No sleep 'til Christmas

This is it, no more distractions until Christmas, or the Christmas party at least. That's about 5 weeks of very strict dieting. I won't be having the occasional night off that turns into the week off or having a dessert that doesn't fit into my daily calorie allowance, from now on there's no let up.

My recent surges of enthusiasm have yielded quick results, but they've soon petered out and the gains are lost or at least reduced. Obviously this is better than putting on weight, but it's not what I want. It's been quite embarrassing writing a column such as the one I did a few weeks ago about how I've got this new found enthusiasm only to have lost it by the time people read the column and talk to me about it. I sound like David Cameron; what I say sounds good and positive but the words are pretty empty.

My latest strategy is to set dates to aim for; the office Christmas party is 19th December. The party usually consists of eating and drinking as much as possible being as the boss is paying, so I think this is a good date to aim for. I'll go back to logging all my food online; when I first stopped being strict about doing this I started to become more careless with what I ate.

I know you've heard it all before but so far this week has gone really well. I've kept well below my daily calorie limit and I've got back on the the cross trainer at the gym, even beating my record distance of 4km in 17 minutes. I'm going to set the target high, I want to lose another stone by the Christmas party; it's a tall order but I'm taller.