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In my last missive from the Front Line of Dieting, we were discussing Willpower. As in, whether you have any or not. Because, let's face it, no matter what diet you're on, Willpower is the only thing between you, Successful Dieter in a New Lycra Dress, and you, Guilt-stricken Wretch with Biscuit Crumbs All Down Her Front. [As my best mate Disha says, if sweets and junk food, etc were illegal and you had to punt down the Thames in the dark of night to meet some bloke on a deserted riverbank to get a chocolate bar it would be possible to diet for months without ever being in danger of backsliding.]
But let's assume that you have at least enough willpower to get you to day two without eating that emergency packet of wine gums you've hidden in the dirty laundry. That means it's time for the NEXT BIG DECISION. What sort of diet are you going for? Because even though it's true that most diets seem pretty similar when you're on them - difficult, torturous, not working - there are differences. Every diet has its own advantages and disadvantages, pitfalls and strengths. Like each dieter, each diet has its own personality. Which is why you have to chose a diet that suits you. There's no sense in going on the mango and guava juice diet when you're off to Iceland for the running of the reindeer for the next two weeks. There's no use in going on a diet that includes ten hours of mountain climbing a week when you're afraid of heights. A diet you think you might actually stick to. Preferably for more than a day. (Plus, I reckon you can save a lot of time, money and anguish if you know right from the start that you'll last exactly two-and-a-half hours on the kumquat and trampoline diet, but actually lose five pounds and not have to barricade yourself into your room at night so you don't end up sleep walking into the kitchen and eating all the oatcakes and peanut butter on the low carbohydrate and aerobics one.)
To begin with, there are basically TWO types of diets, and that's where you're making your choice. Do you want a diet that's flashy or offbeat and says it'll melt those pounds away? Or do you want a sober, plodding diet that takes time and patience?
The flashy sort of diet is what I call the Crash Diet. Usually there are a single-food diet (all the avocados you can eat and three litres of water a day - that sort of thing). The crash diet is designed to get rid of those extra pounds, and get rid of them faster than the time it takes you to rip open a bag of crisps with your teeth. But it has its problems. Besides malnutrition and the fact that there's no way your body can survive indefinitely on a diet of sauerkraut, there's a good chance that you'll crash before your weight does.
The single-food diet I went on was the grape diet. [NB. I was going to go on the carrot diet, but I read somewhere that it could turn you orange, which didn't really seem like a fair trade-off.] I reckoned I'd walk this one. You didn't have to weigh anything, or read the box to see how many calories was in a .5-gram serving or anything like that. You just ate grapes. I used to like grapes. On the first day, I swanned round with a bucket of grapes in my arms, eating them as though they were candy. I reckoned I'd really cracked it this time. It was brilliant! Every time I had a twinge of hunger or noticed someone stuffing her face with chips, I just reached for another handful of grapes. I started slowing down a bit on day two. It was okay, I wasn't hungry or turning purple or anything, but my enthusiasm level was down. By day three I was starting to realise that one way it works is that no matter what it is you're on - even if it's chips or chocolate cake - eventually you're going to get so tres bored of it that you're pretty much not going to be eating ANYTHING. On day four, I was strolling pass the local caff with my bucket of grapes when the aroma of frying eggs and sausages suddenly assaulted me (and I mean ASSAULTED - it was like it mugged me!). The next thing I knew there were grapes all over the pavement and I was inside, consuming two full English breakfasts with extra toast as only a boa constrictor or a girl who has been eating nothing but grapes for over three days could.
The second sort of diet is your basic Counting Diet. In the Counting Diet you count something - usually it's calories, but it can be carbohydrates, fats, points, or whatever. Even someone truly desperate to get into those skinny jeans can see that this is a more balanced and sustainable approach. No crashing, just sensible eating.
But NOTHING'S perfect, is it?
On my first ever Counting Diet I counted calories. I was fanatical about the weight and size of everything I ate. If my calorie counter said that 2 gm of X had forty calories, I made sure that it wasn't a smidgen over 2 gm. Not only did I wind up measuring biscuits and wondering if a square cracker is less fattening than a round one, but it suddenly occurred to me that if I ate just one teaspoon of sweet pickle a day over the total calories my diet allowed, I'd put on thirty pounds in the next ten years (or fifteen in five; six in two; three in one; a pound and a half in six short months). How scary is that? A POUND AND HALF IN SIX MONTHS - and all because I ate one tiny teaspoon of sweet pickle too much a day. It was like being in one of those fairy tales where (even though you have no way of knowing this) if you prick your finger on a thorn at five o'clock on your sixteenth birthday you're going to sleep for a hundred years or turn into a marine iguana. I started getting seriously obsessive about this. If ONE TEASPOON of sweet pickle could do so much damage, what would happen if I accidentally ate one chocolate digestive extra every day? Or what if the sandwich I always had for lunch wasn't 375 calories as I thought, but 475 because the cheese it was made with came from fat cows? Abracadabra! One day I'd look quite normal, and the next I'd be a dead ringer for a prehistoric reptile with a fondness for algae.
