I Do Solemnly Swear.......

The fact is I haven't quite done what I wanted this year in the weight loss department, which, after all, is why we are gathered together in the Boot Camp, m'Lords and Ladies.

Year end, and I'm still a couple of pounds off my halfway point. While it's somewhat more than quite likely that'll be gone in the next few days, this is still enough to make me grouchy on Old Year's Morn.

Don't know about you but I'm going into this latest and best New Year hardcore committed on the diet front, and it's head back down, horns locked and doing till I'm done. Damn it, this thing's been going on too long already (since late July), and I'm not halfway yet??? OK. there was (and is still) an unconscionable amount still to lose. What's gone is a frighteningly huge sackful of lard, which is good, but consider the rest of it and not even halfway yet...

But, hey, I'm not going to get rid of this by sitting on my arse endlessly writing a self-obsessed blog while failing to learn the daily the lesson of the scales, am I? Thinking about all matters germane, I should have arranged to postpone this year's Saturnalia until I was good and ready (i.e. when my total weight loss target had been met, murdered and given the full fathom five and I was holding my slender perfect self together exquisitely in ongoing and permanent yo-yo-free maintenance. Soon come, next year.).

For reasons I can't quite piece together, we had intended going to pay homage to the entirely inappropriate the New Year's Day breakfast buffet at Dog Central, aka The (excellent) Blue Bird Cafe at Ferring. The pictures on the site don't do justice to the gigantic platefuls they pile up on special occasions like this, it really is The Full English writ large (when I went looking for that last link, I laughed like a drain when I inadvertently encountered this little gem instead. Do please click to encounter a prime collection of genuine 100% sad English tossers!).

That BIG big breakfast really would have been getting off on the wrong foot and might have sent an entirely wrong message to all those bright new mornings eagerly waiting up ahead, but my wife just suggested that we drop by the Blue Bird as arranged, but that we just have a coffee. My relief was total: I'd been wondering how to get out of that one.... But if you need a recipe, this one's OK, except the author (appropriately named Pratt!) overlooked the very necessary baked beans, and where she refers to 'one egg', that should be two. The 'very necessary baked beans', by the way, is one of the few things I would ever endorse that's made by Heinz. Baked beans have to be made by Heinz: no others are acceptable. I have to point out that Albert Roux thinks so, too: here's the proof (just above halfway down the page). He's been consistent in this view, having published it back in 1994 in his neat little book Cher Albert, where he let's us in on his 3-Michelin Star secret: add a bloody big knob of butter in with the beans as you're warming them through. Magnifique. He's not wrong.

My grouchiness this morning, however, is just me being pissed off with me for not having magicked more of me away yet, and I shouldn't spill any of this copious bile in your esteemed direction. Instead I've a particularly groucho-ey and completely wonderful New Year's present for you, bringing together two of my life-long hero role models: where else would you see Groucho Marx and Lord Buckley together? Don't say I never gives you nothin' and a Happy New Year to youse too!

Look, if I'm honest, what really soured my milk today and opened the door for my grumpiness to spill forth was an email received from my so-called self-styled friend Jack Rebaldi who's opening the latest production of Cats in Hamburg in the next couple of days. Jack plays the male lead Munkustrap, has done for years, West End, across Europe, slated for the first production in space, probably (the bottom two pictures on this link page show Jack all pussied-up). Anyway, this person, whom I've known (and even trusted after a fashion) for years and who does this for a living (so you know he just has to be a really fit bastard to start with), has the effrontery to send me this: '...have just arrived in Hamburg for my first previews, having rehearsed in Dusseldorf until now. By the way, I’ve lost four stones since September!' Only he didn't even bother to put it in bold.

Do you get the total, insolent insouciance of it? 'By the way....'!!!!! 56lbs gone, mentioned en passant and fiddledeedee (really rubbing my fat nose in it! That Rebaldi knows how to hurt). 56lbs? Just from doing a bit of singing and dancing about. Not like he was having to WORK at it, like we have to, and certainly not like he had it to lose in the first place. Bastard. Even gets interviewed on TV about it, not the 56lbs thing in particular, more the Cats thing in general, but still. Break a leg, Jack (and not your bloody arm like when you were doing Dance Of The Vampires in Berlin, eh?).

So now you know why I'm out of sorts. Nothing is so galling as other people's success, especially when it's a matter of dumping the excess avoir du pois.

Anyways, it's time to link hands, do the Old Lang Syne number and pledge not just a cup of kindness to the world but also to ourselves as individuals. Because until we start appreciating our own worth, we're not going to get the lid nailed down on this big fat issue.

Q: Do we each of us seriously want to break out of this stupid cycle of over-indulgence fuelled by addiction, and throw that excess luggage off our individual psychic trailers which makes gives us the licence to behave so very badly.

A: Yes.

So having agreed that, which wasn't too difficult, let's move on. Except, hang on, Fred. It wasn't too difficult to agree. It's the moving on which is the tricky bit.

Coming to terms with this problem, which is so deep-rooted in our individual personalities is not going to be easy. It will demand everything of each one of us. These demons won't give up without an almighty struggle. Just don't expect any sympathy from me when you fall. You'll get understanding by the bucket-load, but not sympathy. For one, I've got my own demons to kill, and, two, you've just got to get back on that horse and ride this addiction down.

The one thing I know, and just take it from me if you're in doubt: it will get easier with time. And you can help make it easier for yourself, by turning away from those foods that help keep you in chains. I don't just rail at the processed food industry because, by and large (Heinz baked beans being an exception!) their stuff tastes worse than the alternatives you can make for yourself. I attack them because they are attacking us, every day, with their toxic, poisonous products.

Extreme? Over the top? Out of proportion? Guilty as charged. But so are they. I get you to eat a chunk of cyanide. You die. Simples! That's the way with your genuine poison. But the fact that some poisons work much slower doesn't stop them from being poisons. Nor does the fact that they poson you, but don't actually kill you; least, not directly. You eat something which is not entirely conducive to health and you're ingesting a poison: the label is appropriate, it's just a matter of degree. And, by the way, toxins can and do accumulate over time, so at least think about sorting it.

Example: yesterday I was in correspondence with one of the readers of this blog who had just bought her first ever globe of garlic! She had no idea what to do with it. That's OK, she does now, and I guarantee she'll buy no more of the crappy, nasty 'garlic powder' she's used up to now. A small victory, yes, but it's a first step on a long road, and I'm delighted she's taken it:it makes the second step easier!

So, my resolution: to get back into my full diet, to re-establish a solid but not excessive ketosis, to watch those pounds disappear, to eat well but with moderation, to stay off the booze, to increase my exercise (though probably not to the extent required to appear in bloody Cats, I grant you), and to reclaim my health - permanently.

Can you sign up to this too?

Look if I can do it, Eating With Consciousness and adhering to the principles of SDCM - self-discipline, control and moderation - I'm bloody sure you can. Here's the proof: I started off back in July at 397lbs. That's evidence of how far away I was from those simple but demanding disciplines. How heavy were you at your worst? Less than me? As I said, if I can do it, starting where I did, SO CAN YOU!

I'm not some stoked, pumped jargon-spewing motivation-meister in a pair of red budgie smugglers rippling his muscles for the cameras hyping you up vacuously. I'm a lazy old fat bastard who decided he'd had enough of where his life was going (an early, and inevitable grave, by the way), and decided to get it sorted.

If you want to give yourself a new start, now really is the time. Now ALWAYS is the time. Just commit and do it!

There's a resolution - not for New Year, but for life!

Finally, let us depart this old year with a gloriously surreal moment or two from What's My Line, January 27th 1957, when dinosaurs still walked the earth and the rock was giving way to the roll. And always remember that 2010 was the year that Keith Richards let us mere mortals in on the big secret: rocking is the easy part.

Till the next year, fired up, focussed, and definitely determined,

Your old pal,

Fred

How Was It For You?

So that was Christmas! I hope you had fun.

Above all, I hope you got away without too much damage being done. To you; to those around you. You know how it goes when you're a food junky.

Me? Two pounds. Could have done without it, but it's hardly irremediable and I really, truly enjoyed the excellent and tasty food that put it back on me. I'm not going to be a hypocrite and complain, nor am I about to pour down imprecations or fiery coals on my own head. The real test is going to come over the next couple of days since, as of tonight, the celebratory shutters come down and it's back to the punishingly strict regime. Fingers crossed, I don't think it's going to give me a problem, but I'll be watching my step all the way to the scales.

The fact is, and I'm damned proud to be saying this, I cooked - and ate - supremely well across Christmas. It was all good stuff, nothing at all from a food factory, no tins, or packets, no frozen or other processed muck. Just very noticeably more of it than has been my measured and sensible norm lately. Same for you? Or did you manage to stay strictly within limits at all times?

Well, first up Christmas Eve. I cooked a good Gressingham Duck with all the trimmings: it disappeared with gusto and joy. Its sacrifice was not in vain.

There was another big production number for Christmas Lunch: turkey this time, all the usual plus a stunning sautee of brussels sprouts, bacon and chestnuts with a little chilli which was a subtle and nutritious masterpiece. Best Christmas Lunch I've ever cooked. The crab starter was a treat, too. Note, though that there's no mention anywhere of puddings. Skipped them this year. Didn't miss the things. No idea how I could have forced them down in any case.

The left-overs meant we were very well equipped both for sandwiches Christmas night and a wonderful lunch on Boxing Day, always my favourite meal, and this year no exception. And so the feasting rolled on, up to and including some good steaks at lunchtime today, cooked on the new Le Creuset grill that Santa dropped off here. But that's it so far as the gorging goes. No more. It's back to the reality programme.

The thing is, here in the UK, because of the way the public holidays sit, and the attitude of many businesses which impose a mandatory shut-down between Christmas and New Year, many of us get funnelled into a two-week Saturnalia of back to back feasting. Well, I've had me a few turns of the merry-go-round, but I've now said a polite thank you and jumped right off the wheel. Better to jump than to be tied to the bloody thing going round in circles of repeated bad behaviour. Buddha's fat. I got enlightened and decided I didn't want to be fat like Buddha.

