Mirror, mirror, mon amour*

In What Not to Wear the harpies Trinny and Susannah subject their victims to ordeal by mirror - step into the mirrored chamber and you can't hide from the inescapable truth about how bad your clothes make you look from the back, from the side and, I dare say, from above.

I work on the 24th floor and the lifts are fully clad with mirrors so I step into the horror chamber every day.

The good news? I have lost 2.5 kilos. Not that I look any better in the harsh light of the lift.

*Clearly this title is ironic - as was the original song, surely?

Please cheese me

Of the guaranteed diet-breakers in my life, near the top of the list is cheesecake. Baked with raisins, or whipped up and chilled in the traditional style - I don't care. Stirred with a delicate snowfall of lemon rind, topped with fruit, even with cream, but best of all plain, unadorned, without even a biscuit base, just pure, unadulterated sweet cheese. There's something about that slightly sweet, slightly savoury combination, and the way it fills your mouth for that bit too long, which is irresistible.

I bought a cheesecake to take to a potluck dinner (how delightfully 70s that sounds!) last night and ended up bringing it home again, as someone else brought one too and even 15 women couldn't manage more than one cheesecake between them, especially since there were chocolate brownies and lemon torte as well. J forgot to take it to work with him this morning and I couldn't bear to bring it in to my office because I knew I would be forced (at gunpoint) to eat most of it; so I left a note for our cleaner (who comes in on a Thursday) to take it away with her if she wants it. I hope she takes it: otherwise it is preordained that I will be returning home tonight to eat the lot.

Saying goodbye to old friends...

Hello Fatfighters

Since joining you, I seem to have become engaged in a long goodbye - to pasta and cheese sauce (I make the best macaroni cheese I've ever tasted, really), to peanuts, to Haribo Goldbears, to TimTams.



There are many left and I will be meeting The Curry, The Bottles of Magners, The SpagBol with Garlic Bread and The Hotel Biscuit at the weekend when I go to Belfast for a weekend of decadence and revelling.

I have reached where I am today through 20 years of dieting, and I am fatter than I have ever been. Turning 40 last September should have shaken me up, but it instilled in me a defiance that has lasted until now. I figured 20 years was long enough to be dieting without achieving anything except more fat. So I said to myself, "Diets don't work. All the cheery-coloured fat books say so. So stop dieting." I sold all my fat books on ebay and cancelled my subscription to WeightWatchers online.

At 17 stone 9lbs (247lbs), I am here to tell you that Not Dieting Doesn't Work Either.

So, where now? I guess that's what this blog is about. We shall see...

It's all gone elephant's thong

Okay, Fatfighter1, you've made your point! The reason I've not posted much for a while is that it's hard to post enthusiastically when even one's exercise regime has gone the same way as one's diet went some weeks ago. Took running stuff to BG - didn't run once. That's when it all went to pot.

However, I spent the weekend on an introduction to trail riding course at Glentress and must have worked off a couple of thousand calories...possibly, just possibly, more than I consumed. That really is the holy grail of losing weight. So, having loved the course and become a bit of a downhill demon, I plan to go back every free weekend I can. O joy! A move to Peebles might be in the offing...

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I've more or less made up my mind (just what does that "less" mean?) to get some decent scales and start counting calories. A guy on the course at the weekend does that; how I admired his fortitude when at lunchtime, after a morning of heavy-duty cycling, he pulled a bag of salad out of his backpack and ate that, while the rest of us munched on our deeeeeeelicious sandwiches.

Chubby checker

Here I am, ploughing my lonely Fatfighter furrow.... sigh.... where are my Fatfighter friends?

The apparent isolation in which I continue to attempt to shed the pounds, seemingly bereft of support from my tubby blog brethren, must be the reason why last night, after having been extremely virtuous all day, I ate two of those purportedly healthy oat bars on the trot, downed with a cup of Scottish Blend tea (aaaah!). Yes, they seem innocuous enough, but it's unwise to look too closely at the label, lest the grim reality of fat and carb content send you into a tailspin of remorse - as I did, and it did, last night.

A man, a van, a plan

Photo taken by Fatfighter2's friend Alison in Sierra Leone. Heartwarming, isn't it?

I beat anorexia

Danger Mouth and the Larder of Temptation

There are definitely points in the day and circumstances when I'm more vulnerable to the temptation to eat and drink the things that stop me losing weight. I wonder whether if I isolate and analyse those times and circumstances I might be closer to recognising that drift towards alcohol and sugary, floury and/or fatty food. These are a few instances I can think of:

1. The birthday cakes and chocolates at work. Rationale for eating them: a) I didn't buy them so they're "free"; b) When it's my birthday I have to buy cakes and chocolates, so I should get my share the rest of the year; c) They're located conveniently beside my route to the printer.

