Skip to main content

Any diet you want

Image
By

I am now an expert on dieting, based on extensive research carried out in the office kitchen, whilst trying to make a coffee with two sugars.

I say ‘research’ – what I actually mean is ‘listening’. And when I say ‘extensive’, what I really mean is ‘I heard some colleagues talking about dieting on a couple of occasions’.

Having said that, I suppose that is quite rigorous, when compared to the level of analysis done by some people before giving up any food that starts with the letter ‘B’, or surviving for a fortnight purely on grapefruit skins, because that’s what their favourite celebrity supposedly did to “lose 3 stone and look a million dollars!”

Office kitchens are a fabulous source of information. You only have to loiter in the doorway for a couple of minutes to pick up all the facts you need about who is leaving, why something won’t work, what your colleagues did at the weekend and (this is the relevant bit, by the way) their latest way of losing some weight, before their big holiday/wedding/bum won’t fit through the door.

I realised a while ago that a bit less time on the sofa, a touch less cake, a tad more going out for a walk and a slice of not having half a packet of HobNobs after dinner, was quite effective, especially if you did it for longer than a day.

Strangely, this concept doesn’t seem to have spread beyond the Grenville household, and lots of people still think starving themselves or adopting a crackpot diet regime will have the desired effect.

Well, it does – and in a much shorter time than the GrumpyManDietPlan (TM). The slight problem is, once you stop and go back to your old habits after losing 10lbs in a week, your newfound ability to get into a size smaller pair of jeans reverses more rapidly than an out of control granny on a petrol station forecourt.

I was particularly impressed with one of the diets I overheard being discussed this week, as a newly-trim workmate held court by the sink to some attentive and appreciative diet-wannabes (by the hot water dispensing machine, and the tea towels that look like they’ve been used to clean up a field just after some curry-eating cows have left, respectively).

Apparently, this one was carb-related (but I don’t know if that’s low, high, or from a 1983 Ford Capri) and involved having bacon and eggs for breakfast. Every day. I should be skinnier than Kate Moss.

Cutting all sugar out of your diet seems to be trendy at the moment too. I don’t know if it’ll help you to lose weight, but it would definitely suck a couple of tons of enjoyment out of my day.

Of course, it isn’t all just about weight. Changing your eating habits can help to extend your lifespan.

Judging on some of the stuff I’ve seen being microwaved at work, a few of my colleagues might actually be shortening theirs.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 26th of September 2014, where it was retitled "All the dieting advice you need".  After a two week absence, I'm pleased to report that you can view the version used by the paper on their website here.

I wasn't entirely happy with this one. The idea was fine but, once I got going with it, I didn't have as many examples of crackpot diet regimes as I'd thought. It therefore had more of the background, and less of the diet bit than I'd hoped. I couldn't come up with a really strong ending either.

Still, as this was my 124th column, I guess I can excuse myself the occasional dip in quality. I do feel bad if I haven't done a great job, though. Mrs G (who is the first person to read the column before I submit it) reckoned it was fine, so maybe I shouldn't beat myself up too much.

(Tunes today from a 4CD set by The Police - "Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings". De Do Do Do...)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Suffering from natural obsolescence

By
You know you’re getting old when it dawns on you that you’re outliving technological breakthroughs. You know the sort of thing – something revolutionary, that heralds a seismic shift it the way the modern world operates. Clever, time-saving, breathtaking and life-changing (and featuring a circuit board). It’s the future, baby! Until it isn’t any more. I got to pondering this when we laughed heartily in the office about someone asking if our camcorder used “tape”. Tape? Get with the times, Daddy-o! If it ain’t digital then for-get-it! I then attempted to explain to an impossibly young colleague that video tape in a camcorder was indeed once a “thing”, requiring the carrying of something the size of a briefcase around on your shoulder, containing batteries normally reserved for a bus, and a start-up time from pressing ‘Record’ so lengthy, couples were already getting divorced by the time it was ready to record them saying “I do”. After explaining what tape was, I realised I’d ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shouting in the social media mirror

By
It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...
Post a Comment
Read more

A fisful of change at the shops

By
A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...
2 comments
Read more