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Yummy pie in the sky

Jeni Harvey
29/ 1/2008

HALF A pound. How can I stick to a diet for a week and only lose half a pound?

As I stepped off the scales at Bamford Bowling Club on Thursday night I was seething with frustration and wondering where I’d possibly gone wrong.

As my Slimming World leader Laura Sousa pointed out, this brings me to two-and-a-half pounds off in two weeks, which isn’t too shoddy.

But, even so, I was pretty disappointed to say the least. I’d been hoping for two or even three pounds off this week, as it felt like I was doing so well.

My clothes were feeling baggier and, possibly as a result of all the fruit and water I’d been gorging on, I was feeling far healthier.

So I reacted like any normal human being would and, needless to say, this didn’t involve going for a run around the block or making myself a dressing-free salad for dinner.

When I got home I had a very large gin and tonic, rounded up some friends and went for a full-on blowout at a Manchester curry house. My karahi palak paneer and naan had never tasted so good.

I washed that down with four large glasses of dry white wine to drown my sorrows and by the end of the night I was ready to give up my Slimming World efforts altogether.

But the next morning I felt woozy, bloated and sluggish. Keen to put things back on track, I hijacked Laura for an emergency slimming summit and, over Diet Cokes and a syn-free lunch of jacket potatoes and cottage cheese, we looked at how I could speed up my weight loss.

"Yoghurts are the secret", she tells me.

"They’re full of calcium, which is great for weight loss, and you should also be looking at how much fibre you’re eating. More beans and cereals like bran flakes should help."

She adds that my night on the curry shouldn’t set me back and not to feel guilty about it. Half a pound off is still going in the right direction, she stresses, and hopefully next week should show a better result.

The other thing we both agree on is that it might not be the best idea to save up all my ‘syns’ to spend on wine, especially when my idea of a small glass doesn’t tally with Slimming World’s definition.

Feeling altogether better about myself – and still full from last night’s yummy curry – I vow to make this week more sober and, hopefully, more successful. But at this point my target of 10 stone seems like (syn-laden) pie in the sky.