Time to say goodbye

There are only so many ways to write: “eat less/move more” so after three years, I’ve decided to stop writing this Substack

Image by Jan Tinneberg, Unsplash

I began this Substack three years ago when I’d lost three stone during lockdown and was going after the fourth. I lost the fourth stone and am more or less at a healthy weight now for my height, my age, and my sex. Sure I could lose more. Sure I’d love to lose more. But having kept four stone off for three years I think it’s fair to say I’ve pretty much cracked it. I still have to keep an eye. Just like a recovering alcoholic can never be a normal drinker, I can never be a normal eater. I’m a former smoker - I’ll never be a non-smoker. My fat cells are forever poised to grow big again if I slip up and go back to my old ways of eating for comfort and pleasure not just sustenance. That’s the dieter’s dilemma. We can never eat like normal people. We don’t eat to survive - we live to eat.

I’ve said about all I can on dieting. I’ve tried to be sensible with my eating. Keeping off lost weight is much harder than losing it in the first place and that’s one of the reasons I started this here Substack. As a motivation to keep it going.

Honesty

But there are only so many ways to say eat less, move more. And I reckon I’ve now exhausted them all. I’ve always been very honest in this Substack so here’s another piece of honesty that isn’t about dieting. I had hoped when I started writing this that it might make me a small income. I’ve seen others successfully turn personal writing into an income - some a very decent one. I never planned to charge for it as that didn’t sit right with me. But I was maybe going to put one of those tip jars on it - you know, buy me a coffee/croissant/cake.

Alas I never got enough subscribers to make this a worthwhile venture. I’ve only gone a bit over 200 subscribers in three years. I thought having 14,000 followers on Twitter and I don’t know how many “friends” on Facebook would maybe translate to subscribers here. After all, it’s free! And, I hope, useful with lots of take away. That hasn’t happened and I’m sorry to say it just doesn’t seem worth continuing for only 200 people - and not all of them even open the emails!

Begging bowl

There are many Substacks out there asking for money. I understand why. There are lots of former journalists on the market who need to make a living. But to me it feels like holding out a begging bowl and I was never prepared to do that. Unless a Substack offers you something stunning with each newsletter; knowledge you couldn’t get anywhere else, an angle from someone you just have to have, why pay? A subscription to a major newspaper or news magazine offers you lots of writers, not just one.

Aside from the money angle I had hoped to find an audience. All journalists want to be read. That’s why a lot of broadsheet journalists (Telegraph, Guardian, Times etc) envy their tabloid peers. They get read. A small-selling literary author envies the bestseller even though they may deny this. (The 1940s film Old Acquaintance starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins gives a splendid illustration of this). If you’re not being read, there doesn’t seem to be much point.

Final piece of diet advice

So I’m stopping this Substack. I won’t take it down - no idea how you do that anyway! The advice will still be there for anyone who stumbles upon it. I’ll carry on watching my weight. It’s always a battle. It’s never won but for now at least I am winning.

Thank you for subscribing and reading my newsletters. I wish you well with your own diets. One final piece of advice to impart that’s worked for me. Don’t give up! You’ll face setbacks and you’ll think why bother, what’s the point. But there’s always point. There’s always tomorrow. We are human. We err. We over eat sometimes because under eating is so hard. But it’s worth pursuing. The results more than make it worthwhile. So do keep going, thank you, and goodbye x