Look, even when I was laying down the law to all comers in my wonderfully pompous pre-Christmas blogs, I KNEW that every word was a hostage to (mis-)fortune and that I'd not get away unscathed. I was bound to indulge well, hopefully managing to ignore the really bad stuff, but nonetheless scoffing enough to give my severely straitened system pause for thought. I knew I was bound to put on a bit of festive weight - but, please Lord, only a bit. At first, I thought it might have been four pounds. That really did not please me. After a, let's call it, sensible and comforting adjustment, it became evident that I was actually required to acknowledge a two pound gain. OK, so that's a two pound penalty I have to accept and now dispose of quickly to get me back on track: THERE'S PLENTY MORE WAITING TO BE LOST, and we've no room for backsliders!

I've had my bit of Yuletide fun. Loved every mouthful of it, but am severely chastened that it's just so easy to start unpicking all the good work of recent months. You'd better believe that there's no way on this jumping green sphere that I'm about to unpick any more. The self-indulgent party's over and the usual rigorous rules are back in play, with immediate effect: firstly the powerful Paresh Principle of SDCM - self-discipline, control and motivation, allied to the equally fundamental concept of Eating With Consciousness - being aware of what I'm eating and why, eating well for nutrition and delight, rather than feeding the dark side of my eternally clamouring addictions.

I hope you've survived your Christmas well, fit and healthy and are back determined to burn the fat out of your life in the weeks and months to come. There's no room for dilettante dieting at the Boot Camp. We're signed in to this thing to stop the demons from driving down our lives, and we're here to reassert our individual control over this basic but perverted urge to cram all available food and drink into our mouths and onto our guts.

Do let me know how you've got on over the holidays; I'm fascinated to hear your stories. And let's all get back on plan and watch those pounds melt away day by day till we're hit our targets. Then we'll bloody well stay there, right?

Till the next time, when I'll have tidied up the wrapping paper, paper hats and streamers,

Your old pal, in a very sea-foggy Worthing,

Fred

Words From A Not Very Wise Man

Just a brief note, because we're all busy bees at this relaxing time, just to give a couple of what I hope will be timely tips.

Number one! You can have a great time and enjoy yourself without gorging and being a pig. Honest. You can. Even you. Even me, for that matter.

Number two! If you take a moment to think BEFORE eating it, you'll be able to be comfortable with yourself and confident AFTER you've eaten it.

Number three! Number two ONLY works if you've first drawn up your personal rules of engagement, and broadly planned out in advance what you're going to eat - and drink!

Number four! Stay sober. NOTHING upends number three so much as getting hammered, and booze just fattens you up anyway, so pass for once. If you can genuinely limit yourself to 'just the one', then fine, but most of us can't, so give a polite 'no thank you' instead.

Number five! DON'T eat or drink to please other people. This is about you, not them, and it's up to them to be grown up about it. For crying out loud, they want rid of fat you (nearly) as much as you do. Don't hesitate to politely remind them of that.

Number six! Always remember that the words 'it's just one day a year' are a lie. You know it as well as I do. They are the brilliant excuse you've been looking for, and you will come to find many opportunities and many variants to deploy them. So don't even begin to say them to yourself, don't bloody start. Avoid this thin end of the wedge at all costs. Why do you want to sabotage the hard work you've put in all this time? Respect yourself.

Number seven: SDCM - self-discipline, control and motivation; even at Christmas. Eat with consciousness - at all times: think about what you're eating and why, and the consequences of failure. Free your mind and your ass will follow: ' nuff said?

And now a word for the future, and once a again the word is planning. A few months back, a tweet arrived from the big chain store M&S telling me about their one day only trouser sale.

I didn't need trousers at that time. I had loads of fat bastard trousers. I also had lots of clothes at my target weight. There was a bloody big hole in the middle however, where stuff got stretched and torn to destruction as my weight progressively ballooned. So I went online and took a peek, and there were astonishing bargains. I thought. And I planned. So I ordered a whole bunch of trousers, going progressively down the sizes from where I was to where I want to be.

That meant I had half a dozen pairs of instant motivation nagging at me from the hangers. I started wearing the first pair this last week, and the others are waiting for me to catch up.

So, go hit those sales, but buy clothes ahead. Having made that cash investment in your health and future, you'll make darned sure you get into them as soon as you can.

OK, for me it's going to be a sort of duck salad nicoise tonight, dressed with orange zest and orange blossom water. Turkey tomorrow. I'll have a salmon in the fish kettle on Boxing Day, and I'll do something very slow with a hunk of brisket on Monday. Keep an eye on the trimmings, and count them calories and carbs.

Just remember to keep to the plan, whatever diet you're following, and you'll still have yourselves A Kung Fu Christmas courtesy of National Lampoon, 1976, demonstrating how on the money those boys used to be!

Till the next time, your old pal,

Fred

Christmas Eating: An Old (And Formerly) Fat Man Speaks

I hate this beard, it’s so damned itchy, and the red suit is half hanging off me this year: you’d have thought someone would have bothered to take it in, but no, ‘can’t you wear a fat suit?’ one of them said. Apparently the public expect it. The one night of the year when it’s not disgusting to be fat, and I’m sick and tired of it. What do they think I’ve been doing on this diet since July?

Anyway, I thought I’d just take a minute off from checking this list (I tell them once is enough, but, no, they make me go through it all over again. And have you any idea how long this thing is, especially since we’ve gone global, and especially with some of them breeding like rabbits?). I just wanted to have a quiet word with you before all the shenanigans started, as one happy loser to another. Weight-wise, I mean.

At least this year having lost a bunch of weight I can avoid the embarrassment of getting stuck halfway down the chimney at every other dump I visit. I don’t care what you say, they don’t build the things the way they used to, and it’s no fun for the fat feller, so of course I when I eventually wriggled free, I always leapt straight on the mince pie and the glass of sherry, didn’t I. Just made matters worse, but what the hey, it’s only once a year, right?

Sod it, it’s Slimming Santa this year, and if the punters don’t like it, I won’t bloody go. Try finding someone else who’d work Christmas Eve for what they pay me. They can put it down to the recession, blame the coalition, Julian Assange, makes no odds to me. I’m not going to be harassed just because I’ve lost a bit of weight. I’d take them straight down the Tribunal. Human rights.

Anyway, enough of my bitching.

I’ve got to say the reindeer are as cute as ever (cook up a treat, actually. Very lean, nicely flavoured meat, but don’t let them hear this. Makes them very twitchy. Understandable, I suppose), and I have to admit the lads have done a decent job on the sleigh this year, top of the range satnav, computerised drop lists and everything, very high tech. We’ll see if it works in practice.

Fact is, it’s you I’m worrying about; all the food and drink. Wondering how you’re going to cope. Me? I’m staying semi-abstinent. Certainly no booze, but that’s easy for me because I’ve just stopped it. Won’t be getting any more points on my sleigh licence. As regards grub, I’ll go with the main meat and the above-ground veg, and I’ll admit I’m going to allow myself two small roasties as a treat. But that’s it. I don’t care what anyone else is eating; best of luck to them, but that’s what I’m having. Doesn’t spoil it for anyone else. And another thing, I’m not going in for any belt-busting marathon this year. A moderate, sensible plate-full. Perfect.

To be honest, I’m more concerned about Boxing Day. Always enjoyed that more, cold turkey, mashed potatoes, pickles, bit of beef, ham, good piece of stilton, bottle of port on the side. Lovely. Oh, yes, and the turkey sandwiches Christmas night. Those I’ll miss, too. But I’ll have plenty of Brussels, a nice bit of cauliflower, still have a decent bit of ham and that, but I’ll be staying on the plan.

Fred, who usually writes here but has been dragged off shopping by his missus, he always says you’ll be OK if you plan what you’re doing and stick to it.

Mind you, he reckons there’s two ways of going about a festive plan, and that one of them is really very dodgy.

The dodgy way is to say ‘alright, it’s Christmas. All rules are off until New Year.’ You then eat and drink like a pig until you crawl bleary eyed onto the scales some time toward noon on the first of January and want to throw up. At that point you have to go into emergency mode and pretty much starve yourself until you’re back where you started, and then get back onto your regular regime. You could do this, but it’s a bit dumb.

It also says that nothing’s really changed and you’re still the same degenerate food junky you ever were, and not fit to be trusted with a plate of cold cuts. In any case, where’s the percentage in starting off the New Year filled with disgust and self loathing?

No, better by far to do what I do: decide in advance what YOU are going to eat and drink. And jot that down. If you’re doing the food, then it’s easy to stick to the plan. If you’re not in charge of dishing up, then have a word with whoever is. It’s your dinner fer chrissakes (pardon the blasphemy), you make sure that what’s on your plate fits in with that sensible plan of yours. No-one’s going to make a thing about it, and even if they did, it’s your dinner, your diet, right? And nobody, NOBODY, has any right to come between you and your eating plan. Fourth Amendment or something.

You do this, and come the first of January, you’ll still have had a great time but instead you’ll be on those scales a happy bunny, no worse than when you started, maybe even a little lighter. Doesn’t that make a bunch more sense? Or do you enjoy making things difficult for yourselves. Up where I come from we’d say ‘bugger that for a game of soldiers’, know what I mean. Well, then. Stands to reason. Draw up your eating plan, and stick to it.

Anyway that’s what I’m doing. You please yourselves but don’t blame me if the scales turn nasty on you.

Well, tea-break over and I’ve got to get back to this list. As if I care naughty from nice. All the same to me, kids. Can’t stand the bastards, but it’s a living.

