In our house growing up we had this thing called a “Birthday Boxing Day” whereby you didn’t just have your birthday – you had the next day too as part of the celebrations. And you could stretch it still further by having your own “Birthday Eve” which traditionally started at around 4pm by which time excitement was so great, it may as well have been your birthday already.

Perhaps it’s being Jewish, where festivals (or Yom Tov which means holidays) always began the night before. And then continued into the day after. New Year for example – Rosh Hashanah – is always two days, not one! Even Yom Kippur, our most solemn day of the year, starts the night before when the lights go down. Anyway, I had a Birthday Boxing Day this year, mainly because there was cake left over. And bubbly. And it’s got to be done, right? Read More→

So today is my birthday and there WILL be cake! I was thinking about going without it for the simple reason that I am BACK on the wagon! And how. And I’m wary of anything spoiling that. We dieters know that one slip can be fatal. Well, not really fatal, obviously. You don’t die from eating cake! But once you’ve let yourself have a forbidden fruit it’s so very hard to stop. Which is why I’ve never been all that keen on the idea of forbidden foods on a diet but my resolve and belief in the Paleo way was much restored after I watched the film Cereal Killers over the weekend.

It wasn’t so much the now usual form of immersive documentary making – it’s a bit like SuperSize Me – but all the experts who came on to give their testimony, some happily retracting from all the “carbs are good, carbs are great, praise them” mantra they had previously spouted. Read More→

For most dieters being hungry is key to their feelings of success on a diet. If you’re hungry, it must be working, right? You are doing the right thing and depriving yourself of food you want so that’s got to be a good thing, yes?

Actually, no! It’s not. Hunger is the enemy of dieting. You can kid yourself for a while that skipping meals or going without food or eating less than you want to will help you lose weight. But it won’t. Far more likely it’ll cause you to break your diet, fall off the wagon, overeat to compensate for all the hunger pangs and sense of deprivation and fill you with self loathing and body hatred. Read More→

It’s now a week since I gave up cheese for Lent and thus far, it’s going remarkably well. A lot easier than I expected in fact. I find I don’t miss cheese at all. If only I’d known how easy it was to give it up. I seem to recall hearing the Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes once say that giving up just cheese and wine helped him drop several stone in about six months! Now the wine wouldn’t make much difference to me as I hardly drink at all. But cheese… cheese I love!

The thing is to stop snacking on cheese I have had to stop snacking. There simply isn’t anything quite as easy as cheese to snack on between meals. Not on a Paleo/high protein regime anyway. And if you don’t buy it, it’s not in the ‘fridge so you can’t eat it! Simple as. I’ve used much the same rationale with crisps as I adore crisps but obviously they’re a no-no on Paleo.

Here comes the sun!

Isn’t this weather glorious! And isn’t it so much easier to cut back on calories when the sun is shining. You inevitably feel better in the Spring, I think. A season full of promise and hope. I do love this time of year. Possibly because it’s my birthday month and so has always felt special. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Having never had a March that didn’t include my birthday! Thing is sun takes away the need to comfort eat. Or does for me. It’s the cold, dark, wet, dreek, dreary weather that makes you long for the comfort of carbs. Who wants carbs when thoughts of bikinis and beaches are inevitably invoked when the big golden ball in the sky comes out to play?

That said, it’s a long time since I’ve sat or lay on a beach but that’s not the point. Sun makes me think of beaches, the sea, ice-cream… whooops! Better not think about that. Or the lovely long sweetened cocktails thoughts of Summer invoke. And it is only Spring!

Easter bunny

Easter will be next. Another time of year to think about chocolate, same as Christmas is synonymous with chocolate. I shall find it hard to resist. Probably impossible. But a weigh-in looms again. If I haven’t got my gained Christmas poundage off by Easter then it’s here to stay. It’s taken up residence and it’s not going. This is why the cheese famine is so important. I can allow myself some chocolate because I don’t go overboard on it. And a little every now and then, what could it hurt?

Cheese isn’t chocolate!

But cheese feels far less sinful – though I’m not keen on the idea that any kind of food is sinful. Cheese feels like proper food in the way that chocolate, crisps, cake, biscuits and sweets don’t. You limit those because you know you have to; well, you do if you’re trying to lose weight. But cheese is far more seductive and alluring. It doesn’t feel like you’re being naughty or like a snack. It feels like a meal.

Anyway, I’ve given it up and I don’t miss it. I’m not even allowing myself to have it on Sundays which is permitted as part of Lent. If I can get cheese out my diet, maybe it’ll be time to try going completely non-dairy. Wheat and dairy free and the weight will slide off me… we’ll see.

Have a good Wednesday. Enjoy the rest of your week. Thanks for listening.

I hardly ever get the chance to share one of my magazine pieces as they don’t tend to put them online for fairly obvious reasons. (At least I hope the reasons are obvious!) But a piece I wrote last year about why I keep a diary is available in an online format.

If you’re interested in reading the piece, and I do hope you are, it’s not like a usual url link. It’s the entire magazine. My piece, about the diary I’ve kept since I was ten, and why, is on pages 40 and 41.The magazine, Woman’s World, is the Women’s Institute annual and my piece is called The Diary Of You. Read More→

What can we eat? Four words you will probably have heard over and over again this week after reports that eating meat is as bad as smoking 20 fags a day. Sugar intake should be cut too oh and carbs get a grilling somewhere as well. Probably from me. Now today comes news that saturated fat isn’t so bad for you after all. Just as I’ve been saying all along!

Who is right? What can you eat?

First of all, let’s get the so-called science behind the meat-is-bad-for-you reports out the way. It’s neatly debunked by Zoe Harcombe. She did it so I don’t have to. If you want to know why this latest report is garbage, do please read her piece. It’s short and to the point. On a more prosaic level as someone tweeted last night: “Human race wouldn’t have survived this long WITHOUT animal protein! A Lion does not eat spaghetti!” Precisely. Read More→

I am not a Christian but I have decided I am going to keep Lent this year. Never done it before, on account of not being raised a Christian. But always fancied having a go. Strikes me as a good idea to give something up for a few days – 40 in fact! I think it’s to do with the time Jesus went into the wilderness to have a bit of a think? And he didn’t have enough to eat. So seems has to be around food that you make the sacrifice. Makes sense. Then Jesus did return to Palestine and because there were lots of palm trees it was called Palm Sunday. Then he got crucified (maybe going back not such a good idea?) on the Friday but rose again on the Sunday and thus is the basis of Christian belief. I believe.

Read More→