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he said, softening just a little while remaining firm. “You’ve been giving a hundred percent since day one and your body is responding to it. But eventually, it’s going to adjust to the new routine. The eating is the thing that’s going to challenge you, probably for the rest of your life. I just want to make sure you’ve taken stock of your arsenal for when you’re feeling weak and out of control. So that you can get past it and make the sort of changes that take root and last. It’s no accident that ninety-five percent of people who take off weight put it back on. They get discouraged and their old habits are the comfortable and familiar ones. I don’t want that to happen to you. Getting in control of eating addiction isn’t like kicking smoking or drugs or alcohol. Those are addictions that you give up completely, and once you get through the withdrawal you win the war by abstaining. Your battle is so tricky. You’re always going to need food. You’re going to have to get to a point where you coexist with it and it’s not the crutch you fall back on.”
    â€œI guess now would be a bad time to tell you I’ve taken up smoking?” Holly tried to bring some flippancy to the situation. The attempt was unsuccessful and she saw his eyes flash with genuine anger.
    â€œIf I thought you were the least bit serious, I would actually think about throttling you.”
    â€œGeez. Lighten up. I’m having enough trouble with one addiction, thank you very much. I’m just trying to stop the shakedown here.”
    He didn’t want to shake her down, force her into talking about the things that she might not be ready to admit. He watched her silently continue to bite her nails, absorbing the information he had given her. She heard him, and for now that would have to be sufficient. He wanted her back into the proper head space before they fully got into her session.
    â€œOne thing is certain: the most common denominator in both compulsive eating and binging is the cycle of food replacing emotion. Depression is an emotion that ranks high on that list and is something that has been in the forefront of your life the last couple years, no matter how hard you might try to suppress it. Have you thought about seeing your doctor for it? Maybe a therapist?”
    â€œOh, sure.” Holly made no attempt to mask her disdain. “Let me go blather my problems and take advice from someone who in all probability is crazier than I am. Yeah, no thanks.”
    â€œDon’t be so quick to assume there’s anyone out there crazier than you,” he teased. “But for the sake of argument, how about just calling your regular doctor? Surely any doctor worth his salt would recognize the depression that comes with becoming a widow.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked him heatedly. “So they can start mixing drug cocktails to keep me from feeling anything at all? Or better yet, they give me some great new drug they didn’t bother to fully test and I wake up six months later growing a tail?”
    â€œOkay. I get it.” He was quick to try to defuse her anger, attributing it to the fact that running to see a doctor for something that wasn’t outwardly hurting her was something she probably couldn’t afford. Especially considering that he was taking up a chunk of her cash flow. Plus she did have a point. “And by ‘get it,’ I mean that I totally understand and in many ways agree. I’m always in favor of trying holistic means before running to the pharmacy, definitely in cases like this. And you’re in luck for employing other tactics. Endorphins are natural chemicals in the body that fight depression. They release during physical outputs of energy, and you’re certainly doing plenty of those.”
    â€œYou think?” she asked him, the sarcasm fully back in place. It was uncomfortable knowing he obviously had spent a lot of