Till the next time Fred gets dragged screaming round the supermarket, and comin’ atcha live from the North Pole,

Your old pal,

Santa

The Twelve Meals Of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eight sides of salmon, seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me nine spatchcocked chickens, eight sides of salmon, seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ten frozen ostrich, nine spatchcocked chickens, eight sides of salmon, seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eleven brace of pheasants, ten frozen ostrich, nine spatchcocked chickens, eight sides of salmon, seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me twelve large red lobsters, eleven brace of pheasants, ten frozen ostrich, nine spatchcocked chickens, eight sides of salmon, seven rashers grilling, six geese-a-roasting, five boiled eggs, four cauliflowers, three turkey legs, two pigeon breasts, and a steak and a cup of green tea.

Around this time, I began wondering whether she was really behind me in this project………


Till I next pop out of your computer on Christmas Eve, doubtless ranting and raving as usual,

Your never satisfied old pal,

Fred

Don't Dilettante On The Way!

Marie Lloyd was born in Hoxton and died on stage a few miles north of there in Edmonton. That's Edmonton, North London, by the way: not Edmonton, Alberta. In Marie Lloyd's day, Hoxton was a right hole, the pits of the East End, while Edmonton was several rungs up the finely graduated social ladder. Heading due north up what evolves into the London - Hertford Road, you'd progress from Hoxton, through Dalston, Stamford Hill, Tottenham, to Edmonton, each one being a little bit 'nicer' than the one before. Not that Edmonton was in any way genteel, but it was mos' definitely more respectable than rackety old Hoxton.

My, my, but how things have changed in the years since Marie turned up her toes at The Empire. For a start, eleven years later, in 1933, the music hall closed and was turned into a cinema. In 1951, its name was changed to the Granada. Sometime in the 60's, it declined into a bingo hall, and was torn down in 1970. That declining arc exemplifies what's happened to Edmonton as a whole. When William Cowper wrote The Ballad of John Gilpin in 1782, Edmonton was a pleasant country town of popular resort, a place you would choose for a honeymoon, in fact:
"To-morrow is our wedding-day,
And we will then repair
Unto 'The Bell' at Edmonton,
All in a chaise and pair."

The local council destroyed historic Edmonton Green in 1965, and even, in 1989, managed to tear down its handsome crenellated perpendicular Town Hall, designed by G. Eedes Eachus, and later enlarged by W. Gilbee Scott. What was the Central Library is now the Islamic Cultural Centre, whilst the Methodist Central Hall is now a fraction of what used to stand on Fore Street, with its large, handsome church hall itself demolished, like the Anglican church which used to stand at the corner of Fore Street and Brettenham Road, long gone; no call for it. Likewise, I suspect the disappearance of a remarkable shop called Studio 248 which, fifty years ago, was one of the first Bang & Olufsen dealers in the UK. Can't imagine they'd sell much B&O gear in contemporary Edmonton, and they'd certainly never get insured!

Frankly, Edmonton has turned into a place you wouldn't want to walk at night: or during the day, for that matter. In the first three months of 2008 alone, five young men were murdered on its streets, most of them victims of knife crime. The area, with one of the highest proportions of residents living on state benefits in the UK, is so violent, it has become known to police and locals alike as 'Shank Town'. Good, eh? Like Mr Zappa once said, 'a real nice place to bring your kids up.' If they lived so long. It all feels a bit like the world described by Hobbes in Leviathan where the life of man is described as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,' and brings sharply to mind National Lampoon's vicious but wonderful Deteriorata (so much more au point than the egregious and unctuous original!). Do click that link if you've never heard it. You'll not need telling if you have; you'll already be there!

If that's what Edmonton's like nowadays, the southern half of Hoxton, just north of the City, on the other hand, is the metropolis's heart of design, software development, artists' studios, and loft living, with a vibrant bar, club and restaurant scene which is gradually pushing north. All a bit lively for me, in fact, and our London place is just up the road from it in Islington which is surely trendy and raving enough for most people?

Marie Lloyd it was who, in 1918, first introduced the song about a family of serial moonlight flit merchants, My Old Man (Said Follow The Van), a late big hit for her although she never recorded it (Miss Piggy did, and here's a link to her uniquely stellar version). IShe went to Edmonton, and died. In full view of a packed house, who laughed as she collapsed, thinking it was all part of the act. Do you start to see where I'm going with this? Feeling my way in the dark, to be sure, but pretty certain I'm on the trail of something unpleasant. It seems to me that the chorus of that old music hall number exemplifies what goes wrong with many folks' weight loss plans. We're generally disposed to dilly dally all the bloody way! Like me getting to this point in the narrative, in fact. Perhaps because I don't want to get where this is leading?

The thing is. we food addicts are at the same time the world's most masterful procrastinators, and its most skilful dissemblers. I know whereof I speak. Honest truth, and trust me, cross my heart &c. Look, I've been honing this act a long old time. An Oscar winning performance every day. Same with you, right? Just between you and me, food addict to food addict.

Weighed down with adipose tissue and hollow-ringing good intentions, we allow ourselves to get distracted, wander off to smell the flowers, lose our focus and our grip, eat excessively and inappropriately. And then we'll justify it, at amazing length. No-one does excuses like the kid found with jam smeared round its mouth, cake crumbs down its front, and the hand deep in the rapidly emptying cookie jar. 'I say, you chaps, yarroo, geroff.' We are all of us Billy Bunter conning our way through the world, just as Jim White reminded readers of the Telegraph a couple of years ago.

This 24-hour floating shell game can run one of two ways depending on whom we're lying to at any given moment, namely ourselves or a significant other.

The significant other bit is the easy one to nail down. We are arrogant and so we believe them to be blind, naive, gullible and stupid. For a start, we are not fat (are we?), and we deny, resent it and blame them when dare raise the topic with us, and should they so dare, we just lie our heads and bully them into silent, defeated submission every time. 'Did you have lunch today?' 'I just grabbed a sandwich.' As if you don't already know, this 'sandwich' translates into normal-speak as 'a Big Mac, double cheeseburger, large fries, and a chocolate shake', or equivalent. Well, MaccyD's call the bloody things sandwiches, don't they, so what's wrong with that? It's as dishonest as the words 'just the one, then' on the lips of a bloke stepping into the pub. Once again, I know what I'm talking about. But we tell ourselves every time that this isn't real lying, is it? Taking a step back, it strikes me this is really a bit Arthur Daly-ish, as in 'It's not as if it's a crime, is it? Well, yeah, technically it's a crime, but it's not criminal, is it?'

And remember, we know, don't we, that our loved ones always fail to notice that we're getting fatter. Could we despise worse the people that are nearest to us, than to treat them with such contempt and disdain? Because our choosing to stay fat and get fatter is a repeated slap in the face to our loved ones. We choose our fat over them. They know, and are hurt by, the fact that we are electing to pursue ill health and a premature demise. We simply just don't care. Do we? Ever heard a junky saying he's got it under control? He's just chipping. They all bloody say it - at least, they all start off saying it. And it ain't no difference with an eating jones; we're all - again, at least - psychologically addicted to eating, because we prefer the way that eating makes us feel. Admit it. It makes us feel better than we did before, and better than we get from anything else. Better, in fact, than our loved ones makes us feel. That's got to hurt people, don't you think? Well, yes you do. But you still don't care. You just keep lying.

The lying to ourselves bit, on the other hand, that's the tricky one. We don't like the owning up bit at all, and we con ourselves more successfully than we do anyone else. First off, everyone else can see us getting fat. We don't (most of the time); we generally manage to blank that one easy as (er) pie. At the very most, we'll admit that (enter name of chosen item of clothing) must have shrunk. Let's face it, that's the only plausible explanation. Not my fault, (adopting voice of a petulant, spoilt, and entirely selfish child).

Then there's the whole dilettante dieting thing. Until recently, I've been bemused by the number of people I've either met or encountered online who have owned up enough to have outed themselves as being 'on a diet', of whatever kind. Whilst they've publicly declared their intention to lose a few pounds/stone/hundredweight (delete as appropriate), they display an evident complete lack of interest or curiosity about a) how they got to be fat in the first place, and b) how their chosen diet works, and what happens next when they've landed at their target. In fact, I'm not sure most of them could give a reasoned explanation of how they came to choose the diet they claimed to be on.

Like I say, I was bemused by this, and could not understand their indifference to the mechanics of what they were ostensibly putting themselves through. I realise now that many of these people are actually demonstrating, whether they realise it or not, that they have no real interest whatsoever in stirring themselves to change their behaviours. They won't say, for instance, 'If fast food made me fat, let me learn to cook for myself.' No, allow me to drift back to where I started (I was comfortable there...). Another one is 'I'm doing the Atkins. I've got the book,and everything, (I skimmed through a couple of chapters, once).' I'm not making the effort, I'm not committing to this, I'm making a good show but I'm really only playing, so you can't blame me when it goes wrong because I KNOW IT WILL. Like the Holy Modal Rounders sang, 'Bound to lose'! Nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy....

All this means - the ONLY thing it means - is that, despite your promises, proclamations, and assertions, your jones has still got you. Sooner or later it's going to turn up like Mephistopheles to claim back its own. We're like Robert Johnson, at the Crossroads, we've each done a deal with the devil and now we've got to deal with the outcome.

The worry is that deep down, deeper down than you have ever allowed your conscious self to go, you do not want to change. You want your diet to fail, so you can go back to doing what you were happy doing, 'knowing you gave it your best shot.' You are not afraid to fail with your weight loss. You are actually afraid to succeed, because succeeding requires you to go through some pretty damn fundamental changes, and that's what's scary.

For years, we have each been eating because it gives us comfort, satisfaction, and a good feeling to eat. But hang on, I'm not talking about the comfort, satisfaction and good feeling that comes from putting paid to the pangs of hunger. The fact is, most of us fat folk don't allow ourselves the time between feeds to ever get physically hungry.