2. After lunch. The need to eat something sweet after something savoury. No idea where that comes from - probably my dad, who, having turned up at your house conveniently around lunchtime, likes to follow his boiled egg or beans on toast with a cup of tea and something cakey/biscuity.

3. Those sad, lonely evenings when, having put the kids to bed, I console myself over the tragic turn my life has taken by drinking wine and gorging on chocolate (usually), cereal (sometimes) or a pudding (rarely).

What is it about putting things in one's mouth? Why is it that I can't open a packet of something without scoffing the lot in one sitting? I don't even enjoy it after the first couple of mouthfuls. There's some sort of dangerous compulsion at work there. As I think I've said before, I would far rather exercise more than eat less, food being one of the greatest pleasures in life. Sadly, though, age is taking its toll and not only am I more likely now to eat for comfort but I can no longer work it off as easily. I remember being 14, and having trouble "pinching an inch". Now, nearly 26 years later, I must nearly be able to pinch a foot. And as for the pencil test...let's not go there.

Zip it up and start again

Today me and Fatfighter3 (who despite her conspicuous absence from this blog, does exist and is thinner than she thinks she is) spent the day in Lane Crawford trying on unspeakably expensive dresses by the likes of Elie Saab (the most expensive of which was HK$50K, or £3.5K). It was extremely enjoyable despite the fact that neither of us could get the zips up (O, Mr Rodriguez, why do you make your dresses so small?) and I came home inspired - inspired, that is, to never eat again so I can get the zip up next time.

This evening we watched What Not to Wear where they talked to two post-menopausal women whose self-esteem had gone down the tubes but whose bodies were not that bad (I was strongly reminded of my Mum who could use someone like Trinny and Susannah taking her in hand). It made me realise how fragile this self-esteem thing is. Under the harsh lights of Lane Crawford I felt huge and overblown, but if I felt good about myself under a different light, I would feel good no matter what I looked like.

Back on the diet tomorrow, then.

Holiday! Celebrate!

This blog is supposed to be about food, and one's struggle to eat the right type thereof. It's not about holidays. Having got those reproving remarks, aimed of course at Fatfighter2, out of the way, I can now freely go on to describe the food I've been eating on holiday.

We've been staying for a week in Pangkor Laut, just off the west coast of Malaysia, where the food was fish, fish and more fish, fresh as you like, and cooked simply and beautifully. There were essentially three types of cuisine on offer: fish Malaysian-style; fish Chinese-style, and, erm, fish. Dull though this sounds, it was actually wonderful, and it was remarkably easy to fancy that you were eating healthily. Couple this with world-beating exercise every day, either in the gym, or on the tennis court, or in the swimming pool (if my crap thrashing could be described as exercise) and it was actually a pretty healthy holiday, apart from the bottle of wine (at least) every night.

I hope it does not paint a completely appalling picture of my home life to say that the highlight of this holiday for me and J as a couple was that we managed to beat the all-comers record for paddling around the island in a canoe. (Fifty minutes, in case you're wondering.)

Hit and mish-mash

I owe an apology to the inventors of mish-mash, God rest their souls. Turns out that Uncle's, where we first ate it, makes the worst mish-mash in town. We've eaten it a couple of times since at what we've called the posh restaurant - because it's not falling to pieces and because the bill comes to more than a tenner for five people - and it's been rather nice. Still, despite the ludicrously cheap food and the fact that you don't have to wash up if you eat out, we've been eating in a lot because the food in restaurants is so monotonous. The main ingredients are eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, ham, chicken and two indistinguishable types of cheese, "yellow" and "white". At least at home we know exactly what we're eating, and we can be more inventive with the similarly limited range of food in the shops. Why, we've even had pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce!

This morning I went paragliding for the first time ever, on a tandem flight with a rather sexy Bulgarian man called Emmo. There's something quite erotic about being stuck in a harness thousands of feet up in the air with a gorgeous man. But about the flight itself. It took me a while to relax, and throughout the flight part of me just wanted to get to the ground. The best moments were doing "acro", when Emmo made us turn somersaults: one moment you're facing the ground, the next the sky.

tbc...

The birthplace of Lidl

Bulgaria is growing on me, especially as the past two days have been gloriously sunny. Spring here takes the form of peach and apple blossom in gardens and on every street, violets on the hillsides, and tulips in the borders. With its pine-clad hills and its chair lift, Sopot, the paragliding capital of Bulgaria, could be a rather parched Swiss ski resort. Yesterday, the Peas' dad and multitudes of other paragliders made the most of the gentle thermals to swoop above the town, eventually coming down to land like grotesque, brightly-coloured birds.

