So sick of other people’s diets

I must have reached the age where us girlies start fretting about our weight. Well, I think girls of any age fret about their weight but lately it seems like some kind of epidemic has taken hold. All I hear is “I’ve started a healthy eating regime”, “I’m on a diet”, “I need to lose weight” or ”I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been”. Bla bla bla bla.

Honestly, who cares? Yes, I would love to shed a stone but if it means starving myself, avoiding any kind of occasion where there might be cake and pretending to be satisfied after scoffing a rabbit food lunch, then I’m just not interested.

Maybe I’m unsympathetic to diets because they just don’t work for me. I’ve tried a few out, just like every other gal on the planet, but for me it’s more a scientific experiment than an attempt to shed poundage. I did the Carol Vorderman detox diet some years ago and wrote a weekly column for the newspaper I was working for. It was pure hell and the column inches were the only thing that got me through it. I felt shite, had a permanent headache and wanted to chew my own hand off at the end of the month. I did feel wonderful after four weeks, sleeping like a baby and bouncing around with energy. But I’d only lost a couple of pounds.

I did lose a bit when I did the five day tree syrup diet. Basically had to substitute food with a gloopy drink for five days and although I had a nice flat tummy at the end of it, I was utterly miserable. I like eating food, I like the taste of eating food and I want to carry on eating food. I don’t want to swap my size 12 for a size zero if it means no more rare steaks, chocolate brioche or cheesecake.

I understand some people want/need to lose weight but most of the people I know who say they’re going on diets actually don’t look any different afterwards. If I’m going to the effort to eat celery for a fortnight I want to look damn good by day 14!

Nope, diets are not for me. That said, if I didn’t play sport I would be the size of a house. For me, exercise is a fun way of ensuring I can eat like food it’s going out of fashion. Okay, so I can’t shake off the love handles, but if we all had figures like pencils life wouldn’t be very interesting would it?

Doughnut anyone?