I've Been Passing Time

I think maybe I underestimated how much better I’ve gotten in certain areas, because it’s been a couple of years, at least, since I wanted time to pass quite as badly as I do now.

I want it to be time for the next size down, sure, but mostly, I want it to be time for the next meal. I’m hungry. And also worried about having to go out, and how hungry I might be and therefore what I might eat. And although I never like to eat dinner early – because when I finish that means no more food until the next morning – it’s been awhile since I panicked quite as much about the fact that I was so hungry after lunch I had to eat my afternoon snack pretty soon after it, lest I be unable to concentrate.

The food on this diet, for the record, is so far OK. Nothing amazing, but fine (and better than having to make it myself). My one major quibble is that I’m doing the paleo version, because I’ve learned that I genuinely do feel better and am less likely to get hangry if I avoid grains and dairy.

* * *

I wrote the above yesterday afternoon, before I went out to meet a new-ish friend in Williamsburg, so she could art direct my nails (breaking out of the Essie Mademoiselle rut!) and then we’d grab a drink.

As I am now, with 2.5 hours to go until lunch (eek!), I was absolutely starving at 5 pm when I left to meet her. I bought a seltzer, and then when she was late, gave in and bought a packet of almonds. (I thought they were plain dry roasted, but as it turns out they had all manner of hydrolyzed crap on them, but in the scheme of things I could eat, not that bad.)

I’d planned not to drink, and then – I’m still not sure why – I did. Rosé on a beautiful summer evening in Brooklyn? Yes, please. The friend is super-slim – the sort who can look perfectly dressed in cut-off shorts and a tank top -- and I thought about the unfairness of it all, and we drank too many. On the way home, I wondered if I should skip dinner to make up for the alcohol. I thought about getting off the L at Sixth Avenue, just because walking home from the Eighth Avenue stop would bring me too close to Magnolia Bakery, home of my beloved icebox cake. Which they probably would be out of at that hour, which would mean I’d potentially buy and eat all manner of other things in frustration.

I decided I’d get off at Eighth Avenue and come home and eat my dinner. I felt a little stab of frustration and annoyance (that I couldn’t make it through one day on this diet) and also some fear: Just how fat am I going to get?

I don’t think I’m going to continue this diet beyond the five-day trial. It’s just too dangerous to be this hungry.

Two days without a binge.