Instead, the hungers we are sating are of a different darker kind. It's a bit like sex. Everyone knows that there are good, warm, life-enhancing (and life-producing) sexual urges, desires and needs. But we also know, from the nightly news (and for some of us, unfortunately, our own experience) that there exist other dimensions to sex that are completely destructive and opposed to life. Most of us tend to label the more extreme of these urges as perverted and condemn them when they are acted out, with this condemnation being embedded in the legal structures which underpin our society. Freud talked in terms of the competition between Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts. This has been the basis of an ongoing argument ever since. Here's a curious (and curiously anonymous) paper with some interesting points on the subject.

I know it's a repeated theme throughout the Boot Camp blog, but it's becoming daily more evident to me that this whole diet thing requires a number of key elements to be in place, otherwise it is doomed, so I'll not apologise for saying it again:

1) Your head has to be in the right place - you must profoundly desire to change a whole raft of destructive and dysfunctional behaviours that are damaging you and your relationships, of which your relationship with food is just one.

2) You must jettison everything to do with how you've been eating, and construct a determined plan to eat better, and to eat less to enable you to lose your excess weight and improve your health. The more you avoid processed, packaged food the better. Prepare your own food from fresh ingredients. Learn to cook if you need to: good, simple, wholesome, nutritious food is cheap and easy to make and need take only minutes from raw ingredients to ready on the table. In a phrase: Eat With Consciousness.

3) Do not allow yourself to backslide. If what you were doing was wrong, don't go back and do it again. You are not a dog returning to lick up its own vomit. At all times, apply the Paresh Principle of SDCM - self determination, control & motivation - and check yourself to prevent a return to the bad behaviours which will always be attracting you. Accept that, as a lifelong food addict, inappropriate and excessive eating is a temptation into which you will always be lead, and arm yourself with strategies to counter this. Forewarned is forearmed, and knowing that it's going to be an unending rocky road and preparing yourself to deal with it is a world away from putting on a good show for the bleachers while expecting (and secretly wanting) the whole damn thing to fail. SDCM - self determination, control & motivation. I don't know about you, but I'm in this thing for life. Otherwise I will end up using food, a good thing I need to sustain my life, to end my life. WTF? Did you ever see a strange 1973 film called La Grande Bouffe? It's about a group of men who, for reasons that are irrelevant here, decide to eat themselves to death. We should all have a copy of this on ourselves, because it's what we're all doing to ourselves. Marcello Mastroianni et al manage to obtain their goal over an incredible gluttonous and lustful weekend. Although I must admit to having had weekends that were not too dissimilar, by and large the rest of us are far less consciously going along a slightly longer route to the same inevitable conclusion. Only I'm off the bus. I want you to join me. Applying SDCM is never going to be easy, but it becomes easier, and you will become stronger. It demands that you commit. It demands that you take a page from Pops Staples songbook and start respecting yourself. More and more, day by day, you will - and increasingly you'll come to love the person you really are. Those near to you already love you, now respect them and show them someone who's worthy of their love and loyalty.

Get these three planets in a Grand Alignment and you're cooking real, sustaining food with gas - because you'll have your demons back in the jar.

I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I am promising you can do - and I'm also saying you must do it, if you want to stop dilettante dieting and get rid of this weight loss/weight gain yo-yo for once and all.

And it's going to be great starting right now - this instant - for the majority of us round here who are in the northern hemisphere, because it's after noon on the 21st December, Winter Solstice, which means that things have changed and, whilst it's our darkest day today, we're already heading back into the light.

Let the ghost of Marie Lloyd free her cock linnet from its cage, and we'll dilly dally no more. Instead I'll see you down the Old Bull and Bush with the equally striking spirit of Florrie Ford for a decent steak and a bit of a sing-song. And we'll all get thinner together. Deal? We'll beat down the devil.

Because Robert Johnson is one of the great artists of the last century, and too many people are unaware he ever existed, here's links to a couple more of his songs: Me And The Devil (with a nicely conceived cartoon that suggests that the devil is very much part of the protagonist), and the even more disturbed, and even seasonal, Hellhound On My Trail. His was clearly not an untroubled life. If you've never thought to listen to the dark mysteries of country blues before in your life, treat yourself to the Sony Legacy edition of the complete Robert Johnson recordings, for less than four quid. That such a life's work could be swept up for so little money.

With the blues falling down like hail, but nevertheless looking for the silver lining, till the next time,

Your old pal,

Fred

A Very Wise Woman Bearing Gifts

My wife has just returned from the supermarket and has set down before me:

Bovril
Marmite
Vegemite
and
Patum Peperium, The Gentleman's Relish

Beats the hell out of that gold, frankincense and myrrh muck.

Very aware at this time of year that manger is the French word for to eat, till the next time,

Your salty old pal,

Fred

That No Yo-Yo Stuff

I was saddened to learn that Don Van Vliet, the artist formerly known as Captain Beefheart, died on Friday. During the late 60's and first half of the 70's I met him sufficiently often to be recognised and remembered, which was fine by me. He was one of the most dazzling, puzzling people I have ever met, a complex mish-mash of huckster and seer, with an underlying innocence and directness that was at the same time disarming and alarming. He also had a disconcerting ability to manifest something pretty damn close to magic powers; I twice saw him apologetically interrupt conversations with 'Excuse me a moment while I get that' just a second or two before the hotel room phone rang, and I saw him greet people by name who walked into a room behind him whom he could no way have seen. Coincidence? Probably, but downright eerie when you see it repeated. Ill for a long time with MS, gone a few days before his 70th birthday, and a day or two too late to make this year's Time obituary. RIP, Captain.

I'd been thinking of Don on Friday when I came up with the title for this piece. It's a pun around the title of a track on Don's Clear Spot album, which I can't be bothered to unpick right now, but it's one of the things which is obsessing me at the moment (along with 'my panniculus and how to resolve the impending and inevitable problem', worrying for the first time since university what grade I'll get....) - the need to ensure that this time really is the last time, and there's no backsliding into weight gain. When I get where I'm going, I've simply got to stay there. No alternative is acceptable.

I'll get back to this in a moment.

Lately, though, I've been reading a lot of weight loss journals kept on line by fellow strugglers against the avoir du pois and the adipose. I know it's strokes for folks, but there's one thing I see all over the place, don't understand and which makes me come out in a terribly judgemental rash, which I know is unfair and wrong of me but I can't hold it back. It's this.

I can't get a grip on how someone can go down the dieting route without committing to it 100%. What's the point? Some of the journals I've seen have rolled on over years with people making only modest losses over that time. Yet the fact that they are not only 'dieting' but have announced publicly that they are doing so, must mean that they are worried/concerned/unhappy with how they are, and suggests they are similarly oriented towards who and what they are. So why the dilettante dieting? Why the abject failure to really get a hold?

Is it that the demons are too powerful to effectively confront them ('I know that my really bad thing is soda, but I crave it so much?'), or is it a fear of really getting to grips with change ('I know I'm unhappy where I am so I'll aim to lose all this weight. Only what if I still don't like me when I arrive?'}. I think in most instances, it boils down to one key element: a lack of commitment, backed up by confusion or ignorance how to proceed.

This next bit is neither an advert nor a recommendation: it's just the way my thoughts run around this topic. If you're going to do this thing, it only makes sense to do it as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, get where you want to be, and then stay there. It's the reason I chose to kick start my weight loss with LighterLife, because it's radical, demands you step away from your old habits, and works bloody fast. I can't understand why people, sometimes with more to lose than me, choose routes which demand more of them for the diet to succeed. With LL it's easy: in its pure form it goes 'stop eating anything, except for our magic powders'. Keep taking the powders until you've landed at your target, and then manage the transfer to proper eating. The thing is, when you put yourself into their hands like that, trusting them to see you safely home, you're accepting the need for strict discipline throughout the diet process, which lays down some good principles on which to structure future eating. It's the Paresh Principle again: SDCM - self determination, control and motivation.

Where folks are spending for ever to shift twenty or thirty pounds, SDCM isn't working. They are not committed to what they are doing, and are failing to tackle the root causes of why they put that weight on themselves in the first place. Nobody did it to us but ourselves, and we can only undo what we did, and prevent its repetition by making some pretty fundamental changes. The trouble is, I'm not sure we're all sufficiently conscious of this, and I'm not sure we always know where to turn for help. Case in point, I mentioned the online forums earlier; there is a lot of good and positive support to be gained there, and also a lot of potentially damaging nonsense. How to distinguish? Ultimately, I suppose, you'll get as far into this stuff as the questions you allow yourself to ask.

While I was writing this, I received notice of a new posting from one of my forum friends, the redoubtable Mama Sebo. I hope she will forgive me if I quote her in full:

'I read the following today on a blog I have subscribed to for close to 10 years now -- always interesting and challenging -- what do you think is the subject of the blog?

'Quote:

Determination must be fed or it will fade.

Commitment, on the other hand, is settled, secure, irrevocable. Costs are no longer counted.

You’ve heard me say many times that one of our society’s most costly mistakes is this misbegotten belief that passion produces commitment. America’s high divorce rate testifies to our error.

Commitment, I believe, produces passion. I often meet people who sigh, “I just can’t find my passion.” To them I say, “Make a commitment. Fling yourself into it. Passion will make its debut soon after.”

When a commitment is fully settled in the heart, all concerns about time and money are erased; “It will take as long as it takes and it will cost what it costs.” When the objective is clear and your commitment is absolute, schedules and budgets no longer apply.

'He goes on to discuss his sense that actiing with determination can bring one to a state of commitment.

'MondayMorningMemo© of Roy H. Williams

'The blog is about marketing, about caring about your product enough to tell other people about it in a way that helps them to truly understand what you are selling. I was amazed as I read this at how it applied to my struggle here.'

It is only by commitment, to yourself and your hopes and aspirations for yourself, to your belief in the value that is unique within you, that you stand a hope of making this thing work, not just getting down but staying there.

This, really, is the bit I said I'd get back to. Our biggest challenge, food addicts all, is to redefine our relationship to food, to reset our perspectives, to allow ourselves to do this thing right, once and for all. Applying SDCM with single-mindedness and purpose, and each day growing stronger in our resolve to become the person we want to be, because really successful, lasting weight loss requires more of us than just losing weight.