We get stared at wherever we go for looking different, but one can't help wondering what people would make of a group of Bulgarians plonked down in the middle of a British city. Their clothes and hairstyles would shout: "Former eastern bloc country!" A combination of bad leather jackets, shell suits and cheap hair dye. What passes for a supermarket here is reminiscent of Lidl. It's what one imagines supermarkets were like in Moscow circa 1972, albeit with slightly fuller shelves. Lots of obscure items in tins and jars, barely any fresh vegetables and UHT milk only.

Despite the lack of anything particularly appetising to eat it's still possible to overindulge, and my diet has more or less gone the way of Fatfighter1's in March. Last night, for example, I polished off an entire packet of a rather cheap version of those German biscuits that have one side coated in chocolate. And I had chips for dinner, which I rarely do, not being a big fan of them unless they're swimming in brown sauce. But when I was told that the dish I ordered came with potatoes, I innocently assumed they'd be boiled.

The last word must go to a Bulgarian delicacy called mish-mash, which we were advised to sample by the Peas' father, a big fan. It's described as fried tomatoes, cheese, red peppers and eggs. So far so tasty-sounding, but it would be closer to the truth to describe it as a tin of tomatoes with all the other ingredients stirred in and cooked for a couple of years. One word sums it up: yuck.

Kartofi cop

Arrived in rainy Sofia late last night and took taxi to Sopot, usually a two-hour drive east. The roads here would be considered poor in Vietnam, which gives you an idea of how bad they are. Not far out of Sofia we were pulled over by the traffic police, who took our passports, the driver's documents and various unspecified lev notes. About 40 minutes and further bribes later we were on our way. No one had been doing anything wrong; it was simple, everyday, Bulgarian corruption.

Further on, we drove through a particularly bad pothole, shredding the tyre. Another delay to swap tyres. My travelling companion managed to cut her finger badly on a razor and bled constantly for the rest of the journey. It didn't help that she'd taken aspirin before the flight to thin her blood to prevent thrombosis. Got to Sopot at 2 am, four hours after we arrived in BG. Too tired to do anything more than laugh weakly at our misfortune and collapse into bed.

The food is ludicrously cheap here. We "ate out" in a charmingly smoky cafe - I think it's against the law not to smoke here - for approximately four pounds* for five people. Chicken noodle soup, two glasses of wine, two chocolate pancakes, two mineral waters, two large tomato and cucumber salads and two large pieces of cheese on toast. There's barely no point in eating in.

kartofi = potatoes

*No pound sign on this BG keyboard.

The shopping cart is a lonely hunter

I freely admit to having struggled in the last few weeks, and to having recklessly broken every rule I set myself (some more than once). I've even gone out of my way to flout the rules by eating things I would never normally eat.

Exhibit A, the chocolate "Nobbles" from my hotel room mini-bar.
Exhibit B, a whole packet of white chocolate Maltesers, AKA Undiluted Teeth-F***ing Sugar Rush, hastily gobbled in the lift on the way back to my flat from the 7-11, knowing I was also about to eat...
Exhibit C, a Haagen Dazs ice cream bar.
Plus countless Exhibit Ds in the form of canapes, crisps, alcohol and the like. I just couldn't stop myself. Why, I almost gloried in how wrong it all was.

Now I'm no longer "dieting", things can go back to normal and I can start eating healthily again. Phew!

Oh-dear-o, oh-dear-o

Me got no willpower in me. I don't have a husband so I can't write about him. I just ate two M&S chocolate mousses. Okay, so they were "only" 80 cals each, but now I feel like a big bloater. I weigh 12 stone 3lb - nearly 78 kilos - fully clothed except for shoes. At the beginning of March, I set out to lose weight assuming that I weighed no more than 12 stone. Now, one month later, I find that I weigh more than 12 stone. As Fatfighter1 has pointed out, perhaps I started off at far more than 12 stone. But get this, my trousers and skirts aren't fitting as well as one month ago. Could it all be muscle? I doubt it somehow.

Why do all the yummy things in life seem to come with an unhealthy price tag? My line manager lost loads of weight by calorie counting and using a pedometer. She didn't eat any of the office birthday cakes and chocolates for a whole year. Although I don't agree with total abstinence from anything, maybe cold turkey is the only way to do it.

Real Age Kicks

RealAge is a rather useful, albeit sobering website where you enter in countless details about your lifestyle, eating habits and attitudes and it tells you what age you really are.

