The honeymoon is over

I think I may have become complacent.

Following this diet, I have lost nearly a stone. Then I enjoyed what some French restaurants and a Premier Inn buffet breakfast had to offer and put lots of that back on again. Then I lost most of that. Now I've put a bit more on.

Being realistic, my weight is always going to fluctuate. Eating (and drinking) is my coping mechanism. It is my indulgence. It is my release. The idea of my weight (or anyone's really) getting to one particular value and remaining there indefinitely - ruler flat - is unlikely.

In Updike's fantastic book Roger's Version, Roger's wife Esther has a weight maintenance strategy: she weighs herself each morning and if she's over 100 pounds, "she eats nothing but celery and carrots until she's back to exactly one oh oh".

That is not me.

Part of me would like to say - in my defence - that there have been diet blog experimental factors at play over the last couple of weeks (which have proven both fruitful and interesting, stay tuned for a future post), but, really, I'm just making excuses.

The truth is, over the last couple of weeks, I've not really been on it.

With this incredibly simple diet, losing weight has been so thoroughly easy. I've not really had to change what I eat; I've not had to join anything; I've not had to sign up to anything; I've not replaced what I eat with expensive pre-packaged 'nutritionally-balanced, macro-synergised' meals. I've just used my brain, added things up, and lost the pounds.

If you saw my post about my pedometer, you might have seen that I suggested some pros and some potential cons about counting your steps when trying to lose weight. It would appear I have fallen foul to some of those cons Again, useful experimental data (stay tuned yet again...), but, the fact of the matter is - for the first time since I wasn't on a pre-determined 'diet holiday', I weighed more this Saturday morning than I did last Saturday morning.

Yes, I still weigh a good few pounds less than when I started, but that wasn't in the grand plan. Today was supposed to herald the dawn of a new era - or at least a week in which I lose weight - but I've blown that as well.

The issue is really a matter of there only being 7 days in a week. As I've grown accustomed to my weekend blowout, I have a weekend blowout. The problem last week - and it's a problem again this week - is that I then have more than one weekday with major nights out, with dinners and the concomitant several beers.

In previous weeks, I've had the two day weekend blowout, but that's more than compensated for my the next five good diet days. Last week and this week, there's been a weekend blowout, plus two additional weekday blowouts. This leaves me with a week comprised of four blowout days, with only three diet days left to not just make up for those, but to then do the job of the week-on-week weight loss.

With the best will in the world, that's not really likely to happen.

So, to the future. Let's just see how it goes. These two weeks are not representative of my lifestyle. If I accept that I'll put weight on, I can do that with the knowledge that, when my normal schedule comes back around, I'll lose it again.

And - and I know I've said this before, often - that's what the diet is for. It's not a competition to try and lose weight and never put any on again ever. My diet lets me put weight on, and to be sufficiently ahead of the curve that I can put on a couple of pounds one week, look in the mirror, and still see a set of abdominal muscles. That's what it's for.