I could feel my willpower collapsing under the weight of all this anxiety and fear. You can't really live a happy life if you're afraid of consuming an extra 100 calories a day by osmosis. It's like living in a police state - only instead of waiting for the knock on the door, you're waiting for the scales to break.
And then I worked out the solution: exercise. Everybody tells you how important exercise is (even my mother, who's never seen to do any!). I reckoned exercise would eat up all those extra sweet-relish calories in no time. I started swimming three times a week. I walked everywhere. I joined the girls' hockey team.
And what happened? The silver lining had a cloud, that's what happened! It turned out that exercise makes me hungry. I'd come home from swimming and without stopping to hang up my wet suit or even take off my jacket, I'd stand at the fridge finishing off the pasta from the night before. On my way back from wherever it was I'd walked to, I'd buy a packet of crisps for the bus ride home. I broke my ankle whilst playing hockey and gained ten pounds when I was laid-up recuperating.
But then I had a brainwave! What was needed was something that would burn up calories the way exercise does, but without making me hungry or bed ridden.
And that's when I invented the stress diet. We all know that though there are some sorts of stress that make you break out, there are others that burn up calories faster than a game of professional football. Unlike exercise, though, you don't actually have to do anything. The stress will come to you. And when it does you'll know how many superfluous calories have been banished from your body without you having to do so much as a sit-up.
Situation:
Denting the rear bumper of your mother's car whilst parking.
Food Equivalent Devoured by Stress (FEDS):
Two packets of salt and vinegar crisps (small).
Situation:
Denting the rear bumper of your mother's car whilst parking when you forgot to let her know that you were borrowing the car in the first place.
FEDS:
One packet of salt and vinegar crisps (family size).
Situation:
Denting the rear bumper of your mother's car whilst parking in Paris when you forgot to let her know that you were borrowing the car in the first place.
FEDS:
Two very large bowls of chilli, with rice and cornbread, and ice cream for afters.
Situation:
Being made to wait for the repairman when you've made a date to meet that über dishy bloke in your history class for a coffee (and you know that if you're not there on time, he'll not only go home but think you stood him up and never speak to you again).
FEDS:
Five chocolate chip biscuits and a glass of juice.
Situation:
Not only are you waiting for the repairman when you should be scurrying towards the coffee shop in that tres chic red dress, but water's started pouring out of the hanging lamp in the kitchen (which, let's face it, can not be a good thing).
FEDS:
Three hamburgers and a large portion of chips.
Situation:
You meet this mega-cool bloke at a party. He's well handsome, intelligent, charming, and he has a sophisticated sense of humour (meaning that he doesn't think sticking chips up his nostrils is hilarious). And what a smile! It makes an atomic blast look like a candle. He sees you home (he's also a gentleman) and says he'll 'call you tomorrow'. So now it's tomorrow. You cancelled your plans to go out with your mates to the Oscars, and sit on the sofa with your phone in your hand. You refused to eat supper (what if he rings while you've got a mouthful of seaweed?). You're not happy about using the toilet (need I explain?). You're certainly not going to take your nightly shower - not until he's rung. The news comes and the news goes. The soaps come and the soaps go. So do the feature film, the situation comedies, and the documentary on the narrow-jawed crocodile. You begin to think that he's not going to ring after all. But perhaps he will. Perhaps his phone's broken and he's had to walk to Wapping to borrow his brother's (his friends are all out). Perhaps he stopped somewhere for a cup of coffee on his way home tonight and there was a robbery and he was held at gunpoint until gone ten thirty, and then he had to go to the police station to make a statement.
Perhaps he lost your number. Or perhaps one of the robbers (the one that got away) stole his mobe with your number on it and he's been trying to get hold of the girl whose party it was but it was a bon voyage party and she's already left for Bolivia. Perhaps there's something wrong with your phone. Perhaps you were too cool when you said goodbye last night and he thinks that you don't really want him to call you. Perhaps (before she left for Bolivia) he asked the girl whose party it was about you and she told him about the time you borrowed her Paddington Bear umbrella and left it on the bus (obviously, that was a tres long time ago, but she's the sort of girl who bears a grudge!), which put him right off. Perhaps he was rushing home to ring you and he was hit by a bicycle and at this very moment is lying in hospital, begging the nurse to bring him his phone... At some point you fall asleep on the sofa. You have bad dreams.
FEDS:
Every time the phone rings, you burn up a sausage sandwich.
Every time the phone doesn't ring, you burn up a sausage sandwich and a portion of chips.
You lose a pound and a half while you sleep.
Situation:
Waiting for a bus when you're running late.
FEDS:
One slice of toast, with jam and butter.
Situation:
Waiting for a bus at night in the rain.
FEDS
One jam doughnut and a can of cola.
Situation:
Christmas shopping or January sales.
FEDS:
Two bowls of minestrone, half a loaf of garlic bread and a bag of peanuts. (If you're with your mother, your grandmother, or your niece you make that a roast dinner with all the trimmings.)
(to be continued...)
(Note to You: For those of you trying to find my old Diary it is here... )
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Sunday 2nd March 2008 