Which brings us back to poor old Don. His was the singlemindedness of the artist fighting to enunciate his vision. This caused massive problems for those around him, not least his band-members whose tales of cult-like abuse, starvation, and harassment (especially during the creation of Trout Mask Replica) are legion. John French's book tells it all from the inside; not nice, but, having spoken to many of the people involved, they knew that what they were doing was bringing into reality a new vision, and they were willing participants, even though it hurt.

Some of Don's paintings, and the Magic Band on the beach at Cannes during the 1968 Midem, with the first song I ever heard them play. Along with hearing Little Richard shout A-wop bop-a loo-mop, a-lop bam-boom! some twelve years earlier, it was one of those rare moments when my earth tilted on its axis.

Another minor tilt occurred this morning, when I dressed. I put on a new pair of trousers, for the first time in years regular trousers bought from a regular High Street shop (M&S, to be specific) as opposed to a horrible, specialist dealer in shapeless clothes for the really fat bastard, one of the worst of which (I am almost ashamed to admit) is located here in Worthing (but the other end of the town from us, thankfully). A perfect palace of polyester. We wouldn't allow that to lower the tone of West Worthing, and certainly not here on the seafront.

Till the next time, by when we will both be a bit smaller,

Your old pal,

Fred


PS (about an hour later) the wonderful Mojo have just tweeted announcing their '13 Reasons Why We Love Captain Beefheart', loads of wonderful musical video for the adventurously inclined. Enjoy!

Sure Fire Miracle Diet Revealed! (Listen. Do You Want To Know A Secret?)

After yesterday's soul-searching and thoroughly miserable marathon (or snickers, as we've been obliged to call it in the UK these past twenty years), a brief word that is guaranteed to change your life. Don't thank me for it - just send money. This earth shattering secret is revealed ONLY to you Boot Camp initiates in the next paragraph, so sit down before you read it. I can't be responsible should you get overcome by shock or awe at my insight and profundity and end up falling to the floor in a Jane Austen-like swoon, or something. Here goes, then.

I'm more and more convinced the only real diet plan is 'count everything, carbs, calories, protein. Jot down precisely what you're ingesting and evaluate the outcomes, tweaking as you go to find the route that's right for you. But when you are busying yourself with all this counting, recording, evaluating and tweaking, stay away from booze and syrupy drinks, and above all eat less of whatever it is you're eating to start with, and don't allow yourself to eat processed junk at all.'

Doesn't seem too bad a plan, does it?

The food industry won't like it, though. As a species, we seem to have been doing OK before their factories sprang up. Mind you, they did very well out of it, while the rest of us have ended up doing rather badly, if our ill-health is anything to go by. Their turn to suffer, don't you think? Only fair.

Example: when I wrote something less than generous about McD's on the Low Carber Forum the other week - in fact I hoped they'd die as a business because we'd be better off without them, but what's wrong with a heart-felt shot of venom every now and then? - someone (who I suppose could have been Ronald's corporate mole on the forum), flamed back that this was a great company I was slagging off, and that it would be a tragedy if they failed - for all the shareholders, franchisees, employees, customers, and probably for the mighty USA itself.

I don't see it. If something's wrong, it's wrong and it should end there and then. Child prostitution, sweated labour, land mines, slavery, crack cocaine, and so on, and so on. It's wrong and we're right to demand it be terminated.

No matter how hard I look, I just can't see the Golden Arches having any redeeming features. It is the gastronomic equivalent of a pernicious weed. That they are the biggest private sector employer in France fer chrissakes is a national scandal that the country should have woken up to and extirpated a long time ago, one of a number, in fact, that have gone a long way toward diluting or destroying what was unique and valuable about L'Octagon in the first place. Big Ron's food is horrible and we all deserve better - even the bloody French.

Here's incontrovertible evidence of extensive and disgustingly relevant English ignorance and illiteracy revealed, from this time last year. I despair. God help us all.

Wondering, till the next time, where on earth it all went wrong,

Your baffled old pal,

Fred

Of Demons

OK, let’s get this one put to bed. The original Fat Freddy, Furry Freak Brother Fat Freddy, didn’t have a dog. He had a cat. But that was just a cartoon, and I’m not one of them. Real flesh and blood me, ‘a big fat man with meat shaking on his bones’, as former Queen of the Beatniks, Judy Henske let rip on her ‘She Sang California’ album. However, with all respect due to Gilbert Shelton’s finest creation, I eschew the feline and embrace the canine (do not read too much into that last phrase, but instead enjoy some Fat Freddy’s Cat strips in the piracy of your own home. I particularly like the sixth one down).

I’m glad that issue’s out of the way, so that well-meaning folk can now stop reminding me about it!

This next bit is going to get nasty, and I apologise in advance. Persons of a nervous disposition are advised to leave the theatre, but only for the duration of this one blog.

I want to put down here some of what had happened to me in the run-up to my hitting 397lbs. My symptoms, if you like. It’ll not be pretty reading. Sorry.

One of the first things to come along was an inability to get out of my armchair except by hoisting myself up by pushing down hard on the arms of the chair whilst forcing myself up, at the same time as rocking my weight forward. A crane would have helped. In fact, there were plenty of chairs I’d simply refuse to sit in; I thought getting out of it unaided would be an impossibility, or that, by the simple act of lowering my obscene bulk onto it, however tentatively and carefully, I’d break the bloody thing. Point of fact, broke two, irrespective.

My armchair and I developed a bad thing where it would painfully cut into the back of my thighs like I was sitting on a narrow iron bar. Gradually my legs and feet swelled up; this too was agonising. You’d think I’d start getting the message? Did you?

Along with this, my knees started to collapse under the biomechanical strain of keeping all this lard aloft. It found it impossible to do so for long; I’d either lean against something, or perch on the edge of something, or, but only if a sturdy chair of the right height was available, I’d sit down. Anything but stand. Really couldn’t do it unaided for any length of time. Queuing was an impossibility. Even the time it took to fuel the car was longer than my knees wanted to do.

Once you’re upright, though, it’s time to do walking. My poor dog found that her sessions out with me reduced down and down. Late nights, we’d do the absolute minimum route possible, and she soon learned that she didn’t have far or long to do what she needed. I doubt whether the round trip was more than 400 yards: during which I might sit down an incredible five times. There were these handy low walls. I’d pretend I was looking out at the waves (at midnight!), or be looking up at the stars (if clear). In England, we would tend to interject at this point the phrase ‘What a tosser!’ True. Cap fits.

Other times we’d go out, instead of stepping out onto the beach, I’d stagger to the car and we’d go along to a field just back from the sea where I could sit on a bench a dozen steps from where I’d parked, and throw the ball for her to run about. Me? I had an entirely sedentary walkies. This field is all of five hundred yards from where we live. Impossible to walk that far. How could anyone contemplate such a thing? So, why didn’t I I ever take Lexie out onto the immediately adjacent beach? Easy. I couldn’t walk on it. Couldn’t keep my balance, and if I did fall, I’d not be able to get back up.

Look, I remember the humiliation of having to be helped to my feet in La Rochelle (France, not New Rochelle, NY) a couple of summers ago by two very sweet young French students, both girls (how on earth did they manage it?). I’d tripped on an uneven paving stone and, in the absence of something to cling on to, I was beached like a misdirected whale who’d run himself on shore. Not nice. And because I was for years incapable of getting back up from ground level, it meant no more down on the floor playing with the dog. It also meant that, if I dropped something, it was left for somebody else to pick up, because I couldn’t.

Of course, if you’re going out of the confines of your home into the big world outside, you need to have something on your feet. Open sandals, believe it or not. 365 days. My feet were so swollen, I couldn’t get them into regular shoes. In any event, I couldn’t get near enough to my feet to tie the laces. Oh, and socks were out of the question. Just couldn’t manage to get them on over the end of my toes, and in any event, had I done so they would have cut painfully into my calves.

Imagine me, midnight in the depths of last winter, the worst in the UK since 1978, out in the snow and ice which was around for ever, barefoot apart from my sandals, leaning desperately on a sturdy driftwood oak staff to try and avoid slipping. Pathetic.

And again, I couldn’t even fit into most sandals. The straps just would not stretch across the oedema and secure. So the one and only pair I had which did work continued to be worn every day until they were reduced to tatters. Go into a shop and try and find another pair that fitted? Out of the question. Not to be contemplated. Once again, it would be just too humiliating.

I didn’t mention, did I, that, however cold it was, my coat would be open, rather than buttoned up cosy and warm? I’ve got two Barbours, a couple of raincoats, a good warm anorak, and a thick arctic puffajacket, two heavy overcoats, several leather coats. Couldn’t button or zip up a one of them. Too fat. So go out with the coat open, every time. Particularly good when there's a huge storm blowing off the Channel and you can hardly see down the prom for the spindrift.

Now, remember I said I couldn’t tie my shoe laces? Well, for the very same reason, namely that I physically could not bend owing to this huge gut getting in the way, I found it all but impossible to cut my toenails. I could maybe manage two or three at a time, but it might take me days to get myself together to try it. There were some that I just could not reach at all. There were times I would just wait for the things to break. Gross or what?

The nadir, so far as toenails were concerned, and very much else to be frank, occurred on the morning of my father’s funeral (which I attended with my raincoat flapping open, and my feet in these self same tatty old disgusting sandals). I actually had to ask my son to cut my toenails for me, and graciously – bless him, for he is a sweet man - he did.

I swear that, however long I live, I will never ask him to do anything so demeaning again – demeaning so far as both of us were concerned, actually.

