I wasn't eating right. Was I even eating? In that miserable winter in 2011, I couldn't always be sure. Unlike my impossibly slender, toned new neighbours here, where I'd rented a small apartment on the beach to escape my cold Montana hometown, I didn't count calories, carbs or protein grams. I only counted pounds, the bottom line. Lately, I'd lost track even of those. A combination of workaholic strain and grief over my mother's recent death had plunged me into a spiral of self-neglect as I veered between pigging out and going hungry. I was failing as a Southern Californian, and my eyes, as yellow as Post-it notes, were proof.
