Reprising my dieting career

I embarked on my dieting career about 10 years ago. I learned all about dieting from my girlfriend of the time, who is now my wife. As a bloke without a sister you learn all sorts of new things during your first few relationships, perfume names, women’s clothes sizes, when to keep your mouth shut. Keeping my mouth shut was my biggest problem, when rubbish wasn’t coming out, something rubbish was going in, my waistline suffered the consequences of the latter.

My first diet was a low calorie diet. Going from pork pie and chocolate milkshake for breakfast to a slice of toast was quite a shock. I was hungry all of the time and was still going over my 1500 calorie limit. This is where I learned the value of diet drinks. I was drinking over a litre of Pepsi per day, there’s 500 calories gone already. My hunger got the better of me this time.

“You can’t go wrong with a low-fat diet” said someone of questionable authority. A couple of weeks of hunger followed, not quite as bad as on the low-calorie, but hunger was still an alien concept to me. I felt really healthy, but the hunger got to me. I convinced myself that failure was inevitable and so it was.

I did the Atkins, it defeated the hunger problem, I never felt hungry and promptly went from 48” to 38” waist, I must have shed about 6 stone. I decided to have some celebratory chocolate, I’d not eaten a single piece all year, that proved to be my “one harmless cigarette” that ruins many a smoker’s quitting attempt. I put it all back on in 24 months.

So here I am, 32 years old, I’ve been on a break from my dieting career. I am now a father, a husband, a part-time student, and full time IT account manager. I coming back off sabbatical and reprising the career I embarked on 10 years ago, I’m stood at the foot of the mountain and this time I’m determined.