Why am I my own worst diet saboteur?

‘Watch out for sabotaging behaviour’, warn the authors of The 2 Day Diet. 'Loved ones may try to tempt you with forbidden foods…' Yes, Siree! Last night, after a lovely walk in the park, my husband says: ‘I think I’ll buy some wine. Do you want some wine?’

‘No, I don’t!!’ I had so far managed no carbs all day and there were none on the menu for supper, either. This was looking like a no carb day.

So my husband decides he’ll buy beer instead – no temptation to me as I can’t stand it.

But dinner is running late, and, as we potter about the kitchen and he pours his first drink, I am the one to sabotage my own diet.

‘As I’m not drinking tonight, I think I’ll finish off that champagne in the fridge,’ I say.

Yes, at the risk of sounding opulent, there was leftover champagne in our fridge – opened two days earlier to celebrate our youngest daughter’s 18^th birthday, but it made her wince and there was a whole glass left. Actually a very large whole glass (still in the bottle, and still fizzy – what are the odds?)…  So I had that, called it a carb, and told myself it was now a carb day – and then, after dinner, watching Breaking Bad, I ate two of Steve’s home-made chocolates leftover from a function he catered last weekend. ‘Only two more carbs’…

Why do we do it? Why do we dieters cheat on ourselves but pretend we’re cheating on the diet and that the diet won’t know about those forbidden treats we sneak passed our lips?

The diet book doesn’t care. The authors don’t care! The only person who’s affected by my decision to drink a glass of wine and eat a couple of chocolates is me…

The 2-Day Diet

Say what you like about diets – but ultimately they’re the only way to lose weight. Even when someone says they’re just cutting down their portion sizes and eating only healthy foods – that is a diet!

Last year I tried the 5.2 diet, consuming just 500 calories a day on two non-consecutive days, and eating normally the rest of the week. Now – moment of truth – I didn’t actually read the book behind this diet, so when I ate normally, I ate normally for me… No doubt the book would have told me to eat abnormally for me on the non diet days.

I’m pretty sure of this now as I’ve just bought another 5-2 style diet book – this one is The 2 Day Diet, by Dr Michelle Harvie and Prof Tony Howell. The claim on the cover is: ‘Diet two days a week. Eat normally for five.’ But, start reading, and it’s soon apparent you will be committing yourself to yet another 7-day diet – it’s just that 2 of those days are a little bit harder than the rest.

Here’s what you have to do:

On 2 consecutive days (can be non-consecutive if you prefer but the authors think consecutive works best) eat only 1000 calories comprising 0 carbs, 4-12 portions of protein (one portion is 30g of meat, poultry or oily fish OR 45g seafood OR 60g fresh or smoked white fish OR 1 egg OR 1 rasher of bacon or thin slice of ham), 5 portions of veg (there are however restrictions on these – your best bet is leaves: a cereal bowl full of lettuce or watercress counts as one portion), 1 portion of fruit (again there are restrictions – no bananas for example), 5 servings of fat (eg 1 serving is 1tsp mayo or veg spread but the word butter doesn’t seem to feature anywhere in this book).  There are a few other details but that’s about it in a nutshell.

The protein should keep you full and the theory is that we go on feeling hungry until we’ve consumed the amount of protein that we need.

On the 5 ‘eat normally’ days in fact you still only eat 1400 calories, comprising 3-8 portions of protein, and a maximum of 6-9 portions of carbs (the amount you can have depends on your weight and age, and there’s a handy ready reckoner to help you but as an example 1 medium slice of wholemeal bread would count as a portion), 2 portions of fruit, 5 vegetables, and 3-5 portions of fat (again your weight and height determine how much you can eat, and this is also in the ready reckoner).

Oh and I forgot to say that on both restricted and unrestricted days you should have 3 servings of dairy (1 serving = 1 pot low fat yogurt for example) – but no more than 4oz (120g) cheese each week.

 Despite all the counting and weighing – not to mention the various restrictions – it seems to be quite a do-able diet – so I am going to give it a whirl. I am right at the top of my healthy BMI, and as some experts say we should never let ourselves get more than a stone heavier than our lowest adult weight (eg what you weighed at 18) I need to lose a stone…

I quite like the idea that on a restricted day I can in theory have bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast; prawn salad for lunch; and chicken salad for dinner. And that, on my non-restricted days I can have yogurt and berries for breakfast, tuna sandwich for lunch, and chicken and rice for dinner.

Eating just 120g cheese a week will be a challenge, and going butter-free could be impossible…

Let’s see what happens!

(Still) desperately seeking small shoes…

A month ago I wrote about my efforts to find a pair of pretty shoes. All I want is a classic kitten heeled, pointy-toed pump. But most shoe shops only stock shoes from size 36 up, and I am a 35. At least, I thought I was a 35… I have 35s that fit me, and I even have 36s that fit me – but my 35s are Fit-Flops and Birkenstocks, and my 36s are all boots.

