Day 49: Losing Weight, Yes I Am

Oh, it is nothing major.  Only that the clothes are just a smidgen looser, and the belt has had to be tightened one notch.  It may be the slowest weight loss since records began, but at least the cycle of weight gain and loss is trundling is very gently downhill.

I have tried the Weightwatchers thing before, with some limited but alas, temporary success.  I am a classic comfort-eater, and when I am down or stressed or just lacking in energy, I will wolf down a packet of chocolatge digestives without pausing to calculate the points value.

But do you know how much a small packet of chocolate digestives costs in my local corner shop?  £1.59!!  I may not care enough to count the calories, but I sure as hell care enough to count the pennies.  Therefore, there are simply no biscuits in the house.  Apart from a couple of packets of Oreos when they were on special offer at 49p, I have scarcely eaten a biscuit since the Year began.  If I want a biscuit badly enough, I have to bake some - and somehow, the effort of doing so seems to negate the attractions of eating them all in one go.  As my mother used to snap at us when we devoured the contents of her cake tin, There is no point baking for you all - you just eat it!

The other factor in this has been portion control.  We are just too used in the affluent west to massive plates of food.  A whole pizza?  In terms of calorie content, all we really need is a slice.  Likewise, I am all too fond of just piling the pasta into the pot, measuring 'by eye', and adding a little extra for good luck.  That usually works out at between 75g and 100g dry, which is a hearty plateful for a short lady.  But really, a portion of pasta need be no more than 50g, especially if it is being mixed in with a rich sauce.  So I have dug out the kitchen scales, and have been trying to stick to that.  A standard 500g bag of pasta ought therefore to make 10 meals, which if you go for the cheapest spaghetti works out at about 4p per portion.

I do still have some way to go.  Last night I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so that when I got home, the restraints were off, and I rustled up a huge bowl of pasta.  But I did stir in only half the bolognaise sauce instead of the whole tub, which I would definitely have done previously.  And no pudding. 

Nearly 50 days.  Let's see if by Day 100, the belt can be tightened another notch.

Total Expenditure: £13.51  (I had to buy a book from Amazon for my work - sadly, it wasn't available in any library here.)