The other week, after a strenuous massage therapy (did not eat anything prior), I was ravenous. I was in Newmarket, passing through the mall, and passed by ever-cinnamon-reeking Cinnabon (nope); a sushi place with California maki so elaborate they looked like exotic deep-sea creatures (nope) and Luna Bakery with their array of monstrous croissants on steroids (nope).

Sugar, carbs, sugar, carbs, sugar.

On the train home, my stomach felt so hollow that it made me smile. That’s what I want- a stomach so flat that in my mind’s eye, the flatness accentuates my broad shoulders and chest, my muscled thighs, my small but firm calves. But this is all fantasy, of course. I have a decent enough body, but not in a way that I usually delusionally picture it. But this is the carrot that I’ve dangled in front of me.

I could plausibly achieve this, I’ve said to myself. You could look like this only if you STOPPED EATING SUGAR AND CARBS.

It sounds so stupidly simple that it must be stupid.

When I got off the train at Manurewa, I went to the supermarket for some stuff. Now, this place is safe; what it has on offer has never really appealed to me. Sad styrofoam packets of cheap meal combos like fried chicken pieces with either rice or chips; burgers with deflated buns; fistfuls of Chinese noodles glistening with an evil coating of sugar and soy; crumbed everything.

NOPE.

I got one of those single-serve, squeezie things. Plain Greek-style yogurt. Fifteen grams of protein. Zero sugar.

As I was sucking on it on the bus home, I felt strangely virtuous as if I passed some sort of test.

I will get it, I will get that body, I told myself over and over.