"I'll make up for it tomorrow"

At the bottom of the bag comes a resolution. Tomorrow will be better. No crisps tomorrow. A run tomorrow. Salad.

An earlier book in this series is about diets and the write-off, and its argument is that the sentence "well, that's today ruined" is the moment a diet ends, and that the resolution that follows it is the beginning of the next cycle rather than the end of this one. The same shape is here, at a smaller scale. The run, the resolution, the day of virtue, the next run. The resolution isn't a correction. It's part of the pattern.

Notice what tomorrow's resolution does to tonight. It closes the account. The bag is finished, the verdict is passed, tomorrow will pay, and so there's nothing to look at in tonight, no reason to ask how the bag got empty, because the matter's been dealt with by a promise. The promise is what stops you noticing that the bag was the unit and the screen was on, which are the two things that would actually change tomorrow.

And tomorrow is another packet. Not because you're weak, but because the cupboard is the same, the sofa is the same, the programme is on, and the resolution was made at the bottom of a bag by a person who felt sick, and by half past eight tomorrow that person has gone and the one who fancies something is back. Resolutions made at the bottom don't survive to the top of the next bag.

What survives is an arrangement. The bowl in the cupboard. The small bags instead of the sharing bag. The rule about the screen. Those are there at half past eight tomorrow whether or not the resolution is, and chapter 20 onwards is about them. If you want to do something about tonight's run, don't make a promise. Put a clip on a bag and a cereal bowl where you'll see it.