That’s right, this week it’s everyone else’s fault but mine!
I wrote here about one way I tried to lose weight. Running is brilliant at keeping my weight under control, but that’s all. Exercise alone couldn’t shift my excess poundage. To put it bluntly, I was living an eleven-stone life in a 5’4” body. That was never going to work. I needed to find some way to whittle away at the—ahem—curves I’d spent years building while I sat in in front of a computer, writing.
I had to face the fact that my increasing chubbiness was a problem manufactured (in all senses of the word) by first-world living. I’m lucky enough to be able to choose my own food from a whole range of possibilities. As I said last time, I prefer to eat homegrown, organic food which I cook from fresh—but even virtue signalling has a drawback. It’s portion control. When it comes to food, restraint isn’t my strong point.
It’s an age thing. Anyone under the age of about forty will think what I’m about to write is fiction, but I can assure you every word is true.
Until I was eleven, I lived with my maternal grandparents. Everyone of that generation lived through the Hungry Thirties, and wartime rationing. We had neither fridge, nor freezer. The food was good, but economical—roast on Sunday, the cold remains on Monday with potatoes and veg, soups from the bones on Wednesday, bacon and egg on Thursday, and fish on Friday. Portions were small. You never got pudding until you’d finished your first course, and you never left the table until you’d eaten all your pudding. Chips were a real rarity, as my grandmother had been a professional cook. She never cut corners. They were blanched in hot fat in small batches, then cooked a second time before serving. The beef dripping had to be brought back up to temperature in between each batch. It took forever!
Nobody grazed. There were set mealtimes, no snacking, and no such thing as McDonalds in the UK back then. If the local shops didn’t sell it, then we didn’t eat it. We sat to the table together, and nobody got up until everyone had finished their meal. The same rules applied at my schools, with the addition of Grace before meals. This was normal. My friends all lived similarly regulated lives.
And then, like millions of other people in the late 1970s, I went abroad for the first time—and discovered Carrefour. It was like walking into heaven. I’d never been in a supermarket before. There was only a greengrocer, butcher, baker, newsagent, grocers, and fishmonger in our village. That soon changed.
By the time I married and left home, I could load my trolley with convenience food and ingredients from all over the world, at any time of year, and at most times of the day or night. George Bernard Shaw saw marriage as the maximum of temptation combined with maximum of opportunity. That quote now applies to eating. For me, as a writer working from home, this freedom of choice has been disastrous. As we live some way from town, my kitchen cupboards are always well-stocked. I can’t afford to run out of something while I’m cooking. This means every minute of every day I’m face with maximum opportunity to over-eat.
I have tried to resist. I’ve vowed to eat only home-made cake. The thought of having to get out the tins, prepare them, make the mixture, cook it then wait for the resulting cake to cool down usually kills my craving in seconds.
Then at Christmas, someone fancied a custard slice. That’s one (among many) of my favourite cakes. My recipe, however, makes 16.
I thought I could eat one, and let my family eat the rest of my share.
I was wrong.
And then there is pizza. We all love the stuff. I make it once a week, for the whole family. Then it dawned on me that the amount of pizza dough each of us was eating in one sitting was the equivalent of a quarter of a loaf of bread! And that was before I’d added an ocean of home-made tomato sauce, half a ton of sliced vegetables and topped it all off with grated cheese. Oh, yes. Plenty of grated cheese…
One day on a whim I bought ready-made pizzas from the supermarket. They are about the same size as the ones I make, but only have a fraction of the topping. Yet according to the boxes, they contained almost 800 calories each!
Until that day, I couldn’t understand why I was doing so much exercise but not losing weight. Now I knew. A daily diet of organic oatmeal and fresh fruit, with a wholemeal sandwich or jacket potato for lunch, and pizza for tea might be healthy —but not in the quantities I was eating them.
There’s worse to come. Once the TV goes on at teatime, it’s the perfect excuse to sit down for the rest of the evening. Once I tried to cut down on what I was eating, I realised that food is in shot on TV almost all the time. If it isn’t being advertised directly, then people in adverts and programmes are meeting over coffee, making meals, or sitting in pubs.
“Did somebody say J*** E**?” Yes, but it’s usually far more subtle than that. It’s subliminal advertising to the weak-willed, like me. For instance, I’m a career tea-drinker. Show me someone with a cup, and I want one too. And as McVitie’s used to say about their digestive biscuits, “A drink’s too wet without one.”
I used to make biscuits, but they were too much of a temptation. I switched to muesli. It’s far healthier…but dried fruit and nuts are loaded with calories.
Luckily, the weather over the past few weeks has been too good to waste in front of the TV. This has meant I’ve been doing lots of gardening. I’ve slipped in an extra dog-walking session each day, too. My step-count target has gone up from 10k per day to 12k, and I usually beat it by a long way. Portion control has been even more useful. I’ve cut down on the amount of pizza topping I apply, and keep in mind that huge evening calorie-load when I’m deciding what to eat earlier in the day. Thanks to my team on the Sprint sessions, when I do get the urge to snack I cut an apple into the thinnest slices I can. This gives a satisfying crunch, while taking ages to eat. Add a teaspoonful of peanut butter, and it keeps me busy until bedtime.
The good news is, reducing the amount of time I spend in front of the TV (and snacking), together with portion control has shaved two pounds off my weight in the past week.
Unfortunately, I know my body. It will soon get used to those tactics. My weight loss will stop, and may even go into reverse. There’s only so much time in the day I can devote to exercise, after all. If I try to cut down my portion sizes too much, then a sneaky inner voice will say ; “You didn’t have much for lunch. You can afford to put a bit more on your dinner plate…”
I have a tactic to beat backsliding. It is hypnotism. Paul McKenna’s Instant Confidence worked a treat for me, as I wrote here. Could his I Can Make You Thin live up to its title? I’ll let you know how I get on!