Excerpt: 'Up for Renewal'

Taking baby steps into a new life seemed like the most humane way to slap myself in the face. I was not mentally prepared to take on a month of money matters or transform anything with paint. My inaugural challenge should be familiar and manageable. Because personal experience showed that I had more control over what (and not who) I put in my mouth, my first foray into self improvement was to be food-related.

At five-eleven and a size 6, diet is a noun for me, not a verb. I didn't need to lose weight. I just needed to stop eating the insides of the vending machine for lunch. Plus, an official lunch would provide balance and structure to my routine, elements of a normal life that had been AWOL from mine.

If I didn't have a digestive system more fragile than most tropical fish, I would eat anything put in front of me. Here's a partial list of foods most deadly to me: shrimp, lobster, ice cream, tuna fish, yogurt, cheese, pumpkin seeds, black beans, white wine, Brazil nuts, soybeans, calcium-enriched orange juice, tiramisu, lamb, and anything from Fuddruckers. I also stopped eating red meat when I was poor and living on my own in New York City. Now that I'm more gainfully employed, I'd like to begin incorporating a bit of beef into my diet, but I'm convinced that first hamburger will send my body into seismic shock.

Because I suffered from so many food allergies, I defaulted to bread. And more bread. I kicked off my days with a jumbo cinnamon raisin bagel and often repeated the same breakfast for lunch when I couldn't think of anything else to eat. And if I wasn't eating popcorn for dinner, I was slapping together a peanut butter (protein!) and jelly sandwich or eating a Dunkin' Donuts corn muffin directly out of the bag.

I thought hard about bread and how much I was going to miss a nice crust. I didn't need to open up a single June issue to know that the only acceptable baguettes I'd find would come from Fendi, not France. What I didn't know was what directives were going to come down from the mountain of magazines that were currently piled on my coffee table -- and whether their instructions would result in anything suitable for eating. I imagined a month of shelling snow peas and discovering 10 Tricks for Tastier Tofu. I pictured myself the way I envisioned other healthy eaters -- clear-eyed and vibrating with sunshine -- and realized I was smiling.

Food has always been a vehicle of change for me, and June was always when the drive began. The moment school let out for summer, I was preparing for fall, when I'd reenter school a different person. Tanner, prettier, shorter (I was heads taller than most of the boys in my class), more confident, magically popular, and finally, FINALLY, kissed. Naturally, I thought the last three would happen only if the first three did.

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