I'm 37 and came out as 31, so I must be doing something right (unless I, erm, lied). My erstwhile personal trainer, on the other hand, came out as older than he actually is - and it emerges that this is because he has a very young child. Eiether that or he's a secret binge drinker, but I doubt it somehow; he has a slightly puritanical air about him which seems to suggest that he's a stranger to the day-long hangover.

More some other time about how and why I've gone off going to him. Anyway, prepare to be dazzled, and/or scared, by what is contributing to your premature ageing or your unnaturally youthful good looks!

I can't see clearly now the smoke has gone

There's a piece in Metro today about an 85-year-old man who fell and later died after leaving a pub to have a cigar. His son said that the new law in Scotland banning smoking in enclosed public spaces should be relaxed for the elderly and infirm. Fiddlesticks, I say. I'm sorry for his loss, but his father could have died on his way home from the pub or in any number of different circumstances. There should be no exceptions to the law. Okay, if some draconian law was brought in preventing people from, I don't know, drinking orange juice in enclosed public spaces, I might feel differently, but there can be no exceptions to a law that is designed to protect the health of others.

You might wonder what that has to do with weight loss. Okay, it was an excuse for a rant on a somewhat unrelated subject, but perhaps it reflects how evangelical ex-smokers can be. Or almost ex-smokers, although I smoke so rarely these days that I imagine in medical terms I would qualify as a non-smoker. Anyway, non-smoker, ex-smoker or part-time smoker, I feel something verging on joy that Scotland has passed such a common-sense law.

Breakfast like a queen

There's a saying that goes: "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper." Good advice, but sadly many of us don't have time to eat a great deal at breakfast, yet have oodles of time in the evening, exactly when one should be abstemious on the gorging-yourself-stupid front. I love breakfast though and, given the time, would happily eat a huge one (no double entendre intended). This blog entry is an excuse to describe in detail my perfect breakfast.

My perfect breakfast:

Champagne and a variety of freshly squeezed juices. Strong coffee with hot milk. American and English muffins (the latter toasted). President butter and strawberry conserve*. Stewed fruit with Greek yogurt and preserved ginger. Scrambled egg (strictly no milk) and chives. Crispy bacon, pancakes/French toast and maple syrup. Toasted cheese, ham and sunblush tomato ciabattas. Bacon, avocado and tomato baguettes.

And not a kipper in sight.

*Posh name for jam

Once you pop, you can't stop

A good diet always starts with a vow not to drink alcohol, although some (Fatfighter3, who has thus far been conspicuously absent from this blog, but who is still, I happen to know, successfully abstaining from alcohol and has been doing so since March 1 - Fatfighter3, correct me if I'm wrong!) are better at it than others.

Away on a business trip, I was forced to confront yet again the real reason why avoiding alcohol is essential to a diet - not, or not just, because of the loathsome quantities of sugar swilling in every glass (" it's just empty calories!"), but because with one drink - just one miserable glass of red wine - all my food-based rectitude and healthy abstinence go down the plug and I return to my hotel room, frantically scan the contents of the mini-bar for something healthy, and failing to find it, in quick succession wolf down a large packet of crinkle cut crisps and some ugly-beautiful chocolate-cum-Crunchie-cum-Malteser hybrid called, and I don't think I am making this up, Nobbles.

OK, so it was three, or four, glasses of red wine. But the principle is the same.

Note to hotels: why can't there be cereal or apples or porridge in the minibar?

Eau what a terrible title

A link to WaterAid, which has a handy calculator to tell you how much water you should be drinking for your body weight. I made a conservative estimate of six glasses a day. Oh no, it told me, you should be drinking 13- YES, 13, YOU APOLOGY FOR A HUMAN BEING - glasses. How am I supposed to do that? Does coffee count? How about the half lemon I've started having in the mornings? Apparently, gulping it down is almost as bad as not drinking it at all. I can't win.

I think my problem with drinking water dates back to primary 1, when Mrs Thorburn made me feel embarrassed for needing to go to the loo more frequently than my contemporaries. The reason was almost certainly tea, which my family drank at breakfast, lunch and on numerous occasions in between. My five-year-old system couldn't deal with a diuretic as well as someone older might. I now have a quite irrational fear of being trapped somewhere with a full bladder - for example in the middle of a row at the cinema - and being unable to escape. It only made matters worse when I was on a school trip to Orkney and endured the bus journey from Thurso to Inverness desperate for the loo and unable to think of much else, while my classmates slept peacefully around me. When it transpires that we need no more than one glass of water a day to be healthy no one will greet the news with more glee than me.