And again I leap up waving my fists in the air and cry “I HAVE IT !”

Totally different topic from that in which I uttered a similar cry some posts back: this time I’ve formed a theory about — ugh ! — weight loss.

For reasons I cannot recall, I found myself watching on the laptop a series of UK television programmes called “Supersize vs Superskinny”, fronted by a bloke of whose  qualifications I am entirely ignorant but who obviously lifts weights in his spare moments. He also wears form-fitting rather loud shirts outside his trousers, and I shall utter not another syllable about that.

‘Dr Christian’ has a formulaic show that must work as it’s into its 6th or 7th (or maybe more ?) series; and we all know that no TV network screens that many episodes of a show unless it’s pulling in the figures. Unintended pun there ..

Its central idea is putting one of each kind into his ‘feeding house’ after establishing, via daily eating diaries of who knows how many weeks, what their entrenched diets are. Then at all three meals the serving each has produced (or has been produced for them, I can’t make that bit out) is swapped over to the other. This provides entertainment along the lines of watching a skeletonic woman looking down in despair at the third gigantic meal of the day sent across the table by her opposite, a huge woman in more despair than she is because of having two Mars bars on a plate in front of her.

But before that viewers are treated to looking over eight huge and eight skeletonic people standing around a weighing machine.

And it’s at this early point that I have been infuriated: not a single superisze woman has a shape like mine ! See that ? – she has ANKLES ! She could walk into a shoe shop and buy shoes – or into Kmart and buy socks ! I started out having inherited my mother’s somewhat shapeless ankles; but mine grew grossly disgusting as I grew fatter. Now I have to admit to not having worn a skirt for approximmately 45 years, just to keep mine from the public gaze.

That is a woman who, we are told, weighs something like 24 stone (152.5 kg) because this is a British programme – featuring lots of Poms, Welsh and Scots, but no Irish .. Rather odd, that ..

Anyway. We see what she eats. It’s appalling – almost incredible – and she’s by no means the worst ! And this really gets to me; because her daily intake would be around .. oh, three or four times the size of mine, at least. No shit ! Mind you, I don’t weigh 152.5 kg (103.1); but our body shapes are not all that different except for the ankles ..

For her, too much takeaway. (In fact I believe I can say that every supersize we see in all the programmes has the same problem, and revolting takeaway food — have you SMELLED a Subway shop lately ? — is proliferating.) For me, ‘portions’ that are far too big. Really good food, though almost vegetarian, that’s delicious. I eat too much of it. I also drink far too much milk coffee: shot pulled from my espresso machine and the mug filled with HOT HOT lactose-free milk.

The pair spends a couple of days in this double torture and then gets lectured and given a diet plan for the next two or three months. We next see their returns: the skinnies have managed to add a pound or two, but the fatties have gone down stones ! I am filled with jealous rage ..

So. My St Paul moment – time to reveal it.

Any fat person who is given a diet plan and who can look forward to reporting in on it on a regular basis will lose weight and continue to do so.

It’s fundamental. If I knew I had an authorititive supervisor who kept on seeing me at intervals, I would be motivated to perform. Indefinitely.

The problem is that when one has no-one to talk with about a regimen, let alone report in on it, it’s a waste of time even trying. I need someone up there (meaning up the hierarchical chain) to listen to me waffling on about my terror of being hungry. I did briefly try a psychologist a few years ago, but all he did was tell me how wonderful I am; and that is not only psychological porkies, but intolerable.

I shall get back onto my donkey and clip-clop away ..

[grin]

This is the kind of thing that drives to drink a fat old person who has been given to understand certain things about carbohydrate content in fruit:

I have been told and also read that blueberries are THE fruit for low-carb intake, and that raspberries THE fruit no. 2. Yet there is a ‘chart’ that says apples are the same as blueberries !!!

I have eaten apples for my entire life: walking anywhere chomping on one used to be second nature to me. But since being told I must stop eating fruit – except for some berries ! – I have eschewed (like it ?) my favourite fruit entirely.

So WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ???? – I could have been having apple with my morning yoghourt instead of thos ghastly blueberries ?!! – or pears ? – or fresh pineapple ??

But check out the next ‘chart’ and things are even more confusing ..

It’s BLACK not BLUE that’s No. 1; and all those others there come before the blueberries !! VOT ISS GOINK ON ?!

Obviously ‘expert’ opinions vary, and it depends upon whose word you follow as to what you are going to believe.

Thus am I vindicated – as are those who commented on the previous post ! – in thinking that I might just as well do my own thing. So there! [grin]

I am so desperate to settle on an eating regimen that will combine the things I really like to eat with those I really need to eat that I dunno if I’m Arthur or Martha (as we used to say).

And if that ideal smacks of dreaming, I’m going to continue to work towards it ANYWAY.

Because the things I really like to eat are vegetables, fruit, bread and various kinds of cereal. A local brand called Freedom produces some absolutely yummy breakfast cereals –

I came across that one first: it’s not at all sweet, consisting of flakes with a nutty flavour and pumpkin seeds: boy, is it delicious ?! And then I discovered

and decided to mix them together in a 5-something box with a lid. It was at that point that I decided I could, after all, live without muesli, provided I had a boxful of this mixture. I would add tinned pineapple and Greek yoghourt and stir it all together and have it for my breakfast or lunch. Oh, those were the days ..

