“I will start tomorrow” has been a complex idea in my life. At its best, the idea of starting tomorrow held optimism and hope; at its worst, the idea worked as a self-delusion, enabling moments in time to swallow me whole.

Most often, starting tomorrow worked as a self-defeating form of failure, a feeling of brokenness around my weight, a reminder of what I could not get right in this aspect of my life.

Untangling the maze of meanings of “starting tomorrow” provides a complex mental challenge. The truth is that I started on so many tomorrows that the phrase was almost rendered meaningless.

Often, I felt the emptiness of starting tomorrow even as I committed to it. Many of my tomorrows ended almost as soon as they started. The pattern was predictable, whether it lasted one day, one week, one month.

My resolve started strong. Soon, fatigue around tempting foods overpowered my resolve. I careened off course, defeated and overwhelmed by what I could not get right.

I stared at the same problem over and over again. I tried the same solutions and always got the same results. Starting tomorrow happened so many times in my life that I nearly gave up hope. But never entirely.

To succeed, there has to be a starting point – there has to be a tomorrow where that day becomes the day. Past successes provided tantalizing glimpses of what could be, optimistic peaks at a healthier future. Hope.