Food is both fuel and medicine, but this doesn’t mean we have to strip it bare of its magic and reframe it as a power source for some robot-like, maximally efficient human body. Yes, the reality is that food is a basic, physical human need. It is fuel, in a sense, and by extension, we are machines that need fuelling. But we’re also thoughtful

But more than the new body size, it was the lightness of being that enthralled me; although I didn’t quite understand the connection between trusting myself around food and trusting less tangible hungers (for rest, contact, meaning), the relationship with food became the lens through which I began to see almost everything.