But in order to reduce my sugar intake so as to ward off diabetes 2, I am sworn off ALL carbohydrates and ALL fruit (almost), so that breakfast would now be just the yoghourt. I love my Greek yoghourt, but ..

Breakfast is by far the hardest meal to provide for myself under the no carbs high fat regimen. No cereal and no toast and no fruit. Jesus christ on a bicycle ! – is there any point in living ?

I can’t help feeling that there MUST be a middle path I could take that would get me no closer to being pre-diabetic but maybe stay at this fairly naughty figure (whatever it is: my GP doesn’t believe in sharing details of that nature). I mean, if I were to cut down on the carbs but not eliminate them .. and if I were to increase fat intake but not to a disgusting degree .. wouldn’t that do ?

Let’s face it, I’m not going to lose weight. But if I can stay here, with my insulin count (or whatever – blood sugar ?) not progressing, why wouldn’t that DO ?!

(I believe I’ve consulted nine GPs since I’ve been in Geelong – 5 of them in the one practice – and I haven’t once felt confident about his/her pronouncements. My GP in Sydney I had for the last 12 years I lived there: I never once doubted a syllable he uttered. While Chic was still about I used to make him come with me if I needed to see Uttam, because I could never remember what he told me. The problem with that was that Chic and Uttam would make each other laugh, and we often ended up having to do a bit of speeding through my consultation .. But it was all good, back then.)

So what I really like are bread and cereal and fruit and vegies (including those carb-filled beans) and yoghourt and cheese, with the occasional piece of rump. But really only occasional. And what I really need is a lot of fat .. So if I were to make up a general kind of plan – NOT a meal-plan, just a kind of guide – that had me eating three meat meals a week and three vego meals a week and one day a week stuffing my face with Dr Becky’s salad, that absolutely does take away the appetite so that it’s a fasting kind of day .. wouldn’t that be good enough ?

In other words, do I REALLY have to go without almost all fruit (except berries) and many of the vegies I adores (root vegies !) and toast&marmalade forever ?

I can’t do that, I’m here to tell you. Nup, I can’t. It’s all very well Dr Becky telling me that after 40 days of this regimen I can have 1 day of eating whatever I want before going back for another 40 days .. If I look ahead for whatever smallish number of years are left to me and see a wilderness into which I must go for 40 days and 40 nights and then another and then another, interspersed with only solitary days of stuffing my face with my favourite foods .. well .. I will have to top meself.

My thinking now is to make some lists of this half-and-half kind of eating, follow them for a few weeks and then have another fasting blood test and see where my blood sugar is. As the GP has told me not to do that before December, it all fits in nicely.

Wish me luck, yes ?

It was a question from a blogging friend – a simple one: “How’s the non-vegetarian diet going ?” – that generated this post. Blame Hannah, OK ?

Re-capping briefly: I ceased to be vegetarian because my younger sister pointed out that if I am approaching becoming pre-diabetic (as my current GP recently indicated), it’s because of my non-flesh diet – NOT because I’ve been eating tinned pineapple as if there will be no more in the whole world the day after tomorrow.

Oh jesus, there are so many threads to all this ..

She talked at length about vegetarianism and what it means for the bod: that I am eating nothing but carbs – all those BEANS ! and PASTA ! and RICE ! and FRUIT ! and vegetables that grow under the ground .. And when you consider that, you realize she’s entirely correct: there’s virtually nothing but carbs in a vego diet. And carbs = sugar. Simple.

So it would seem simple that ceasing to ingest these delightful carbs must reduce my appalling waistline one, but also reduce my sugar intake two, right ? (Should’ve reversed those two in terms of importance.)

‘Simple’ is the LAST fucking word that applies to all this.

Look at those groups, for heaven’s sake ! – how can they be causing me to become slowly diabetic ?! And why are they labelled ‘Healthy’ ?! Well, the answer to that is obvious: the UNhealthy ones are cakes and lollies and pies and fish&chips and all the stuff like that ..

But I’m not a consumer of the unhealthy carbs: it’s the ‘healthy’ carbs that any sensible vegetarian consumes daily (obtaining much-needed protein from the beans, mostly). And I am finding that excising these from my daily intake is so awfully difficult that I don’t know where I am, any more. I have a permanently bad taste in my mouth that causes me to be grateful for social distancing because I would otherwise poison people (and no, it’s not ketosis: I’m not attempting your actual ZERO carbs intake).

I know that I must find a dietician. Someone who really does understand it all and can explain to me satisfactorily every aspect of food. There isn’t one down here in Geelong: I once consulted a so-called ‘dietician’ who maundered on about the balance of the 5 food groups and the pyramid and all that shit, sitting there roly-poly and busting out of her ankle boots .. I was offended, frankly. No, I need a REAL one. Melbourne, probably. Which can’t be done right now ..

I MUST NOT GIVE UP.

The rest of my post just vanished. I’ve just about HAD this bloody new editor. Seriously thinking about finding a new blogging platform, were it not for the fact that all the bloggers I know are on this one.