I Ate a Cookie for Breakfast Today and Instantly Regretted it

How our complicated relationships with food challenge us daily

I ate a cookie for breakfast today. This may not seem earth shattering, especially the day after Christmas, when the kitchen is filled with so many sweets one’s teeth can ache just passing by: feather light meringues, dense rainbow cookies, chocolate-dipped butter cookies festooned with Christmas-colored sprinkles. But it goes against my do-or-die rule that I do not consume sugar before nightfall, a rule I have followed for so many years it seems impossible there was a time in my life I may have dared to reach for an Oreo or a jellybean mid-afternoon.

I have many self-appointed rules, but none are so rigid as the ones assigned to the care and keeping of my body. No alcohol before 6pm. No coffee after 3pm. No beverages with more than a handful of calories. Collapse three meals into one or, if necessary, two, whenever possible. No meat unless it’s dinner. No extra fat in meals if it can be avoided — omit the cheese, avoid the sour cream, definitely nothing fried or creamy.

And yet I claim to be moderate in my eating. I eat bread all day long like it’s a life raft that will keep me alive, usually with salted butter. I pour creamer into my coffee that I would turn my nose up at if I wasn’t…