and then suddenly, I’m eating all of it and I can’t stop. I know it seems Like, So Totally Obvious that this would happen – don’t think I don’t know better. But the fear of being unable to eat any of these things in limited quantities takes over, and I become convinced that eating one cookie equals eating ten equals waking up the next day and being unable to face my oatmeal (British: porridge) and fruit equals not going to the gym equals the end of my diet.

Things have been a little different this time. I was able to eat what I wanted over Christmas, gain a pound even, and still keep going – something I have never managed to do. I lost or stayed the same with every previous diet – and when I didn’t, the diet was over. I’m cooking, which means not eating the same seven things until I want to scream. I don’t sit around checking my watch to see if it’s time to eat again because I’m not hungry constantly – in fact, I’m eating enough to fear that the numbers on the scale won’t continue their downward trend.

And I promised myself that if I wanted something – really craved it – I could have it. I don’t know if it’s giving up diet Coke or the regular eating or what, but I don’t crave sugar much these days. For the past few days, though, I’ve found myself thinking of Ben’s Cookies – something I binged on frequently last year.

The first day I thought of their milk chocolate chunk cookies – aka “a big bonanza of yum,” as a friend calls them -- it was Saturday and I was at home, a half hour away from the shop. I told myself if I still wanted a cookie on Monday I’d have one. I thought about them briefly yesterday and then forgot. Today, as I was heading out to pick up some lunch, the shop called to me.

The line (British: queue) frightened me. I feared impatiently waiting in the line, gazing over the cookies and suddenly wanting every variety, which is what used to happen all the time last year. I waited for a few minutes, got to the front of the line, and then walked away. I tried to convince myself I was just hungry and needed lunch – that the craving would go away once I’d eaten proper food. And yet.

And yet. And yet I knew that I couldn’t keep avoiding many of the things I used to overeat.

So I bought one cookie and ate it in the Covent Garden piazza. It was slightly overcooked, but still good.

For the moment, anyway, so am I.