In my pursuit of brutal honesty and facing facts, I could go on almost without end on this topic. For instance, only being able to get out of bed by hauling myself up by the bedhead, and then having to rock forward from a sitting position on the edge of the bed, grabbing hold of the top of the cupboard a couple of feet in front of me. Getting in and out of the car (which I’d actually chosen because it was the right height and I could fit into it fairly upright, and my gut didn’t touch the steering wheel), was itself a major logistical exercise, and some days wearing the seat belt just was not possible – it wasn’t long enough, and depending what I was wearing I couldn’t always ‘clunk, click, every trip.’ Hardly being able to raise my leg high enough to climb in the shower, not being able to sit down in the bath (the impossibility of ever getting up again), and I've not mentioned the 42 stairs in our place in London: until recently I'd avoided going up to the top floor in years. I was delighted to see how well my wife had decorated up there. Look, even wiping my backside became something of a hit and miss affair, and one only to be attempted with one hand clinging to the towel rail, otherwise I would overbalance myself. But this is getting too far into the zone of too much information, and I apologise.

I was looking at an imminent future involving hoists and the sort of embarrassing aids and adaptations you see advertised on daytime satellite channels or in the backpages of magazines and papers with a largely geriatric readership, Saga Magazine, The Mail On Sunday, and shit. My subscriptions are to Mojo, The Gramophone, Private Eye, The Spectator, The Economist, Sunday Times. How come I was increasingly feeling myself being bundled in with this other decrepit crew with whom I had nothing whatever in common; apart from the fact that I was becoming more and more crippled? UK readers will understand when I say that I was pondering what I had to do to get a Blue Badge, and did I need to get one from Worthing Council, or would it be better to get one from Islington Council - because I wanted to be able to park anywhere, get my wheels in those disabled parking bays, anything apart from bloody walk. Because I couldn't.

But the thing is, while all this crap was pouring down, I just kept on eating, kept on drinking. How bloody mad was that? Nero fiddling had nothing on me. At least Felix the Cat kept on walking. This cat, though still quite cool in some respects, couldn't really walk at all.

Instead I just pretended to the world and, less confidently to myself, that everything was fine. I could justify absolutely anything at the drop of a hat. I was totally and consistently dishonest in respect of my condition and its causes. Actually, I didn’t want to know. ‘I’m fine. Do stop going on.’ How, and even why, my wife put up with it, I really do not know. That’s a mighty big debt I owe to a wonderful, strong, loyal and persistent woman. And if you read this, G, (and I suspect I dread you reading it) I’m genuinely sorry for everything I put you through for too many years. But fine words butter no parsnips, do they? Why do we give most hell to those we love most dearly? Doesn't make sense to me.

Even with my son having to cut my toenails like that, and at such a time as my old man’s funeral, it still took me more than eight months before I eventually crawled into LighterLife croaking ‘Save me!’ And I’ll let you into a secret. When I was all but shoved through that door, I was seething with resentment, because my missus had trapped me into it, and I did NOT want to go. And did I scheme up excuses not to. But eventually I did.

What sort of hold was something having over me, and why? Whatever it was. It was mighty powerful, unrelenting and unforgiving.

My eating and drinking were totally unreasonable and out of control, because my life was out of control. There was a whole raft of destructive behaviours going on, some of which had the effect of making me fat, and which were coming close to the point when they would finally kill me.

I think I realised that I could only deal with so many bits of this at one time. If my ingestion was threatening my life, then, clearly that had to be controlled, and the LighterLife regime, than which none stricter, gave me the structure, and demanded the discipline, to start nailing that one down. Miraculously, gratefully, and to my surprise I took to it like a duck to water, and instead of being 397, I am today following a modified path I’ve determined with plenty of real food alongside a sprinkling of LL's powders. I can go this modified route confidently and successfully because, at last, I'm back in control - of food and drink, at least.

I’m 291 and losing, en route to 173, and – absolutely determined - no returns!

As I wrote here last night (and please do forgive my Mystic Meg Moment) I feel daily stronger and more affirmed. This particular eating demon is sealed in its jar, but so long as I live it will be struggling to get out. Hence, I must be armed with the Paresh Principle of SDCM (self determination, control & motivation) and ensure I always eat with consciousness, because every cookie has its consequence. There’s a world of wisdom in the cliché ‘a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’ No more these hips, Sweetie.

Unless there’s an established plan that says that if a cookie be eaten, or a run of huge festive holiday dinners gets demolished, then that’s OK, but it’s only OK so long as we take clear and determined actions to a) reduce any excess weight that’s accrued and (even more importantly) b) we take immediate steps to resume a more measured and moderate eating pattern. This, I maintain, and have written elsewhere on this ranting blog, must comprise good, fresh, local unprocessed ingredients which are cooked well and imaginatively in a way which preserves their nutritious qualities. It must not involve processed stuff that’s been tainted by the Frankenstein touch of the food technologist and comes not from the farm but from the factory.

Is this too much to demand of myself? Not if it saves my life, it isn’t. And this conscious correction must happen every time I allow myself to slip from the high standards that being a reformed food addict requires. Please note that I said every time I allow myself to slip; which means I’ll have considered what I’m doing, and taken a grown up decision to allow myself to come off plan this particular once. Unconsidered, haphazard, spur of the moment slips are not permitted. Like getting drunk and waking up somewhere with someone and not remembering a thing about it, who they are, or how you got there. No longer permitted. Puerile and inappropriate behaviour which no longer has a place in my life. SDCM applies, and demands due vigilance and ongoing and critical self-evaluation. But this is what you have to do to succeed in this thing and avoid the big yo-yo.

Now, the smart reader has for some time been thinking, ‘OK, you’ve got the eating and drinking demons back in the jars, but those guys don’t exist in vacuo. They’re just a manifestation of something more fundamental, which doesn’t fit too easily with your proclaimed position that ‘I am not a victim. Nobody made me eat stuff. These were my own decisions.’ So what's the real deal here?'

I’m not arguing with this, and I’m not ignoring it either. Instead I’m feeling a bit like Uma Thurman as The Bride in Kill Bill, tracking down and disposing of all of the second order demons that have ruined her life, whilst seeking the arch-demon himself that sicced the rest upon her, because he was ‘a rotten, murderous bastard.’ I find it interesting to note that the good old Lord Of The Flies, Baal Zebub himself is particularly associated with pride and gluttony, so I’ll be taking extra special care to make sure I never let the top off his jar again, because, as is apparent from everything I've written above, I’ve had both pride and gluttony in spades, and I don’t want them back.

Frankly, I can understand old King B being royally pissed at me for treating him so discourteously. But what kink along my biographical and psychological timeline enabled him to have me in his thrall so thoroughly and for so very long? I don’t believe the answer lies in my genome. I have largely been my own pig.

To relate the thing to Tarantino’s movie again, what is my personal Bill that needs rooting out from wherever it’s hiding, and stomping to oblivion? In the whacky world of demonology, who is my Amy, my personal Presiding Demon Of Hell? What,(and back when?) in my life turned me into such a hateful and self-destructive shit, releasing such violent, chaotic, disruptive behaviours into the world, and thoughtlessly hurting so many people en route? And why haven’t I taken the trouble to get a grip on this earlier?

That I failed to do so is precisely what made my weight loss fail last time. I went from 313lbs to 187, and then vengeful, spiteful Amy stepped in, said ‘Oh, no. This one’s mine,’ and carried me all the way up to 397. Fanciful bollocks. [And I love the fact that he’s called Amy. Think of all the other Amys in the world, but this Amy, according to Johann Wier’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum no less, is ‘a great president, and appeareth in a flame of fire, but having taken mans shape, he maketh one marvelous in astrologie, and in all the liberall sciences, he procureth excellent familiars, he bewraieth treasures preserved by spirits, he hath the governement of thirtie six legions, he is partlie of the order of angels, partlie of potestats, he hopeth after a thousand two hundreth yeares to returne to the seventh throne: which is not credible.’ Quite. Mos' def reminds me of several people I've known, but, like I said, fanciful bollocks.]

However, I accept there has to be something down there which started a kink in my life, and which I’ve colluded with for decades but never clearly identified, confronted, or come to terms with. It’s too easy to say it’s the devil or temptation. It’s not extrinsic to me, it’s part of me, gone wrong. I am my own devil, and I’m hoping Santa will bring me a new bell book and candle set to help get me fixed.

I’ve accepted this now, and I have accepted my responsibility to act like Uma Thurman and set off on an undeviating quest toward resolution and victory. So, from the starting point of looking at my wrong behaviour in respect of food, I am increasingly (and increasingly consciously) owning up to a swathe of interconnected inappropriate behaviours ranging across many of the endlessly fascinating facets that together comprise me.

If I hadn’t already given up the booze – itself, of course, massively and horribly destructive – the rest of it would have shocked me sober. You don’t need to worry yourselves about my horde of other energetic, ever-busy demons; they’re not up for discussion right now. Not here, at least. I’m down with the boy Wittgenstein at the very end of The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (I have it on my Kindle. Don’t you?), namely ‘Whereof one can not speak, thereof one must remain silent.’

Trouble is, this is an increasingly noisy world, and we’re having to dig deeper within to locate any silence whatsoever. And even there, if you’re built anything like me (and you are, because you’re a food addict. That’s why you’re here!), it’s still pretty rackety with the ceaseless imprecations of Beelzebub and his mates pleading with me to lighten up and loosen the lids of their jars. There’s still a load of work I have to do yet before I’m clean, and first off there’s 118lbs more I need to lose yet, but the answer to their ongoing demonic wheedling is ‘NO WAY.’

Ah, but I was so much weaker then. I’m stronger than that now.

Till the next time,

Your old pal, wondering where he can get himself a really good Samurai sword,

Fred

Meditation, Having Dropped 105lbs. [Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible.]

With every pound gone, I am feeling more empowered, confident, determined and alive.

I have seized back control of my life from - me. From the negative, destructive, hateful, indolent me that doesn't care and exists only to destroy - me.

But the wind has changed and the wheel turns, and with every pound lost, the destroyer is gradually but finally being destroyed.

I can do this. I know that I can and that I want to. The world is noticing and I am pleased by its recognition. I have learned to both cherish and value its approval.

