By sixteen I know I’m scaling back my goal. Forty was a little ambitious. I’m just starting out. I have to be practical.

I die at twenty.

Reaching for my robe; I cover up, enthusiasm waning a little. It wasn’t a great start for the rest-of-my-life fitness program, but it’s a start.

And that’s the key thing.

I shower, dry off, avoid the mirror. Diet plans always say to avoid the scale and mirror in the early weeks of any new program (I’m sure they said the mirror, too), and in my favorite ratty winter pajamas—we wear the flannel winter stuff year-round in the city—-I head to the kitchen, open the freezer, look at the carton of Dreyer’s Rocky Road Light (not Chunky Monkey, Olivia). I know I shouldn’t have ice cream. Even the light stuff isn’t on the diet plan. But ice cream isn’t really crap food. It’s dairy. Calcium. Protein. Strong bones. Helps with sleep.

I eat right out of the carton. Three bites. Four. I should stop. I really only need a taste. Anything more than a taste is just empty calories, and the experts say it’s the sensory we’re wanting when we eat anyway. The texture. The flavor. The oral need. One bite and we should have met that need.

But I don’t seem to have met the need yet.

Just a couple more bites. Let me just get a couple of extra marshmallows (I love marshmallows), and with my mouth full of nuts and ice cream and sticky marshmallows I see myself the way others would see me: wet-haired Holly standing at the fridge with the freezer door still open, ice-cream carton clutched to her flannel-covered breast, right knuckles smeared with melted ice cream, cheeks packed, stretched, eyes glazed. And I’m appalled.

I’m no better than an animal. It’s disgusting. I have two sets of dishes—everyday Mikasa and my gorgeous Rosenthal—and I still can’t use a bowl?

I take one more bite and hurriedly put the ice-cream carton away. Feeling very guilty at the moment. All those good intentions are already out the window.

No. It’s okay. You’ve had a momentary lapse, a stumble, but not a big fall.