I was very excited about visiting Pretty Small Shoes, in Bloomsbury, which sells shoes in all sorts of small sizes and a wide variety of styles, mostly at £130.00. But – sorry, lovely girls who work in the store – the shoes are so cheap looking and so unbearably uncomfortable that I was hugely relieved to find that none of the 35s fitted me (they were TOO BIG!) – and doubly hugely relieved to discover that the styles that I had pretended to like were not available in a 34 or 34.5. Phew! After politely trying them all on, I would have had to tell the girls that the shoes were actually so tacky that I couldn’t be seen in them, and would rather live on in my Birkies and Fit-Flops, never to be seen in an elegant kitten-heeled, pointy-toed pump.

But failure always makes me more determined to find what I’m looking for, and, after a bit of online research I discovered that  Harrods stocks plenty of size 35s in ranges from Stuart Weitzmann, Miu Miu and the like…

So last Sunday Steve patiently accompanied me on a trip to Harrods’ shoe department.

As someone who normally picks up shoes in little boutiques or natural shoe store type shops, I had forgotten how arduous shoe shopping can be. You can’t just “pop in” for a pair of shoes. These days shoe shop assistants do not just disappear to the back of the store to rummage among the boxes; they have to search on the computer for stock, then, apparently, go out the back door and walk round the block a few times while you sit twiddling your thumbs with one shoe off…

And, in Harrods, this process had to be repeated in each separate concession.

We tried Stuart Weitzmann, Miu Miu, Jimmy Choo, and Louis Vuitton – all highly expensive, but, by now, remember, we’re realising that finding a pair of shoes to fit me will be a once in a lifetime event.

The conclusion was that I am not a 35 – not in pointy toed pumps, anyway. 

One helpful Harrods' shoe man said I could have shoes specially made in a size 34 or 34.5 by Stuart Weitzmann - they could arrange this, and the price would be the same as the on the shelf price of a 35... but I would have to pay upfront (£330), and, if the shoes didn't fit me, or hurt, there would be no refund. I had also missed the boat for their latest order for small shoes and would have to wait until the Autumn to go on the list, and another 12 weeks for the shoes to arrive. "Does Madam have an event in mind for which she needs the shoes?" 

In Harvey Nichols, where we repeated the torturous experience, we learned that there is in fact no such thing as a 35… “Our shoes tend to get bigger the lower they go,” the Jimmy Choo assistant explained. The smaller your feet, the higher the heels need to be if a shoe is to fit you, it seems. I tried on a very pretty size 34 in a flat shoe – just to see if it would fit – and I could get my thumb in the back! "If it had a higher heel it would be smaller" the assistant explained.

Now looking for a 34 - we thought 35 was hard enough to find - by the end of our trip, we had established that Jimmy Choo and Miu Miu do make 34s… even if their shops rarely stock them.

Salvatore Ferragamo’s shoes start at a 34.5, and St Laurent’s start at 35.

Net-a-Porter stocks some 34s, and even has a few pairs from Jimmy Choo and Miu Miu in just the style I’m looking for… Will they fit? We’ve decided to order some in to find out… And, if they do??? Well, I have saved £1000s on not buying pretty shoes for all the decades that I’ve been an adult –so if I find a pair that fits and feels comfortable (that is essential) I think I deserve a treat…

UPDATE: Neither Jimmy Choo's nor Miu Miu's 34 fitted me. They were TOO SMALL!! This when I am "normally" a size 35 in other brands and styles. I have since found two pairs of slingbacks in 35s, both of which fit thanks of course to the adjustable strap... And now a friend has introduced me to Shoes Of Prey - who will make shoes to order, in sizes down to 31. They have just the kind of court I am looking for - and have agreed to let me send a measurement of my foot to make sure they give me the right size. They're in Australia so it will take some time to sort this order out - but I hope to have a pair in time for Christmas!

We’re going on a shoe hunt. We’re going to find a small pair…

So there’s Kylie Minogue – not much taller than me – draped over Graham Norton’s sofa with her red shoes dangling, and I’m thinking: “where does she buy shoes like that - which fit?” They are not the birkies, lace ups and fit-flops I depend on. No – Kylie is wearing a beautiful stiletto heeled court. And she looks comfortable in it.

I am on a crusade to find pretty shoes that fit me. But with size 35 feet (a UK two according to some brands or a three according to others – though I’ve always called it a two-and-a-half), it is a major challenge. I am no fun for the sales assistants in even high end boutiques like Emma Hope and Joseph (I know, I tried every style they stocked last weekend) – who know it’s not even worth trying to persuade me to buy a shoe that flops loosely off my foot. Though yesterday in Paul Smith, a particularly desperate sales girl tried to sell me the idea of going to the shoemaker across the road for something tailored to make my tiny feet fit into any pretty style I fancied…

Back home I have resorted to hunting online. And – who knew? – I could get a pair of Christian Louboutins, or Jimmy Choos from Net A Porter, which stocks 35s as well as some 34s… My daughters, also blessed with petite feet, have always – I tell people – stuffed tissue into their toes to make their shoes fit. But it turns out that Bella finds size threes that fit from Zara, while Coco buys all her shoes in a two from Asos. Further research has yielded the online store Pretty Small Shoes, selling – well the clue’s in the name – in all sorts of sizes, and mostly around £130.00 (well it’s a lot cheaper than a pretty small Choo).