I am pleased they are saying now how well I have done, instead of deploring how I ever let it happen.

There is no going back to that dark place. Whatever the world throws at me, and it will, and nothing good, I am strengthened, wiser and more knowing of myself and perhaps more forgiving, though a strict and vigilant master. I will not go back to that dark place.

Bad food and stupid drink are not options now; they hold neither potency nor attraction. I have passed them by, and my growing power lifts me above them.

My sustenance comes from what is wholesome, nutritious, delicious and clean, and my thirst is quenched without befuddlement. I cook and delight in my cooking, and find joy in the feeding of others.

The food industry has lost me from its grasp. My thraldom is finished, my childhood ended. I emerge grateful into the strengthening sunlight, an adult at last.

Your slightly poetical, mystical old pal,

Fred

Can I Speak Frankly, Just Between Friends?

Here in the UK, our students are revolting. Much the same was happening all over the place 42 years ago, largely protesting the war in VietNam (an era shockingly recalled in Liza Marklund’s latest novel – in English at least – Red Wolf). Today we find ourselves in a war that’s been going on for ever, and the only thing students find to protest about is the government daring to increase tuition fees.

Were students more idealistic and altruistic back in the 60’s, or were the protests more against the draft than against the war itself? Fortunate Sons were largely draft immune (you could get yourself a comfy gig as a Texas National Guard pilot and not bother to turn up, rather than get your ass shot off in a huey at Hue, know what I mean, Clyde?), while the poor stiffs who hadn’t made, or couldn’t afford, college were the ones who found themselves up by the DMZ enduring all the horrors that come down in Karl Marlantes' excellent Matterhorn.

Despite the fact that European students were not going to find themselves carrying on up the jungle, there was plenty going on all over the place: with no fear of finding themselves on the front line, students became Red Brigades, Angry Brigade, Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof), and the rest facing down and blowing up the man in the name of revolutionary struggle. The world seemed an inch away from changing. But it didn’t. Given time, Danny the Red became Danny the Green and an EU Minister, and Gerhard Schröder, who helped founding member of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group (and subsequent far right piece of work) Horst Mahler secure an early release from prison and the permission to practice law again in Germany, became Chancellor. Funny old world.

The news in the UK over the last few days has featured the Cambridge student step-son of Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, who during one of the most recent barneys in Whitehall was filmed swinging from a flagpole on the national Cenotaph.

There was a time when I think I wouldn’t have minded seeing Dave Gilmour swinging – from anything, flagpole, street lamp, sturdy oak. This was largely in the wake of a 1969 Festival Hall concert when, among other sonic delights, the Floyd treated its audience to the sight and sound of the band members literally sawing wood on stage to demonstrate the brilliance of their new quadraphonic sound system. Only they called it music. I called it (and call it still) the most pretentious and tedious concert of any sort I have ever attended, and it took me years before I could ever listen comfortably to their records again. Interestingly the seemingly detailed fan review I’ve found of that April evening omits any mention of un-musical sawing. But it happened. It was horrible. I remember.

What else was horrible was Gilmour-fils, a student at one of the very finest universities in the world, and a product of the excellent Lancing College, about four miles east of where I’m writing (the family lives a few miles inland at Billingshurst), saying this: ‘I did not realise that it was the Cenotaph and if I had, I certainly would not have done what I did.’ Didn’t realise it was the Cenotaph? What on earth do they teach them, and what did he think all the wreaths were about, having been laid at the national Day of Remembrance a couple of weeks earlier? If he didn’t know, he should have known, end of discussion. It’s part of what living in this country requires, the arrogant prick. Mind you, being part of the protests, rather than getting on with a bit of second year history in the delightful precincts of Girton, was an entirely altruistic act on Charlie Gilmour’s part, so perhaps we should at least acknowledge that. If your old man’s worth £80million, the tuition fee increase probably need not actually worry you too much.

A final word on dashing, Byronic young Charlie. What did his parents by him when he got into Cambridge? A pair of Savile Row suits (I’d love to know which tailor), one of them a dinner suit because he would have to attend so many feasts. It wasn’t like that in his old man’s time, for sure, for sure.

Thus far and not a word about slimming. Well, I have been contemplating throughout how wonderfully thin I was back in 1969. Tall, slim, beautiful, with long, cascading hair. I was, of course, and as you will understand, immortal at that time, and the world, as Arthur Daly memorably expressed it, was my lobster.

There have been too many dinners in the intervening years, if not in the panelled halls of Cambridge colleges, and far too much wine has flowed under the bridge and down my neck. Certainly, I remember the first time anyone passed comment. I’d have been probably 23, at university, when a fellow student, happening upon me cleaning my teeth in the communal shower room, perchanced to comment in perfect Arizonan that ‘you’ve really got a but on you, boy.’ Stuck with me that did. The bloke that said it went on to be a grand fromage in the Bose Corporation, and that was only the beginning.

Spool forward about ten years and the next memorable comment was from the five year old daughter of some friends of my first wife. This is good. ‘Why does Tristan’s daddy wobble when he runs?’

Five years on and a few other gems come to mind. Colleagues started referring to me (always adopting an Ulster accent in emulation of the Reverend Ian Paisley) as The Big Feller. Being given, in a secret Christmas present thing, a pair of enormous boxer shorts with Christmas trees on them. 46” waist when I was maybe pushing 40. Like I was to know that one day I wouldn’t be able to fit that butt of mine, which I did indeed have and had developed assiduously (pun intended) over the years into a pair of 46’s. I had a five-X future up ahead of me. And having the outgoing jock prepare the expectant audience by announcing ‘…and coming up the other side of the news we have that all round entertainer, and I really mean ALL, ROUND, entertainer…’ Should have strangled that bastard with his headphone lead while I had the chance.

If you prick me do I not bleed? Well, just a bit, but I’ll have another drink and let’s have a look at the pudding menu. For decades.

I read a fascinating online journal yesterday from a guy calling himself Vandaley, not long started out in his weight loss, coming down from 420lbs, with which project I wish him well. He wrote that ‘The catalyst of my weight problem over the years has really been soda. I'm powerless over that sugary nectar! I'd love to be able to rid myself of it and caffeine all together. Hopefully I can.’

I know something he’s doubting right now: that he is already on his way to slaying this particular dragon, which will soon be twitching at his feet. Carbonated crap need no longer hold him in its thrall, nor need toxic syrups have dominion over him. Because he is becoming stronger than the hold they have over him, and it will only be a very short while before he grasps that worm and rends it in twain.

What do you call a guy spends his life thinking about soda all the time? A jerk. You have to close down the soda fountain, pull down and lock the shutters on that old fading drugstore and get your ass and the rest of you out of that ragged part of town. Butt me no butts. Do that and you start to get a handle on how come you ended up marooned there in the first place; that’s going to make the cure much more effective and you’ll really get that mojo woikin’.

Because, and I’m learning more and more that this is critical for anyone who is remotely serious about losing weight and leaping off the yo-yo diet treadmill, this is a time for absolute, brutal, surgical honesty and precision. You don’t do this by lying either to yourself or to others, you have to give it 100% commitment, look for 100% support and honesty from those around you, and approach the thing in a determined and diligent frame of mind, and that’s the way you’ll see it through.

And this is difficult for us, because, as fat folk we are all accomplished, consistent and long-term liars. We’ve spent years lying to ourselves about the consequences of what we’re doing, and as long lying to others about what it is we’re doing. ‘I can’t understand where this weight comes from. I hardly eat a thing. Hardly enough to feed a bird.’ A vulture or an albatross? Certainly a bloody gannet. Whatever happened to the jolly fat man of yore? I suspect he never existed. He was always screaming with pain inside.

I just want to pick up on one more point from Vandalay’s journal, because I think it’s something we can all identify with, and which we’ve all had to stamp down, and most of us repeatedly.

He was planning on telling his poker-mates that he was on anti-biotics, hence he couldn’t take a drink at the game that night. That’s not too bright because that's a lie he’d have to live with for a very long time.

It’s so much better to simply tell them the truth. He’s got nothing to lose (apart from 220 lbs - 4 less than I'm doing!). If his mates take the piss out of him now, so what? There is nothing wrong with owning up to recognising an issue that everybody else is already aware of. Look, I know for a fact that, if you’re 400lbs, everybody else has already noticed you’re fat. What you’re bravely saying is, ‘OK, I’m back on the bus and I’m getting this sorted now.’ Nothing wrong with that; admirable, in fact. Something to be proud of, burning pound by burning pound.

Or maybe it’s simple fear of failure. ‘If I don’t tell anyone what I’m doing, then I won’t look a fool if I fail.’ Allow me to correct that thought: it’s not if you fail. In that set-up, it’s WHEN you fail, because fail you will. If you’re hiding behind hedges like that, you’re not showing the world the commitment you need to succeed in your weight loss ambitions. In fact ambitions is too strong a word. More like dreams.

If you don’t tell people what you’re doing, then they can’t help you do what you’re doing. They will only, in their innocence, continue relating to that old you which you’re struggling to slough off like a massively podgy snakeskin. So they’ll put the drink in your hand, plonk the pizza on your plate, pour you the bucket of soda, and you will inevitably dip your beak, and keep on dipping.

In any event any derision you might endure (and you probably won’t) would soon enough turn to admiration when everyone started seeing the results, as you disappear before their very eyes. I'd hazard a guess that one or two of them have a bit too much lard themselves? Wait till they start asking how Vandelay did it.

At that moment, he'll feel like a king. Promise!

A fine English tradition from the middle years of the last century was the saucy postcard. They were produced in the millions, and the greatest seaside postcard artist, Donald McGill (a name worth googling and pressing the Images button if you fancy a few minutes’ good old fashioned vulgarity) alone produced over 5000 different designs, of which a decent handful were actually banned for being indecent. Here’s a link to an old favourite of mine, actually not by McGill – whose graphics were much better – but a classic nonetheless, and one which every fat bastard male reading this will be able to identify with.

