Sticks and Stones...

It is never appropriate to comment on somebody's weight.

I know I've done it a bucket of times, without meaning to be hideous, you may have too, and we have to stop.

We live in a society where we are used to commenting. We are asked to comment all the time on social media and in all those surveys that flood our inboxes. I think that generally it is a good thing to prompt discussion, if in fact discussion is prompted. Sadly, more often an opinion is stated and then either the opinionator is celebrated with warm fuzzy comments or told to piss off and get a life.

Most of us know that it is inappropriate to comment on race or disability but it seems other aspects of appearance are still very much in the firing line.

Last week I was working in a Pharmacy when an elderly customer mistook an 18 year old staff member for one of her colleagues. Upon realising his mistake, the explanation was "Well you are chubby too".

Diet days

Despite the advances in medical science, I think healthy eating is becoming more difficult than ever. Yes, there are all the unhealthy treats but even foods labelled as healthy rarely are when you read the ingredients. It is also difficult to lose or maintain weight when we are all so busy all the time. Fitting in exercise and (in my case) watching portion sizes when you are tired and hungry and LOVE food is a big challenge.

Dukan or Dukan't

I am not really a fan of diets. I believe in just eating well and exercising regularly. Unfortunately life gets in the way and sometimes the regular exercise falls away leading to a couple of extra kilos that requires a bit more effort. This time last year I went on a calorie control diet to lose a few kilos gained after injuring my back. It worked and I lost 3-4 kilos but had to stop because I always become obsessed with the numbers. I had quite severe anorexia as a teenager. I started on calorie control and eventually cut down to about 500 calories per day. I can recognise those tendencies coming back when I am watching numbers too much.

The Bookworm has been threatening to do the keto diet for a while. He wants to lose a couple of kilos and get match fit for a course he is doing in a few months time. He likes the idea of high protein for muscle growth and I think has mental images of eating plates piled high with cheese and bacon keto-style. I have my concerns about the long-term effect of these high fat diets so I haven't been too encouraging.

I read a column recently about the Dukan Diet. It seems to allow extreme weight loss (not that we need that) but the things I like about it are:

1. High protein

2. Low fat

3. Only a short period at the beginning with any significant vegetable restrictions and then some flexibility after that

4. No counting calories

5. Has a plan for long term achievable results.

So we tried it. On Monday we started a 5-day protein only Attack Phase, I later revised it down to 3 days after entering my data on www.dukandiet.co.uk this is how it went: