Apparently Naomi Campbell goes on the maple syrup diet – syrup mixed with cayenne pepper, lemon juice and water – three times a year. Beyoncé is said to have done that one as well adding laxative tea every night and a sea-salt water in the morning. Jennifer Aniston is, allegedly, on a new baby food diet and Liz Hurley once lived on a bowl of cabbage soup a day. These tit-bits cam to me courtesy of Naomi Campbells maple madness and my favourite quote in the article is “The awful thing about these diets is the joylessness of them. The sheer, sapping unhappiness they must involve.”

Another ‘thing’ about these diets is that they tend to be short term, a quick bout of sacrifice a couple of times a year to keep the flab at bay. Healthy? Many nutritionists will tell you certainly not.

Whilst we cannot deny the growing rate of our overweight, all the attention to obesity has lead to a social stigma being attached to being overweight with regular insults of ‘fat sl*g’, ‘fat f**t’ etc becoming a sort of national insult. Throw in the health issues the scientists and the press love to trumpet on a weekly basis and your well being is threatened by the fact that you’ve failed to lose any noticeable weight.

One thing that being on an Atkins like diet (low carbohydrate that is), is how there is an emphasis on a life style change. It has to be because as soon as you finish your diet and revert back to ‘chocolate cereals’ (when did this happen?), your body will revert back to type and pile the pounds back and usually quicker than you lost it. Trust me, I’ve been and still am there!

To stay the long term requires that the diet is sustainable. Any diet that leaves you hungry, tired or irritable is not going to last. I enjoyed my diet but I think I lost my battle because I have a family who did not feel the need to join me in my low carb world and I could not keep up the hassle of trying to avoid foods that are so prevalent in our society from buying lunch to preparing separate dishes at home. I admire those families where one or the other is a vegetarian and accommodate those different diets. In most case I know of, anyway, the meat eater gets to eat meat outside the home.

I can’t say honestly that I am desperately unhappy with my weight but there are times when I worry that whenever I feel unwell, it may be because of the weight. Also I avoid looking too long in the mirror without clothes on :(

I have slowly being pressuring myself to lose some weight and get some exercise because I know it will make me feel better, more content. I will get round to it and you will have the fun of reading about it here.

In the meantime, avoid the hype. If you want to diet, find the long term solution for you and recognise it may take time for the weight to go. Most of all use common sense and maintain some sort of balance.

Related Post : Experts and Vested Interests

[First published on my Talking2Myself blog on specified date]