A party in your mouth

This Is Why You're Fat is one thing ... but the pictures on Fuck Yeah Peanut Butter are truly mouthwatering. (Except for the Chocolate Bacon Peanut Butter Cup. Why does everything have to have bacon in it? And I must say, I've tried Reese's chocolate and it, like Hershey's anything, is an abomination.)

Big issues

This review of books about obesity in the New Yorker is well worth reading for the fascinating information it extracts from the books under review; about how people eat more when they're given more, and accordingly how waistlines have expanded in proportion to supersizing by fast food chains; but also touching on the radical fat acceptance movement. It's something I've pondered about: examining my own attitudes to people who are fat. Isn't it everyone's right to be whatever shape they want to be?

This Is Why You're Fat

My fellow bloggers may disagree, but if ever I am feeling hungry for no reason (ie greedy), all I need to do is visit this website and I will receive an instant sobering reminder of just how disgusting fatty food really is.

This week's star turn: A triple bacon cheeseburger with deep fried patties as buns.

Cafe Pacific

I have stumbled upon the perfect weight loss formula: go to Taiwan and restrict yourself to eating only in one of these restaurants. Eureka! You will find that your appetite heads for the hills. Actually, just one visit to Modern Toilet should do the trick.

Crunch time

You know it's crunch time when.........your size 14 trousers don't stay closed any more, and you have to wear black knickers in case your zip's down without you realising.

Yes, it has come to the point where I need to decide either to lose weight, or to start buying size 16s. It's tempting to go for the latter, because my joyful eating approach, referred to in a comment on another post, is most enjoyable. Unfortunately, it coincided with my decision to stop drinking - or at least cut down drastically - and stop smoking (ditto). I have developed an addiction to evenings spent watching Prison Break and eating Thornton's special toffee.

I lost almost two stone going to Slimming World, but have put all of it back on, and some. I liked the SW approach: if you choose a green day, you can eat as much pasta, rice, potatoes and noodles as you like. The emphasis of the diet is on keeping fat, sugar and bread to a minimum. However, the thought of going back to that diet fills me with an apprehension of boredom...I do so like my Prison Break and toffee diet, and it has kept me off the demon drink.

As for exercise, I cancelled my gym membership because I stopped going when I had a bad back, and couldn't face returning once my back got better. I've been trying to do my (sort of) interval training, but I'm so unfit now that it's more interval than training.

Something has to give, and I suspect it's going to have to be my beloved Thornton's. It's just that I need to have something to look forward to in the evenings, once the boys are in bed. Natural yogurt and berries, or any other healthy "treat", just doesn't do it.

I'll post in a few weeks' time, once I've settled on a possible solution.

How to get ahead in advertising

Apparently new research shows that, would you believe it, most women don't actually like the images of skinny white women which are used to peddle fashion to us. We'd rather see a model who, while beautiful and glamorous, looks more like us: not just in terms of shape but age and race too. In other words, more accessible; achievable, not impossible.

Sadly I doubt this will make any difference to the fashion orthodoxy which is that only emaciated women look good in fashion. Start designing some clothes that look good on normal sized women, then. We are the ones who can afford to buy it.

One interesting footnote which will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever lived in Hong Kong: "Aside from women aged under 25, who were less likely to object to an abundance of young, white, ultra-slim models, and Chinese consumers, who actively preferred them, most of those surveyed felt positive towards the brands that used the more diverse models".

Gloop

Gwyneth Paltrow ("Gwynny") has started a mawkish website called "GOOP" (and there's fun to be had working out what the acronym stands for: Grindingly Obvious, Overbearingly Prissy, perhaps?). I've signed up for the weekly email, naturally, and have suffered through Gwynny's tips on what to wear (just a little Dior is so chic; the fashion section is called, acquisitively, GET), how to get into LA's best restaurants even if the chef's not a personal friend, what to give as a gift (cashmere socks!) and how to cook for "the holidays".

This week's tips are for detoxing after one ate too much in said "holidays". Having followed Gwynny's tips to the letter, of course, including those to-die-for chocolates and the massive turkey, one now needs one's personal nutritionist to advise one on the best detox diet. And here's Day One:

DAY ONE
7am (or upon rising): Glass of room temperature lemon water
8am: Herbal tea
10am (breakfast): Blueberry and Almond Smoothie
11:30am: Coconut water*
1:30pm (lunch): Salad with Carrot and Ginger Dressing
4pm (snack): A handful of mixed pumpkin and sunflower seeds
6pm (dinner): Broccoli and Arugula Soup
*Make sure that the coconut water has no added sugar. Fresh is ideal but the brands Zico or Vita Coco are readily available.

Than this, I got no further. Is it just me, or is it not thoroughly depressing? But as if this were not bad enough:

NEXT WEEK
Next week my fitness guru, Tracy Anderson, gives us an exclusive video to get our butt in shape for the new year!

I can hardly wait, Gwynny. "Our" butt (whose "butt" is that, exactly?) sorely needs it.