Whacky diets… reducing the blubber

Whacky diets… I must have tried them all! Since the wine and cheese diet of the 1970’s  to the latest ones which are more the starvation diet.

I have a lifelong friend on the other side of the world, and we have been through the wild party days of the 60’s to these days, when we are a little more sedate.  We still report to each other and moan about the excess baggage we carry. We dieted together for years, going up and down and sometimes doing so at the same time.

Twice in the last ten years I have reduced the blubber and become, if not sylph like, then at least a lot less bulky. Each time I lost ten kilos. The same ten kilos!

Have you tried the cabbage soup diet? That tastes almost like real food for a day, after that it tastes like ex food. Or something you might put in the garbage. The monotony gets me every time. By the end of that diet I never want to see another cabbage.

That first diet; (which still is in the diet books.) was cheese and wholegrain bread for breakfast—- with a glass of WHITE WINE.  So that was repeated for three meals each day, and went for three days.  We would then take our children to school, smelling like a brewery, in those days we lived in a village and thank goodness we walked. I think we lasted a week on that one.

The orange and peanuts diet was next in line, it was almost as hard to keep to as the cheese and wine, chomping on peanuts took a lot of chewing. The grapefruit diet followed this one, eating half a grapefruit before a meal was supposed to cut the fat and miraculously reduce weight fast.  Not sure it did that.

Pritkin with his fussy weighed out protein was another special diet that all the ‘celebs’  were scoffing. The slim and beautiful ladies in Holywood swore by it. This went further down the protein road later with more rich and fat clogged breakfasts being offered. We were being encouraged to eat rashers of bacon and eggs  …pile it on! But then carbs were the enemy, no carbs,  that is, no bread, rice, or cereal…

Anne and I staunchly chewed and weighed and then gave up, each time going back to the comfortable weight our bodies liked us to be.

Admittedly my weight is now always ten kilos more than I would like. But hey that is part of being older.

We also tried Yoga, and a delightful class called Slimnastics, it was an exercise class and diet support. We used bean bags and sticks and rolled around on the floor, but that worked and I got to the lightest weight I have ever been.  The rolling and stretching in my black leotard had great results.

It gets tougher as you age, motivation is less, movement is harder, and the delights of good food are one of the few pleasures left.  I tried a diet involving flavoured shakes, they tasted OK and it worked, but the side effect was hair loss for me! So not prepared to bald I gave up. Now, I am making a feeble attempt to cut back, that is unless it’s really cold, or we get invited to a party, well unless we have nothing but fat food in the fridge…… or like today, it was so cold and I made this wicked lemon delicious pudding. Ah well I will have to be loved for my curves not for my bony clavicles.