Diets; a personal reflection

Shortly before my new food and exercise regime began, I was in my niece’s garden discussing the topic of diets. I doubt I need to clarify that the diets we were talking about over a hearty lunch were weight loss plans. Let’s call this niece GoodlyTart. I’m eight years older than Goodly but since she was in her teens we have had similar girth dimensions but I am short and she is tall. When I was short, slim and curvy, Goodly was tall and apparently skinny but we had the same measurements, she could therefore fit into my clothes. All too often my clothes looked much better on her than me so I had to put a clothes borrowing caveat in place; you may borrow anything, return it laundered but, and this was the key to the success of the arrangement, I must never see you in it. That way I didn’t feel compelled to give her the item and could continue to believe that my stylistic choices were perfect for me. I lost a leather skirt that way, well it was the eighties. As time’s gone on we’ve both beefed up as our genetics and eating habits deemed we would. Bigger the clothes sharing doesn’t work, I must encourage Goodly to lose weight too and see if we could double our wardrobe options, practically of course this won’t work as the two halves of this dream wardrobe would be on different sides of the country.

Goodly and I believe that between the two of us, we have tried every known diet. We could write our own diet, we don’t need to join a club, we know all there is to know about weight loss we concluded over ice cream. It’s true, we’ve a whole load of dieting experience, so here is what I’m going to do, I’m going to share some of my personal diet experience. What you need to keep in mind Dear Reader while I discuss the comparative merits of these eating regimes is that they all result in weight loss, although ultimately none of them worked long term for me or I wouldn’t still be banging on about being a fat tart:

High Fibre. Known in my circles as the shit and fart yourself thin diet, I am generally not windy and do not encourage those who are windy by nature to let rip at will in my presence. As a result of applying this standard to my own diet induced flatulence I spent far too much time in the lavatory and I felt that life was passing me by.

Low Fat. The constipation diet, my digestive system can’t cope with very low fat. This eating regime produced the most impressive post bowel movement weight loss I have ever experienced, 7 lbs, really, I was so amazed I rang my sister with the news. I have an unusually tight sphincter (I am an actual, medically certified tight ass) so a constipated life style is not the one for me.

Cabbage Soup Diet. Fart yourself thin, not to be undertaken whilst in a relationship or attending social occasions. See High Fibre but more so and I was hungry ALL of the time.

No Carbs. Very effective for weight loss and fast, but it makes you smell, not just your breath but your sweat, pee etc also. I’m possibly over concerned with how my world smells and I decided that it just wasn’t for me.

Detox Yourself. Loved this! A thirty day detox diet that cuts out so many foods it’s easier to say what you can eat. Oddly you are not limited in terms of quantity so you never need to be hungry but after the first week I wasn’t eating large amounts. Allowed; Fish, brown rice, most veg, nuts, most fruit, goats milk and cheese, honey. Not allowed; Added salt or sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, no wheat, no dairy, no meat. I felt like new, dropped a ton of weight, my skin was the loveliest it’s ever been and no cellulite. Why didn’t I keep it up? It would be impossible unless everyone you knew ate this way too. I don’t know anyone who eats this way full time with whom I can imagine being friends.

Lighter Life. This is a very low calorie diet, 600 calories a day in the form of 3 shakes, you can’t quite describe them as milk shakes, they’re not that luxurious, after a week or so you can replace shakes with bars. After the first week, when I was dangerously angry, it was surprisingly easy. If you consider for a moment that overeating is an addiction to food like alcoholism is an addiction to alcohol, you can’t just stop eating like an alcoholic can in theory stop drinking, this diet is probably the closest you can get to removing food from the equation, for a while at least. The meetings, which are compulsory try to address issues that surround unhealthy relationships with food. Overeaters group therapy. At the time I undertook this diet you had to have written permission from your doctor to do it, it’s harsh. Most people in my group were extremely obese, and desperate to lose the weight, mostly for medical reasons. This diet was their way to take control and it was amazing to see the weight fall off them. I lost 1 lb a day for seven weeks. Three and a half stone in seven weeks. Pretty amazing but here is the ‘but’ and it’s a biggy, my hair started falling out and huge sores broke out on my face and bottom, the group leader couldn’t say why so I stopped. It took a long time before I started to gain weight again, a particularly stressful patch of life resulted in me self medicating with carbs.

Slimming World. I like Slimming World, it’s very sensible and when I attended SW I loved the group leader, strict enough, encouraging and funny. I stopped going for geographical reasons and fell off the diet wagon.

Weight Watchers, then and now. I’m at Weight Watchers now because the meetings are 5 mins walk from where I live. Lazy. You could read my first blog post for what I used to think of them, condescending bastards basically but their attitude has changed since the nineties and essentially the ‘plan’ is very sensible eating, lots of foods are ‘free’, the foods you are limited on, that have a ‘points’ value and have to be counted, are sugars and fats, simple and sustainable, well, time will tell.

I have also tried the mars bar diet, the egg diet and several cleanses, I haven’t tried the intermittent fasting diets 5:2 or 8;16 or the Paleo diet so I’ve still got those to try if I get stuck. Maintenance is a problem I will need to overcome but I’m jumping the gun a bit there I think.

It’s the weekend so let’s raise a gin and slim line tonic (2 points) to sensible eating!