One Step Forwards

I am now an official weight watcher's member. I have read to leaflets and counted the points. The first week was not so bad, altogether. I did read the endless literature they gave me on the first night. There's a little green folder, filled with propaganda, which you have to really buy into in order for the stuff to work.

I'm not a great lover of leaflets. I know what I should eat, and what I shouldn't. If I could get thin by reading leaflets, I'd be a racing snake already. The problem with me is always the application of the knowledge. How do I manage to eat nothing more than the minuscule dressing free salad without actually killing someone due to food-deprivation-fueled bad-temper? I would happily read leaflets on the answer to that.

Anyway, I managed to eat the recommended dose of food for the first three days and not all that much more than it for the remaining four days of the week. I suffered gall-stones and tummy-ache and endless wind and bloating - all of which are symptoms of prolonged hunger. It was uncomfortable, bordering on painful and has reminded me why I fail at diets so often: they HURT.

This is not a lack of will-power in the face of a tasty cake; rather the will-power required is the ability to continue to suffer voluntarily for weeks on end, possibly the rest of eternity. No wonder dieters get fat again following a successful thinning.

I went to see Max, my health advisor. Having faffed around trying to find a room for us in a building they are shortly going to condemn, Max listened to my woes. Once he had made some sympathetic noises, he said that it takes six weeks to get used to less food and bye-bye, see you in six weeks.

Holy crap! I have to deal with this stuff on my own for SIX WEEKS! Giving up smoking was less painful. At least the major symptoms disappear within a fortnight. Whilst I can console myself with the fact that I did lose 1lb last week, balancing up the discomfort with the result, I'm not sure it was worth it. I just can't see an alternative. The options are go through the pain or die an obese death.

Great. Anyone got a low-fat Mars Bar they can lend me?