Though I am a good four months into my diet, it has taken a significant toll on the amount of money I have to support a lifestyle that, although has made me thinner, is also slowly killing me inside with every horrible, dry, disgusting bite that I take of one of my two daily Subway® sandwiches.

There is always a price one has to pay for getting thinner. For me, however, there are two prices. First, there is the monetary price. Not only do I have to buy two Subway® sandwiches per day, but I have to buy three independent Nutri-Grain® bars instead of buying them by the box in order to make sure I don’t get up in the middle of a hunger-induced dream and eat an entire box of bars at once. This leaves me with only a little spending money. The second price is emotional. Right now, if I had a choice between being fat with extra money or being thin with no extra money, I would do neither and kill myself. Both options sound like the worst possible outcome of a life that started with so much promise.

However, I am happy to report that women like me, in general, slightly more than they did half a year ago. The smiles I get last almost a second longer. Fewer people stop chatting with me for no reason on JDate® chat. I get more emoticons and exclamation points than ever before.

Now, I find myself sitting in my boxers in a dark room at four in the morning, and the only thing on my mind is how to find the shortest way to the kitchen in the faint hope that there is a drop of expired orange juice left. This isn’t a way to live. Why can’t I eat all the time and be thin and happy like people on television? Tell me, Regis Philbin! Tell me!