It gives us another touching target to aim for!

Your old pal,

Fred

Like Funkadelic Said Forty Years Ago, 'Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow'

I have this theory: no man has ever lost his virginity. I didn’t. I had to struggle for what seemed like eternity to get rid of the bloody thing. And it’s the same with losing weight.

If you’ve visited this blog before, you’ll know that I’ve really got an entirely disproportionate, obsessive, and really getting on my own case thing about putting weight back on. When any of us does that, it means we never actually lost that weight at all, ever; instead we just sort of temporarily misplaced it, only to eagerly pick it up again like a keen young puppy finding its ball in a field. And this is what we’re not going to do any more, right chaps?

Paresh’s point about SDCM (self determination, control & motivation) in a comment a few days ago really hit home with me. This is what we have to develop and internalise, using it as a powerful lever to challenge, attack, overcome and change our stupid behaviours which have a similar effect on us to that described by Sylvio Dante in The Sopranos quoting Michael Corleone in The Godfather III, ‘just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.’ With the inevitable result we are all familiar with. Lard on.

Here’s a classic example, which I very much recognise and which I’m here stealing from my extremely tolerant LighterLife counsellor and friend, Val Perry (find her on Facebook , LinkedIn, or LighterLife itself) who says, ‘Do you know, you can pull into a petrol station and just buy petrol?’

Until July 24th when this final round of the weight loss Odyssey got started, I believe I had never once had the discipline or the control to come away from a petrol station without a triple pack sandwich, a bag of kettle crisps (chips), and either a bar of chocolate or (God help me that I was ever this depraved) a Ginster’s Buffet Bar. John Betjeman started one of his poems ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, It isn’t fit for humans now.’ Whilst not wishing to dilute the Late Poet Laureate’s sentiments about Slough, I think we can recast the poem to include Callington in the otherwise all but blame-free county of Cornwall, because that’s where the Ginster’s factory is. And whilst I have no doubt they take every precaution to ensure that every product that is driven forth from Callington by their huge fleet of delivery drivers is entirely fit for human consumption, the curious paradox is that, despite all their care, measured on a different scale, none of it should be consumed by humans, or anything else really. Because it has no redeeming features whatsoever. So turn your back on their factory door, and just say no.

As we’ve discussed around here before (I remember Glenda making the point nicely), there is something about the juxtaposition of the words food and factory that makes me very uncomfortable. Almost shudderingly so. Looking out of my window, back from the sea, my eye goes to the ancient site of Chanctonbury Ring, up on the downs behind us, an Iron Age hill fort, with evidence of Bronze Age occupation before that, and two Roman temples after it. I am bloody sure none of the people who lived up there ever tortured their intestines with a Ginster’s Buffet Bar and were the better off for it. I grant you, that the Buffet Bar would, technically, not have been a buying option 3500 years ago, but our ancestors weren’t missing anything.

On the contrary, I rather suspect that they were doing a lot better out of their food than I’ve spent most of my life doing. But this is a tide that’s has turned, and I have bought into the Paresh Principle of SDCM 100%. In fact, I think I want to go for 100% SDCM, 100% - if you get my drift.

I have never thought that I was in any way a victim. Today’s society reveals victims all over the place, but I see many fewer victims than most social engineers would suggest I should, whereas I do see plenty of really poor excuses. For instance, try the woman who phoned the police last week complaining someone had stolen her snowman. If you’ve not heard it, you can You Tube it here. That’s a sorry pathetic individual who you know just sees herself as a victim of everything that either happens to her, or - just as often, I suspect - that she causes to happen.

Speaking for myself, I am heartily sick of the way the already nauseating ‘me generation’ has degenerated even further to the ‘poor me generation’. Who needs ‘em? Well, we got ‘em, only include me out. I refuse to be lumped in with that lumpen mob. Mama Sebo, who has commented generously on this site has a journal on the low carber forum called Eating With Consciousness. A good title, and another pointer toward a sound survival strategy. So far as what happened to me prior to getting a grip from July 24th, I’m the guilty one: I ate it, I drank it. Nobody made me do it. It was my very own 5-star greed, gluttony, selfishness, and stupidity. Nobody else’s. So I’m the one that’s got to fix it. In point of fact I’m the only one that can possibly fix us. So do I really want to? Am I prepared to put in the work? Well, if I'm interested in avoiding the crematorium’s furnace, yes. 400lb people die. 400lb 60-year olds are playing with as stacked a hand as you can get. So when I talk about dieting for life, I certainly do mean kissing goodbye to yo-yo dieting, but I’m also talking quite literally. You dump this lard, Fred, or you die.

But enough about me. Who made YOU fat?

Everything I put in my mouth and ingested, whether solid or red, liquid, and derived from grape juice, was done at my own volition. Entirely. I take responsibility for it. That’s part of SDCM. I will never whinge about what happened, but will instead do everything in my power to change it, and to keep it changed. This requires constant vigilance, and at this stage, when I still have a huge amount of fat to burn off, it means I must be wary of, and check my every move toward, food. Every day. High days and holidays included. You don't think there are short-cuts, do you?

There’s an old saying from the world of business management, ‘if I can’t measure it, I can’t manage it.’ This is so true when we’re looking at weight loss, and it’s not just talking about the number flashing up when you step on the scales.

A lot of people nowadays are conscientiously counting their carbohydrate input. When I last had to endure this process, twelve years ago when I got rid of 10 stone, I meticulously recorded my daily calorie intake (because that’s the way most of us went about it in the UK 12 years ago. Never heard of Dr Atkins or any other approach. Our doctors said ‘count calories’, so we did). I never once allowed it to do above 1600. Every drop of milk into every cup of tea was diligently recorded in a notebook I still have. I strongly recommend keeping detailed track of what you're eating, and writing it down so you have that dated record, and can easily see what worked and what didn't: why not set yourself up a journal on the Low Carber Forum? It works.

Recording everything was a good discipline and it was invaluable in helping me get where I was going. It was SDCM in action, I was indeed ‘eating with consciousness’, and I was seeing the results. Until, of course, the fall – which I swore would never happen, only it did. That once. But in this blog I am saying as publicly as I know how, the lesson has been learned. The behaviours have been recognised and challenged. My frailty has been accepted, and I’m building the strategy to ensure I succeed. Dieting is not just about losing weight. It’s about making sensible and correct decisions about nutrition every single day of your life, rather than just going for it because the stuff’s available and you can - and we can, because we live in a society where more food is available than even I could eat: trouble is, much of what's available just isn't worth eating. Above all following a proper, grown-up intelligent diet's about not not caring. There wasn’t a typo there. On reflection, examining my life, as our old chum Sophocles recommended, I have decided that for a long old time, I just did not care, about how I looked, how much fat I was putting on, how ill I felt, how immobile I was becoming. How bloody mad was that? Let it say whatever it does about my lack of self-esteem, there’s no ducking away from it, I would not have been a good advert for L’Oreal: I wasn’t worth it.

Which isn’t to say I wasn’t conceited, assertive, opinionated, vain, and generally big-headed obnoxious. All of that, but still, au fond, I did not care. Pick the bones out of that one, Sigmund. But there was no one could cure me. I’d endure the nagging, and ignore the astonished looks of strangers in the street (the French are particularly good in that regard: they don’t hold back, they point, bless them), I’d make my decision as to where we’d have lunch on the basis of which restaurant terrace had the sturdiest looking chairs. All of that, too, but I’d never confront the monster, never stare that dragon down. Couldn't be bothered (or was I too scared, thinking this thing has gone too far to be stopped?).

Until, that is, things changed; and I haven’t yet got the full handle on why they changed, despite offering my fear of morbidity half a dozen paragraphs ago. The sorry truth is, I was actually quite resigned to death. Anyway something was working to undermine this potentially fatal passivity (at best) or violent self-loathing (at worst), and that important corner was indeed turned. Looking back on that time, irrespective of whatever triggered the change, I gleaned one major insight which slots in neatly alongside the notions of SDCM and ‘eating with consciousness.’ It’s this, and it’s the sort of profound wisdom for which I should maybe be demanding thousands. Guineas, of course. Why, guineas for strength:

Here it is. Successful dieting is less dependant on what’s in your mouth than what’s in your head. Get your head right, and the rest is a piece of cake. Maybe not the best metaphor under the circs, but you know what I mean. As the great George Clinton put it all those years ago, 'Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow'. Er, right on.

Coming back to Slough, however, it’s just along from Staines; two such pretty names, aren’t they? Staines is, according to contemporary folk legend, the birthplace of Ali G and featured in his motion picture and TV shows. The local worthies have decided that Sacha Baron-Cohen held their community up for ridicule and that their only resort is to change the town name – to Staines-on-Thames. Apparently that cures all ills and will hopefully encourage investment. Massive.

And finally, at long last back to that petrol station. I for one can declare myself cured of stuffing my face with unnecessary and probably toxic stuff bought when all I was supposed to be doing was fuelling the car. This is now completely automatic and I think it's great - maybe I am worth it after all. Val’s right; you CAN choose to just buy petrol at petrol stations. I can. Amazing.

Once upon a time until recently, I’d come through that door into the station shop, credit card in hand and twitching like a dowser's wand, hungry eyes immediately and thoroughly scanning those loaded shelves to find what tasty snacks were going to force themselves in my direction. Now I don’t even register that they’re there.

What’s on those shelves has no interest to me, so I just don’t bother to see it. The packaged and proffered processed muck and garbage can trap some other unwary traveller, impede some other pilgrim’s progress. It ain’t getting me, babe. Be I in Callington or Slough, or somewhere actually decent, I’m immune now, and I'm staying that way. Same with the booze. Free at last! I’ve got SDCM on my side, I’m ‘eating with consciousness’ so I don’t have to give such meretricious temptations a moment’s consideration, I don’t have to beat myself up thinking about it.

I just say no.

Make sure you keep saying no till the next time,

Your old pal,

Fred