Battle of the Bulge - a Dieter's Diatribe

Well friends, I was in Bristol yesterday.  Monday, the first day of my new diet strategy and a day out.  Horrors!  How was I going to cope with all the temptations of the pavement cafe society?  Actually I was meeting my 'man' who was in Bristol for a top secret meeting after a weekend with one of his (grown up) children down south.  I say 'top secret' because it is - most of what he does he can't talk about.  Am convinced he's a spy but he tells me he's just a consultant - though would have to shoot me if he did spill the beans!

Well, one way of managing is to arrive on the train with not even enough for a cup of tea, let alone a sticky bun!  Arriving at Bristol, I headed for the station cafe with money in my pocket at last, to find an array of muffins, shortbread, flapjack and various paninis crowding my vision.  Good for me I thought smugly as I ignored it all and just assuaged my hunger pangs with a large brew (forgot to say I had no breakfast either because I was just too rushed!).

Had a lovely perambulate across Clifton suspension bridge and (dare I say it) a very public and romantic snog. Mmmmmm.  Well when the mood takes you should just go with it!  Here's a pic of me on the bridge.

Anyway, after sliding down the nearby famous rock slide at high speed on my fleece (ouch my bum!) and being filmed on a mobile phone making very kid-like noises, we headed for a nice pavement cafe in Clifton.  Nothing on the menu which was even light carb let alone carb free so we headed in the direction of the 'secret squirrel' meeting and had another brew in Sainsbury's caff.  Oh I do get treated well! 

For the following couple of hours I ignored the gnawing in my stomach and indulged in some retail therapy - a lovely new North Cape fleece and a winter waterproof motorbike jacket.  With my wallet £200 lighter and feeling MUCH better, I collected 'man' with the comment 'what time d'you call this - your dinner's in the dog!'.  After all he was only supposed to be an hour.

Dinner was in a lovely country pub called the Green Dragon near Cheltenham.  Chicken stuffed with camembert and bacon with a large helping of steamed vegetables.  Mmmmm - again.  Then I weakened and had a slice of banoffee pie with whipped cream.  Delicious!!!!! But hey, people, before you go tut tutting at me remember I'd had nothing to eat until then.  So I can legitimately count the banoffee pie as breakfast and lunch.  Not sure what weight watchers would say about the number of sins, but who the hell cares?

One of my best strategies is not eating breakfast.  I only eat 2 meals a day.  Now don't start tut tutting again - my system really has never been geared up to eating first thing and I really don't want food much before about 11am most days.  Works for me.  Stuff dieticians who tell you only to eat a low fat diet, and always have breakfast. Breakfast makes me want to go to sleep and  I was never healthier than when I was on my low carb regime.  My migraines and eczema disappeared, my periods were much less troublesome, my skin and hair were both radiant and I was rarely hungry.  A good diet is one which WORKS for you and keeps you HEALTHY and your weight BALANCED.  Just because someone has a qualification doesn't mean they are always right and everyone's metabolism and needs are different.  So a low carb diet doesn't work for some people.  Well a low fat one hates me!

Am about to brave the crowds in Asda/Walmart for some provisions.  Will not/must not buy anything bad.  After all, once a packet of biscuits is opened, it simply disappears!  So expect me to return smiling yet more smugly with a bulging sack of good food while being amazed how many people seem to live on a diet of ready meals. 

Everything in moderation, people, apart from sex.  It's a great way to burn off the calories!

ettebel at 12:44:22 o'clock BST Link to this entry | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

My last night of freedom has arrived!  What's she burbling about you might ask.  No. I'm not getting married tomorrow - last time I tried that it ended in disaster.... well actually it hasn't ended yet and the saga of that could be another journal in itself!  I know I'll never be a supermodel (too short for one) but I must DO something.  How often have we women, and some of the blokes these days, uttered that plaintive cry?  I think I've been doing it on and off for about the last 25 years, ever since I was a big child and an even bigger teenager.  Flab, fat, whatever you call it, for some of us it blights our lives.  Me?  Well I only need to look at a piece of cake and the weight piles on!  I look enviously at slim people tucking into a cream and lard slice and wonder ' does she eat like that all the time or is that the only food she'll have this week?'. 

I've tried just about every diet under the sun too.  The Cambridge Diet works brilliantly - after all you don't eat on that one - but after a couple of weeks of milkshake and soup I start climbing the walls in search of real food which hasn't been blended into existence.  Weight Watchers and Slimming World - well I can't be doing with all those group hug doo-dahs and being a Yorkshire lass with short arms and deep pockets, I object to paying to attend.  Diet solutions should be free on the NHS!  Also low fat diets make me cavernously hungry -  at midnight when your stomach growls so much its keeping you awake, a nice crisp apple just WON'T DO! 

I've yo-yo'd in weight from 9 stone up to 12 stone.  I think I currently weigh about 11 stone, maybe a bit less.  May not sound much to some, and even on a 5 foot 4 inch frame I still have a 28 inch waist and fit comfortably into size 14 jeans. Heavy bones and muscles you know!  (I'm a bit hobbity).   But I FEEL fat and however much people 'can't believe you weigh that much' or 'think you look fine just as you are', you know you're not.  Thankfully I found my solution a couple of years ago - a low carbohydrate diet.  Now before all of you say 'ooooh I couldn't live without bread' think again.  I was a carb junkie - pasta was my all time fave food.  2 weeks after starting the diet I'd lost 9lbs and all my cravings for sugar.  Ok so the withdrawal period sucks big time, especially if like me you go for broke and come off caffeine at the same time.  Talk about 'cold turkey'.  More like shivering, sweating, racked with pain and getting ready for Christmas turkey!

For the last few months I've been starting and finishing a new phase of my diet campaign on the same day, day in day out.  'Today I'll be good' is rapidly followed by some sort of crisis necessitating a half pound packet of liquorice allsorts or 4 dime bars.  Well that's what happens when you're redundant, going through a divorce (he's a PIG, a very very BIG one) and your aged lurcher has just become incontinent and the mortgage is £140,000.

So I wondered what I could do to make life a little easier and help me stick to the plan.  And then the brainwave!  Perhaps I could share my trials, successes, huge failures, diet tips and best recipes with the rest of the world.  And perhaps, just perhaps, some of you would get a bit of inspiration and join me on my weight loss journey.  Or send me some messages of support!  Knowing that there's an audience out there watching my every move is like having a weight watchers group but without the simpering group leader and a lighter wallet. 

So here goes.  I start tomorrow.  I decided that because I had a really bad day today, and thought I'd better carry on enjoying my blow out.  So, surrounded by a catering size tub of Haagen Daz ..... actually ice cream's just not my thing, it's a catering size pork pie..... and the dogs watching enviously, I shall enjoy my last night of freedom from the diet yoke and join you all tomorrow ready for a new day.  Hope it's not raining.......

ettebel at 21:02:02 o'clock BST Link to this entry | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own