Crap. You know what you really DON’T NEED when your self-esteem has already taken a beating? A frickin’ cold sore. It’s early stages; I’m going nuclear with the lysine and Zovirax. (Interestingly, I only get them when my system is stressed. Am I getting sick? Was it my lack of sleep last week courtesy of the cats? Was my depression over the diet situation the cause… or just another symptom?)

Snookums is threatening to hide our scales again because of the way they can wreck my entire self-worth in two seconds. I just don’t understand how I can work out five times a week, guzzle liters of water every day, cut out all snacks and fizzy drinks, eat nothing but three square meals a day (with no seconds) and STILL gain two pounds in three days. Obviously it’s not a real gain; either my lower number was false due to dehydration (which means I’ve essentially stayed the same weight for the past week), or my higher number is false due to water retention (for no comprehensible reason). But WHY? I haven’t done anything differently. I need to live in a universe that is controllable. I need to think that 2+2=4. Because to accept otherwise renders this whole exercise pointless. If nothing I do makes any difference, why not give up?

Yeah, he probably should hide those scales.