Sunday 27th January 2008
Can't believe it, January almost gone already. Time flies when you get to be my age - ah those long timeless summers of childhood - how well I remember dressing the dogs up in our dolls' clothes! Poor old Porgy and Bess, they were incredibly well behaved little dogs. To have to put up with two little girls, eager to see exactly how they would look - do you know I swear I remember Bess being paraded around in a doll pushchair wearing some sort of bonnet - where on God's good earth would we have got a bonnet from? Ah well, she had something on her head anyways... and I'm fairly sure we put Porgy into some sort of dress. And they took it, not a growl, not a bite... not even a snap. Pretty good going for Jack Russells. Alas they have long gone, many years ago now. But they were wonderful little dogs.
So. Well yes, this week I went out to buy new jeans. And I had something approaching an epiphany in the changing cubicle at Evans in Broadmead - one of those ghastly sorts of things where you casually turn around to view what exactly you look like in the rear view mirror. Rear view being the operative turn, frankly. So I made the dreaded decision, dieting is where it's at for me from now on. This weekend I've done my best to eat up everything in the house that's fattening. (Not quite the gorge-fest that it sounds like!) From tomorrow I start the new way - I refuse, from past experience to call it a diet. Call it a diet and you're inviting failure. Anyhow, I must take more exercise, and eat better food. I've made lunch, to take to work - a salad of lambs lettuce, tomato's, peppers, cucumber & raddish, with a little lean meat chopped into it. I've got a fruit box, with some grapes and yellow plums for emergencies & pudding. Actually breakfast too, since I'm not very good at making myself eat before I leave the house. I haven't decided quite what supper will be, but I think pasta in some shape or other.
A further part of my plan is an investment in an organic box of vegetables. I've got one of those metabolisms that hangs on to the fat it's got the moment that the last teaspoon of fat passes my lips, I'd swear that it's some kind of separate, intelligent part of me, that knows what I'm up to, and actively moves into starvation mode. The only way to fool it, and I know this from all of the many, many diets I've tried in the past, is to stuff myself stupid with food. It's very very difficult. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat, but I love to eat wrong. The high fat, high sugar type of stuff that piles on the pounds. To get rid of this, I have to eat in quantity, high fibre foods, low in fat etc, to cod my metabolism that it's still able to make hay whilst the sun shines and the good times are still here. So long as it doesn't know I'm actively 'starving' myself on a diet, I'll be fine, and a good way to do that is a good variety of veggies. So I'm going for an organic box, because it provides a far better selection of vegetables than I can get at the local supermarket. They do reasonable quality (ok, well poor quality) supplies of the normal everyday stuff - from an organic box I can get salisfy, okra, portabello mushrooms - you name it and it comes delivered to the door. So the box must be sorted out.
Loosing weight means planning and paying attention. I tend to work on a princepal of what do I fancy, I'll have that. I don't think in advance. So I thought - at least to start with - I'd blog what I'm planning to eat the next day, and of course a record of what I did eat on that day. So the blog's going to turn a little food orientated for a while! So tune in tomorrow to find out how I get on with the salad and fruit, and whether or not it did turn out to be pasta!
More tomorrow!
