Vanity and willpower work in tandem

For those of you who are regular readers of my weekly words, you will know that after quite a few years of this column, I have certain subjects that make an appearance now and then.

There is my constant plea for the removal of Boris Johnson – which, at the time of writing, appears to have finally happened, albeit it looks like he’s trying to cling on for a while longer.

My husband Gordon comes under fire every now and then, as most husbands (and I’m sure some wives) do, for their lack of understanding of simple instructions, like tidy up or put things away after you use them.

And every now and then I talk about what diet I’m on.

I’m sure you could list a few more things that I regularly talk about but I suppose there are bound to be some topics we all chat about ad infinitum, and these are my particular bugbears.

So today we are back to the diet.

A few weeks ago, Your Life was focusing on us all improving our fitness and it inspired me to follow suit for a little while, but all the travelling I’ve been doing with work recently has really made it hard to have a fitness routine. And as for diet, tiredness has a really bad effect on me, it makes me want to eat non-stop.

So here I am, back to square one, having to seriously work out what proper diet I’m going to do before I fit into nothing at all in my wardrobe.

I’m sure I’m not alone here. There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to being middle-aged and putting on weight.

I apologise to those of you who aren’t middle-aged or overweight, but bear with those of us who are please.

I’m sure, however, a great many of you who are reading this share the same frustrations because when I write about this, I do hear from lots of you.

School of thought number one is: Life is for living, buy a bigger size, embrace the curves, eat the cake and drink the wine.

School of thought number two, however, is where I sit: Being big, not fitting clothes, seeing pictures of yourself slimmer, really gets you down.

You can’t let yourself go, you have to try something drastic. The problem is that real life and cake get in the way of the discipline!

So I’m embarking on something new.

Gordon, as I’ve told you, has lost five stone. Now his diet of radiotherapy and chemotherapy isn’t to be recommended, but the way he has kept the weight off is impressive, and as they say – if you can’t beat them, join them.

Lots of the people I’m working with at the moment have the same regime as Gordon. It’s called intermittent fasting. Perhaps some of you do it already.

Gordon finishes eating as early as he can in the evening and then doesn’t eat again for around 17 hours.

You have to eat in around a seven-hour window in the day and then start fasting again.

So really you get up in the morning and only have coffee or tea and water and then eat lunch and dinner normally but stop eating as soon as you finish your dinner.

I like my breakfast. Didn’t they used to say eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper, meaning that breakfast was the most important meal?

I’ve struggled to do this diet before but needs must.

We are going to a very posh three-day wedding in a few weeks and I’m singing at it. I can’t bear to see photos of me looking like a beached whale, so my willpower has returned because of vanity.

And also because of that Be Real app I told you about last week, where my multiple chins were in most photos.

So I’m giving this intermittent fasting a go.

If you bump into me before lunchtime, approach with caution, I will be very grumpy!

I’m not grumpy about travel chaos this week though. I must admit that I’ve been a bit spoilt and have travelled to Belgium, Malta and Sweden by private jet, so haven’t had to deal with any queues or lost luggage.

It’s a wonderful way to travel.

I only do it every now and then with clients of course, but it would be so easy to get used to, especially at the moment where getting anywhere at all seems to be chaotic.

Don’t worry though, I’m back down to Earth with a bump now doing my housework. As I just said, Gordon’s idea of tidy and mine are very different.

That’s a subject for another day!

Have a good week everyone,