Coffee as a gateway food?

Some of you may remember that a year ago I gave up coffee. I took it black for a week (cream and sugar had been the culprit of much weight gain), then gave it up altogether (I did not adjust to the bitter taste as I thought I would). This coincided with a significant weightloss undertaking. I intended, in some grand, romantic notion of manageable tragedy, to never sip the stuff again. To love it in my memory, but to refrain from the taste from that time forward.

Not long after, realism returned, and I allowed myself to have it only ocassionally. Ocassionally turned into once a day, decaf (sometimes not)with skim or 2% milk, no sugar (except sometimes if the brew was subpar and needed the boost of sweetener).
When it was available, I used fat free half & half (and still do). No more than one cup a day, and if so, then decaf.

Quite inexplicably but organically, I have come to prefer it black a good bit of the time, especially in the mornings.

I am taking the time to chronicle this journey because of the implications of it. With the reemergence of coffee into my landscape also came the allowance of other foods that I would have barred under the reign of green tea (which I drank religiously after coffee was banished but never grew to love).

Coffee begs the presence of luxury. Of butter. of cheese. of chocolate. of the most succulent meats. Even minimalist black, it causes my tongue to crave the sweet and the savory--whatever is most opulent among foodstuffs.

Sarah asked me, in the interest of my weightloss goals and overall health, to consider giving it up again. With the fixed return of coffee to my diet, I have also noticed a return of the general irritability that characterized my disposition before. And though coffee makes me want the richest food, it also, over time, dulls my palate, which may cause me to eat more (the quest for sensuality)...

At this time, I feel that my intake of the beverage is reasonable (not like before, when it was most certainly not). But any at all may be too much. I've made no decisions as yet, but I'm considering what this all means.