Five Tips for a Flat Belly!

Fed up with those annoying little pop-ups that... well, pop up when you least expect or want them to? Well it got me to thinking of my own tips for a flat belly and they are so simple you'll be beating a path to my door for the next five.  Here goes and feel free to add or elaborate where you will:
1. Throw all the tin-foiled leftovers in the fridge away.  I know your mother did it and the turkey does make a very nice stew/curry/cold sandwich but really, do you seriously believe you'll be reheating the remains of the Christmas pudding and scraping the hardened brandy butter out of the tin-foiled carton within it's use by date? Hmm? Do you?
2. Forget about the starving millions.  I mean this in a *nice* *don't feel guilt-ridden* way.  The third world will not get any worse if you throw away 4-5 day old sausage rolls and assortment of cold cuts of ham and cheese. If you don't say anything then neither shall I.
3. Step away from the tins of Quality Street and or Celebrations (after having eaten all the Purple/Snickers ones of course - sly nod to Lane!). In fact if you don't even open them in the first place, you have a ready made gift for someone else's Birthday/Christmas next year.  Who's going to know?
4. Turn off the TV and go do something else instead.  Or if you do enjoy loafing it up in front of half-decent festive programmes, and let's face it, who doesn't?  Then make sure all the nibbles are removed and the bottles of Christmas booze are so far out of reach that you can't be arsed to go fetch them.
5. Ignore all the above and spend a good day and a half making sure ALL leftovers are systematically, nay - religiously - consumed in varying degrees of nibble-mania - thus ensuring you spend the next day and a half throwing it back up from both ends because you've forgotten to leave the 'eat by'dates on all the crap you've had opened for nearly a week.
Ah bliss... no wonder Gym membership soars at this time of year.  And plumbers have their largest call-outs.
New Years Resolutions anybody?

The "Feckitt" Diet

The first ‘proper’ diet I ever remember going on was in the early nineties when I was all-consumed with losing enough weight to get into a size 12 wedding dress. I was working with another tall lass (I’m 5’10, she was even taller) who waxed lyrical about her Hip and Thigh weight loss and although I couldn’t ever remember her being overweight as such, she was always so damned cheerful and wore such lovely, expensive-looking outfits (she was a Solicitor, I was her Assistant) that I associated her diet plan with her overall attitude and lifestyle and went out and bought my first ever Diet book, courtesy Rosemary Conley.
Of course I lost weight but I rather think this had more to do with pre-wedding jitters and arrangement nerves than the amount of fat I wasn’t devouring in a single sitting. And I never exercised. Apart from dancing in nightclubs till the wee smalls whilst fiancé looked on silently mortified; willing me to end the madness and become a sensible wife. So the fact I was ingesting half-fat cheese (the perfect dichotomy), fat free milk (white water) and copious amounts of dry crackers (MDF) and panicking about the size of my Bonbonieri meant that my wedding dress had been taken in to a size 10 by the time the Big Day arrived. (Big Feckin’ Woo – in hindsight).
Since then I’ve sampled most diet fads going, from the Cabbage (lost more friends than weight), to the Grapefruit (stomach ended up eating itself in confusion) and the Atkins. I enjoyed this one because I love my cheese and meat and eggs and sh*t and thought that this was my ideal diet. Trouble is, because I’m more woman than man (the Atkins is promoted as the ‘Man’s Diet’ because of the fried breakfasts and cheeseburgers-without-the-bun you can readily eat in as vast a quantity as humanly possible – possibly. And I actually looked forward to breakfast - 2 fried eggs, hunk of cheese and some ham… Yummmmmm) I also have freakishly uncontrollable urges to eat whole bars of chocolate at certain times of the month and therefore negate my carb count quota for the entire day, probably week in one carb-fest of Family sized proportions. So, actually all I’m doing is topping up my carb-free count of Nil bread, Nil pasta, Nil rice and Nil potato with several sittings of chocolate-based treats. I’m still of the naive opinion that it doesn’t count if you do it standing up when there’s no one else in the room (or was that sex?). Anyway…
So… the FECKITT Diet…. Includes anything you damn well want at times your body damn well craves it. After all, Mother Nature, bless her, gave us instincts. The gut one I’ve learnt to listen to. Works every time. The intuition one I’m growing fonder of (v. similar to gut but with subtext – post to follow). Cravings are just the body’s natural way of telling you that it is desirous of something you are otherwise deficient in and you must GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!!
Worked when I was pregnant and there were all manner of important things my body was undertaking at the time – growing a child from within being the paramount one – so why should it not work for me now? Have faith in your body for it will decide what it wants and what it doesn’t. And, actually, since we’re on the subject, for the past 2 days my… um… shall we say ‘toilet habits’ have become more… um… liberal. Even after two rounds of toast and raspberry jam for breakfast – OMG how I missed sweet stuff on toast….aaahhhh…. and the way I woofed down our curried take-out last night was a sight to be believed.
Oh, and if humouring your natural instincts isn’t convincing enough, one of the last things my mother said as she lay in her hospital bed, her 4 year old granddaughter handing her some squares of Galaxy was: ‘Ooh, I shouldn’t really sweetheart I’m trying to watch my weight.’
She died that evening.
Says it all, doesn’t it?

Dieting Days Are Here Again!

It's the same thing every year. The sun starts flaunting it's rays hither and thither in gay abandon and my wardrobe responds accordingly. The dull greys and browns are pushed up the end of the rail and all the oranges, limes, whites and pinks are fluffed up for another summer season. So far, so great!

Trouble is my body is still sporting:
a. its Christmas excess (1980 on)
b. its remaining baby blubber (from 1993)
c. saddle-bag writers arse
d. indications of early onset middle age spread
e. sedentary flab from having the hideous Trochanteric Burtsitis for 4 years (Google it - you'll wish you hadn't!)
f. Lazyitis without even a lapsed Gym membership as an excuse.

Nothing else for it but to go back on the Grapefruit Diet! Which actually works if you've got the appetitie of an ant and the intelligence of a gnat to see it through. Hubbs and I did it for the fortnight leading up to our nuptials and lost a stone between us although it did absolutely nothing to help our pre-wedding jitters and actually made me feel a trillion times worse what with hunger headaches and my stomach lining eating itself.

I don't know how he's doing it, but Hubbs is still on the GD 12 hours later. And after a day of physically exhausting tasks at work, too. Whereas I merely had the arduous idea of popping into town to pick up my newly lensed glasses, have a bit of a browse then back home to write totally unhindered (as it's half term and MiniMe is off doing work experience - v.keen of her to give up her break, don't you think?). But no sooner had I grabbed my specs off the nice assistant lady, I'd hared back to the car and driven at warp speed back home, fried an egg, sandwiched it between a slice of cheese and ham, stuck it on a slice of toast and devoured it with all the delicacy of Hannibal Lecter after Lent.
I'm sorry but there has to come a time in your life when you just have to say Dieting's Off. No more. Bored now.
I don't like being hungry.
There's also millions of people in the world who are starving through no choice of their own and would give anything to have the luxury of being able to say 'no thanks' to a plate of food.
We should be grateful.
So, if anyone catches me moaning about my spare tyres again, they have permission to slap me round my stupid ungrateful face.