A twisted logic

Losing weight is hard – damn hard - but even harder than that is keeping it off.

I’ve hit a brick wall as far as weight loss is concerned.  My weight seems to be alternating between 15 stone 8 and 16 stone 3. After over a year of dieting, my body seems to have found its natural level. But at the same time, i’ve noticed a few little bad habits starting to creep back into my daily routine.

The fact that I know they’re bad habits and that I shouldn’t be doing them is good, as at least my way of thinking hasn’t become totally warped. “I had this cream cake earlier so I may as well carry on eating badly all day!” – that kind of twisted logic was in danger of coming out again, after I’d done so well over this past year to normalize my diet. Ever since the chocolate overload at Easter I’ve been on a patchy diet.

With me, there is no middle ground for dieting. I’m either on one or I’m not. It sounds silly and odd to any normal person, but It’s how its been ever since I realised I had a weight problem. If something ‘breaks’ the diet then I’ll be fretting, worrying about how it’s gonna affect me, and in turn I become too obsessed with how I eat. It was probably no surprise looking back that I managed to lose a significant amount of weight then put it all back on (and more!). It’s just a case of watching what I stuff into my mouth for the rest of my life. Everyone has their vices and I guess for me it is food.

I’ve got absolutely no intention of putting on weight to the extremes that I did before. I care about my body and health too much to put it through any of that again. The worry of any weight gain is what leads me to obsess over any dietary detail, but I need to take it down a notch from obsession to just plain watching what I eat.

This is what they don’t tell you after you’ve lost weight. It’s hard - damn hard - and it’ll be that way for the rest of your life!

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Away from me (but not from food!), I read in the paper today that Melton Mowbray pork pies have been given ‘protection’, meaning that if a Melton pork pie is made outside of the local area then it can’t legally call itself a Melton Mowbray pork pie. In much the same way that Champagne and Parma Ham are localised foodstuffs, so now is this pork pie!

I’m led to believe that the local area wherein you can make the pies is a 30 mile radius around the town of Melton, which includes the southern half of Notts – meaning Notts factories Pork Farms and Northern Foods can continue to make their pies – it also means that I am well within my rights to cook, sell and market my own brand of Melton Mowbray pork pie!

Stilton cheese also has the same distinction, it originates out in the Vale of Belvior but is made in a factory out in Cropwell Bishop, just a mile or two down the road from me. Their rules on who can make it differ a bit from the pork pies. Apparently anyone from Notts, Leicestershire or Derbyshire can make the cheese, regardless of how far away from Cropwell Bishop they are.

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Back in the real world, I didn’t get the £200 on friday. Apparently it’s the 25th of April we get it. I wish I’d known in advance and not been waiting eagerly for a paycheck on Thursday that was to show the same old £150. I was expecting closer to £300! I have big plans for that money, and I hope to have even more coming in as I start an indefinite period of overtime. Depending on how much I get for the 13 hours I’ve been given, it could be the start of something regular.