I'm feeling good today. Positive. I've finally started by eating small meals five times a day. I'm trying to cut out bread just because that seems to be a slippery slope for me. I'll start out eating a slice of dry whole grain bread and then pretty soon it's two pieces followed pretty quickly by the butter. Same slippery slope with sugar so I'm not going to include anything like frozen yogurt or lo-cal desserts. Way too slippery a path back to old habits. So I'm focusing on fruits and veggies and protein. I can get my carbs in fruit. The protein is stuff like turkey or chicken or fish or nuts. And lot of water. And, I'm two pounds down. Three more and I get to Buy and Read the Elizabeth Berg novel I've been looking forward to.

I feel so good when I eat this way - my body's engine seems to actually start up and run. And the sadness disappears. I wonder why that great feeling isn't enough to keep me sober - to keep me off sugar and carbs. When I'm binging I feel so horrible. Compelled to eat and then repulsed by the eating. I feel enormous and ugly and guilty. But when I'm on my plan, when I'm eating right for me, all of that awful goes away. Why isn't that enough to keep me sober? I may never know the answer to that question.

When I begin a plan like this - and trust me, I have started hundreds of times - it's all so new and exciting. Sort of like having a new crush. Your head is flooded with love and lust and you can't think of anything else but the person you are crushing on. And then the first fight comes, the first disappointment, and all that headiness starts to fade away. Same thing with a new diet plan. The first few days are great. The numbers on the scale start to go down. You think you can live this way forever. But then the plan gets boring, or the scale doesn't show a loss, or you start feeling sorry for yourself because everyone else gets to eat anything they want - everyone, that is, except you. And your interest fades. And you slip up a time or two. Eventually the old binging habits come rolling back in and the numbers on the scale start to climb. And once again, you're lost in food, lost in a calorie coma.

So for me, the biggest thing isn't losing the weight. I know how to do that. Eat less, eat well, move more. The thing for me is keeping the plan fresh so that I won't get bored and fall off the wagon. Again. The five pound rewards will work well, I think. But I also think I need a partner in this journey. Someone I can talk to who gets it. If you're out there listening, and you want to join me on this journey, just let me know.