Diet

I have started a diet. This is another diet as I have done many over the years, and none of them have really worked. However as I am going to be mother of the bride in November I do have a serious motive. Lots of pictures which I cannot avoid being in are a strong incentive.

I am trying the diet regime which my daughter has used which is the Cambridge diet and it works on a very low calorie meal replacement, at varying levels of calorie intake as you progress. So I began yesterday and today I am hungry. I use the packets of prepared porridge/soup/shake for 2/3 meals and get to eat food in the evening, but the food available is fairly limited. I am a bit worried that I won't keep it up because I can't say I am very thrilled by the food so far. Months of cup a soups isn't terribly enticing, however as I get used to it and figure out how to make the food taste better I suppose.

Diets are strange things in themselves really. There is nothing like being told you can't have something to make you want it, and many people with a need to diet have a bad relationship with food, so in a way by going on a diet they set up additional stresses in their relationship with food. It does seem to be a Western problem that people eat too much and get fat, or use it as a weapon in a complex personal battle of bulemia or anorexia. Why is food such complicated thing ?

It can be a sign of love, of hate, of self loathing, of greed, of pleasure, of comfort, of need, to mention just a few. Some people have little interest in food and just eat to survive. Some enjoy food but find it easy to stop after a small amount. Others have a problem finding that stopping point and overeat, sometimes to extremes.

I watched part of a programme about a disorder where people never feel full and they will just keep on eating and eating, and will eventually eat themselves to death unless they are stopped. It was dreadful for them and for their families, but there are also people who do that to themselves without having a medical disorder and you see them on tv and just think 'Why?' What makes them so screwed up that they do that to themselves? But it doesn't happen overnight and things creep up on people without them being really aware of it, so they find themselves with a problem and sometimes find it very difficult to deal with, and you can see that the sense of whatever it was that made them overeat in the first place makes them less able to deal with the consequences of it and a vicious circle is created which they often can't break.

So I better stick to the diet and lose some weight.