Kurt Geiger, Bella tells me, also has a bunch of small sizes – and she seems to be right…

Someone needs to tell the lovely Japanese assistant in Agnes B who says she has to shop for shoes on visits to Tokyo. I noticed she was wearing a pair of child like lace ups – and her suggestion that I looked at “junior’ ranges wasn’t very encouraging when I was thinking of a nice pointy pump with a tiny kitten heel…

Don’t tell anyone but I do have some pretty shoes (when you have small feet you tend to buy anything that fits because it’s such a rarity) – and the problem has always been that they may look lovely but they don’t often feel it. I don’t want to wear something that makes me hobble or wobble. But that may have nothing to do with finding the right size.

Lent – I relent… (with consequences)

As I do not have a religious bone in my body, my Lent abstinence was destined to fail. I’d embarked on it with the promise that I would make an exception for my trip to Rome (just a few days into the 40-day booze fast), and possibly also a press trip to muslim Dubai, where I correctly guessed that the parallel world of corporate entertaining would make it impossible – nay rude – to decline the flow of wine; albeit I’m still looking for an excuse for the glass of wine on the flight out and – er – the whiskey from my friend’s mini-bar.

Apart from those detours, not a drop passed my lips – until yesterday, when Steve and I ate lunch at Little Social in Pollen Street where I washed down a langoustine, stone bass, and chocolate moelleux with the house white….

Twenty minutes later, turning into South Molton Street, we were nabbed by a very charming young man who instantly detected my nails aux naturels… And the whiff of alcohol on our breath. He was the young manager of the Sakare skin care shop – and, though I am normally a dab hand at brushing off anyone begging me to “step this way for just a minute”, seconds later we were watching him buff my finger nails to an oily shine with the amazement of a Derren Brown audience.

You may find this genuinely hard to believe – but I had never come across one of these nail buffer blocks that my youngest daughter says are routinely given away free with magazines, the source of the one she has owned for the past four years… I’m sure the salesman found it hard to believe too… My hands were literally putty in his as he showed me how his magic block could restore my nails to full shiny health. And then, the kill: No, they don’t sell these alone – only with our hand and nail kit of cuticle oil, hand cream and let’s not forget the nail file… I have bought nail oils before, which languish unused in my bedside drawer, also home to many jars, tubes and bottles of hand cream. But, as the only people in London (“Londoners really? Born and bred? Honestly? What a change to meet someone who is not a tourist!”) not to have seen a nail buffer on sale for pence in our local Boots, or free on a magazine cover, we parted with £35 – my husband having bargained the salesman down from £40. Back home, despite Bella’s “Oh no, how much did you pay for that?” we have had fun buffing nails and squirting on oil and hand cream. 
The salesman nearly stung us for some Dead Sea salts and cleanser too – very good quality they looked – but Dead Sea salts are Dead Sea salts and, despite the lingering tingle of that lovely Loire wine, I remembered that I have plenty of those already…

When hunger strikes

A few years ago I watched the documentary Black Gold and went off Starbucks big time. The film tells the story of coffee production – and many of Starbucks’ coffee growers were receiving such small sums for their produce that they had to queue up at food camps because they couldn’t afford to feed themselves on their meagre earnings.

Now food banks are rife across Britain – something I couldn’t have envisaged a few years ago, albeit they may have existed on a smaller scale.

Our government is proud of its efforts to dig the country out of its economic slump – but at what price?

Read the Hunger Hurts blog that went viral for Jack Monroe who now writes about cheap ways to eat well, and sign her petition for an End UK Hunger budget this year and every year. 

What are you doing for Lent?

It’s been a stodgy winter. I’ve fallen right off the 5:2 wagon, and our food cupboard is littered with unused sachets of Miso – a staple of our fast day. So, even though I’m not religious, I'm planning to make a couple of changes for Lent.

The first will be giving up alcohol (although I may write in an exception for the weekend I will be in Rome with my mother-in-law). My mother, who is very religious, always finds giving up her sherry and wine for Lent a great way to lose a few winter pounds.

The second plan is to take our dog for an extra walk each day. Through winter, I’m ashamed to confess, he’s had only one walk most days. This is the early morning one that boosts my energy for the day and gives Joe an excuse to lie on the sofa with his legs in the air for hours on end. But around 4.0pm he generally comes to my desk, nudges me with his nose and jumps up and down barking and looking towards the front door. You can’t get much clearer than that – but, much as I love him, I have looked out at the generally foul weather, and said, “You must be joking!” He may be ready for a walk but I’m usually thinking about a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate.

He will love the extra walk, and I’m sure I’ll benefit from it too.

So, some time tonight or tomorrow, I will measure my waist, thighs and upper arms. I will NOT be stepping on the scales. I am going to focus on inches instead of pounds.

If – note if – I keep to my Lenten promises I will report back at Easter.