Live and Let Diet

So, then. This diet I mentioned, way back in April. I'm well aware of how dull diet blogs can get, so I've been avoiding mentioning it generally, but I do feel the need for a quick self-congratulatory indulgence.

You see, it's going really well -- rather more so for me than for B., but I think it's a truth universally acknowledged that when men can be arsed to diet the weight loss comes easier for us than it does for women.

The plan, as you may recall, was to eat seven equally-spaced meals of roughly 200 calories each throughout the day, meaning that we never felt unbearably hungry, and that if we got up feeling unsatisfied from a particular meal, well, at least we were going to be getting another one in two or three hours' time.

Also to get a lot of exercise, which we haven't quite managed.

But as for the eating we've been, for the most part, remarkably disciplined -- so much so that when the weather started getting hot we cut back from seven to six snacks, allowing ourselves two a day of 250 rather than 200 calories, to make up a fairly strict weight-loss regime of 1300 calories per diem.

And, fantastically, it works. I certainly miss the satisfying feeling of having my stomach stretched by a large and heavy meal, but the marvellous thing is that -- within reason -- one can eat any food as long as it's in appropriately small quantities. A small glass of port and a thinnish slice of a really good cheese, for instance, is around 200 calories, as is a snack-sized Snickers bar, or half a pint of beer and half a packet of crisps. There are very few things that it's impractical to eat in sufficiently tiny quantities.

When I started the diet I was, frankly, fat. I weighed in at something over 14 stone -- I'm not exactly sure how much over, because I'd found it too alarming to check for quite a while. Since then, I've lost at least a seventh of my body-weight, and am now, if not exactly thin, certainly pretty trim at 12 stone.

This, I feel bound to point out, is a hell of a difference. My mother certainly thought so when I went home for my brother's wedding -- and if pleasing one's mother shouldn't really be what life is all about, it's certainly a happy bonus. All my trousers are now far too large, I've had to put extra holes in my belt, and my XL T-shirts hang like baggy shrouds about my skeletal frame.

I still have a bit of a paunch, which I want to lose. This, along with uxorial solidarity, is why I'm still sticking to the diet. It's looking, though, as if further weight loss is going to have to come through exercise, which will probably be a lot less enjoyable.

Still -- not bad going so far, eh?