Why I've stopped dieting - for now!
I’ve decided to stop dieting for the time being. The weight isn’t coming off so best I can do is for now is hold onto what I’ve lost
A memory from my Domestic Science teacher when it was still taught in secondary schools - secondary moderns to be accurate. For I am no grammar school girl! “Don’t nibble!” she yelled at us as we mixed flour with fruit, fat and eggs. “If mother nibbled she’d be big as a house!” Yes yes I know. Very sexist. But mums did most of the cooking in those days and - let’s be honest - they still do! Mrs. Plaw was the teacher and I remember her well. She clearly practised what she preached and never nibbled for she was very slim.
I loved cookery classes. They were my favourite. I was eleven years old, just started “big school” as we called secondary school and I couldn’t believe we were allowed to do something as fun as cooking. It felt like playing. And when something feels like play you learn a lot. I still use the skills I learned in my Domestic Science classes. How to cut a tomato for instance - dig a sharp knife into a tomato then slice from that cut. “Don’t go squashing your way through a tomato,” Mrs. Plaw implored. To remove the skin of a tomato plunge into boiling water for 30 seconds. (I later discovered that just putting tomatoes into a sink and pouring boiling water over them from the kettle did the job just as well.).
It’s the don’t nibble instruction I need to keep. Mrs. Plaw was right. Nibbling is what makes you fat. Not meals - assuming you only eat what you need. It’s the little extras. The mouthfuls slid in without really noticing. The second biscuit with your morning coffee - though one is fine; we must have some treats! We don’t count nibbles as it’s almost impossible to do so. You finish off your child’s breakfast, your partner’s leftovers, the bit at the bottom of the peanut butter jar. Pity to waste it. When there’s only a around a third of the biscuits left in the packet they become, in the words of comedian and writer Guy Browning, “Administratively awkward” - or AA as we call it in our house. “Let’s finish this off shall we? It’s AA.” It gets in the way and who among us who loves their food will ever throw it away?
My weight has now ceased to decline but I’ve reached an accommodation with it. I’ve decided to stop trying because if nothing else by The Law Of Sod that’s when it’ll come off again. But if it doesn’t then I’ll live with it. I just want to stay the same. For now. Consolidate what I lost. I’m still well over three stone down from my top weight. I’m around ten pounds up from my lowest. But given my age (67) I can live with that for now. If I can avoid putting it all back on again I’ll count that as winning. But I’m going to try to stop nibbling. That’s how it all went on in the first place. Nibbling can put on a pound here, two there. And before you know it, as Mrs. Plaw knew it, you’re big as a house. Make meals enjoyable and filling (see pic) and you shouldn’t need to nibble. But allow for snacks for if you go too strict you’re more likely to go off the rails.
I did Food and Nutrition O Level. Lovely break with Mrs Skelton from all the academic work. I still use those skills, and hygiene was emphasised too. When my daughter when to secondary school and brought home Food Tech homework 'assembling a pizza' I was furious. Then I went back to my old school and found they'd taken out the kitchens. Ridiculous. All kids need those life skills and it has led to dominance of processed food and probably the obesity crisis. I suspect some kind of collision between 'non sexist' education combining with nasty lobbying from the food processing industry. Rather like closing down mental hospitals was a collision between money saving, existence of more effective drugs, and the desire to free people from institutions. The key was always to teach boys as well as girls to cook and clean. Well done you. I'm back on a very low cal diet as it is the only way to shift pounds - the tamoxifen effect has not yet worn off and I put some back on over covid. But I think the pounds are going down slightly faster than on the drug.