Author: Wattle

I know that I am more likely to go on a walk, even in nasty weather, if it is included in a group of tasks that I have agreed with myself to do. As well as this, when I have an eating theme in place I find that I am less likely to respond to the nasty weather by eating foods that are not part of that theme.

Today when I looked out the window and saw some very nasty weather I knew a choice had to be made. I chose to go on the walk. Yes I know, I know, how goody three shoes of me!

I could have done with three shoes, that is for sure. I experienced a strong wind that was forcing sleety drizzle, and me, sideways. I could barely hold my footing or my umbrella. Despite this indisputable sample of weather nastiness I am delighted to report there was no need for any barbecue crisps or chocolate ripes because I could look forward to a generous amount of food straight after my walk. A typical “Porkust” lunch. A bread roll with ham, lettuce, tomato and onion on it, followed by a piece of fruitcake and some fresh grapes.

The whole story about losing weight has two chapters: eating differently and taking more regular, realistic amounts of exercise.

Allowing enough time to learn how to be some comfortable, smaller amount of kilograms less weight is the key that opens the door of successfully keeping the weight lost. The goal weight is the interim weight, not the theoretically perfect weight of someone else, an unrecognizable heroine or hero in some other book universe.

Say five kilograms are lost without too much pain over three or four months. After that it might take six months or even a year of learning how to be that weight. All sorts of learning will take place. How the new body shape fits into its surrounding space. Learning how to wear new smaller clothing. A new relaxed posture will become more usual because it becomes normal, instead of a posture as rigid as an economic plastic hose. Letting the eyes become used to seeing a slightly smaller (but not alarmingly smaller) image needs to take place. Learning how much exercise and how much of each food type is needed to eat, in order to maintain the interim weight is a non-trivial challenge involving much guesswork.

The whole story about keeping the weight lost has more chapters than a romance novel.

Believe it or not, it is actually quite easy to know how many chips to place on the oven tray to heat up for the evening meal. Just follow my “Two chip” guideline.

Firstly, shake out as many chips as you would like to eat onto the oven tray from the freezer pack. Secondly, choose the two largest chips and put them back into the pack.