Not lovin’ it

For those of you tucking into your McDonald’s Double Sausage and Egg McMuffins tomorrow morning, please think of us as we are tucking into our Oatibix and 1% fat (and taste) free milk as we try to return to some state of mid range non obesity.

We finally reached a wall where we had to do something. And it’s sugar that had to go. When I say sugar, I mean booze, of course, as well as just about everything that tastes good.

It is fair to say that we have not quite reached the levels of Big Daddy and Klondyke Kate, but with a holiday on the mid horizon something had to give. It’s not just a holiday though: it’s a wedding too, and the last thing we wanted to do was spend the entire ceremony breathing in deeply just in case some cheeky bugger decided to take an unflattering photograph.

It is not true that this losing weight malarkey is easy. It’s the opposite of easy. My ideal day would go something like this:

Breakfast: A large Sausage and Egg McMuffin from McDonalds
Lunch: A Jacket Potato with Egg Mayonnaise from Spud U Like
Dinner: Steak and Chips
Evening: Beer (or cider) washed down with wine.

Not that I have ever had a day like this – I really would be Big Daddy if that had ever been my diet – but all these things taste nicer than what I am having to eat instead. Actually, that’s nothing whatsoever like our real meal planner schedule – we actually eat quite healthily, with very little salt and almost no processed food at all – but it’s snacking and booze that does it for us.

I cannot pretend, nor shall I try to, that I do like a drink. I rather like more than one drink but quite apart from the internal damage it causes, the waistline is where the effects all gather. So when I say we are cutting out the crap bits, I mean we are actually cutting out the good bits.

You would think in this day and age someone would invent some sugar and calorie free real ale, cider and red wine that provided the same enjoyment of the genuine article. A foaming pint of Boston’s Old Thumper that still got you pissed but didn’t have you loosening your belt the following day. Or calorie free cheese and chips and pork scratchings. Is it really too much to ask? Well, yes, it probably is.

This new and permanent regime is well underway and already there are clear results. For starters, I am hungry all the time, desperate for a drink and even more niggly and bad-tempered. I am quite a bit lighter too, albeit with a long way to go. Going without all the so called unhealthy foods may not enable me to live any longer, but it will surely feel like it.

I had hoped for years that taking more and more exercise would mean that I could carry on eating whatever I liked but sadly doctors have now confirmed that this is what is known in medical parlance as bollocks. Exercise is obviously good for you but eating less is even better.

Anyone fancy a crisp?