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When youre making a post-diet bucket list and snatching ham from other peoples sandwiches, you know your diets getting to you. But is it even possible to drop the pounds without descending into madness?
Last Friday, I was meant to go out to dinner at 7.30pm. At 7.29pm, my boyfriend was waiting in the living room while I was hopping round the bedroom, wielding my hair straighteners and wearing a single sock. The following exchange then took place. Him: How long will you be? Me: I dunno, about half a stone? Him: deafening, judgmental silence. Because I am on a diet. And it is eating my brain. If you ever see me on a train, and Im looking out of the window with my mouth in a pensive moue, you can bet your last Rolo Im thinking about my diet. Im thinking about my diet 90% of the time. Im thinking about it right now. Even when Im not actively thinking about my diet, Im planning meals, counting calories and weighing myself. And when Im not doing any of those things, Im talking about my diet to anyone wholl listen. And frequently to anyone who wont. I used to be the sort of person who respected conventional conversational boundaries. Now Ill orate, unsolicited, about my tiny, cute, diet poos (seriously, theyre adorable), or whether skipping breakfast is a myth (it is, except when youre on holiday), all the while ignoring obvious signs of disinterest, such as peoples eyes glazing over, or their no longer being physically present. Half the time I dont even realise Im doing it. Its as though I enter a fugue state, possessed by a disembodied diet bore. Often Ill come to and realise Ive been monologuing about carbs for 20 minutes. But I wasnt always Tedious Diet Lady. I used to be cool. I played in bands, wore leather jackets and quipped witty one-liners. I drank beer. People described me as easy-going (code for zero fashion sense but will hold your hair back if you puke). I was fairly slim but I enjoyed my food, and rarely thought about dieting. I come from a family of Italian, Nepali and French food-lovers who whip up industrial batches of lasagne, curries and cake at any given opportunity Christmas, saints days, Tuesdays but then eat lightly in the intervening days. Apart from a brief Atkins kick when I was 20, which taught me Im not as fond of bacon as I had previously thought, I was impervious. Then, in my late twenties, I quit smoking and my appetite went from how-dyou-feel-about-apizza to OH MY GOD WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME HOW DELICIOUS BREAD IS. It mutated into this insatiable thing, driving me towards man-sized portions (Im barely 5ft) of cheese.

Im thinking about my diet of the time. Im thinking about it right now

CAN YOU LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND?

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Words Robyn Wilder

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ORBYN

Within 18 months Id inated four dress sizes, from a 10 to a 16, and with the swift weight gain came stomach problems, bad skin and misery. I was unable to walk down the street without girlwatching. I want her gure, Id think, unable to stop torturing myself. No, her gure. No, hers. I tried to lose weight, each attempt more desperate and short-lived than the last. At lunchtime Id go to the sandwich shop thinking salad, salad, salad, then emerge cradling its most calorific panini. Every morning I gave up sugar and lasted until someone in the oce oered me a biscuit. I joined Weight Watchers Online and logged in twice, and I lied outrageously to the diet apps I downloaded to keep track of my escalating eating. I put o socialising until Im thinner, and started to work out, but my knee joints kept buckling under my new ballast, so I got frequent sprains and had to rest for weeks at a time. With each injury my hopes would plummet further, and Id limp out of the gym and straight into Greggs. I dont know if youve ever queued for a Steak Bake while squashed into optimistically-sized gym wear but let me tell you, it is not a self-esteem party. By 2012, I was mired in a miserable cycle of failure and self-loathing, so I embarked on a doctorapproved, very-low-calorie diet, eschewing Earth Food to consume just 600 calories a day via special shakes, soups and bars. Of course, everyone thought I was insane. And it was No Fun At All. Friends were encouraging, but I had to watch them wolf down pints and pizzas while I sipped soda water, mentally making a bad food bucket list for when I came off the diet (Gentlemens Relish because f *** you, patriarchy, and NO COTTAGE CHEESE). I once cried because Rachel Khoo made tartiette on TV. I spent a lot of time on online dieting forums, passing the time Id normally spend in the pub, exchanging recipes for cooking the revolting meal replacements. I became inexplicably proud of the fact that I could fashion the banana shake into a semi-decent latte by adding hot water and instant coee (by semi-decent, I mean tasted a bit like meat). I was losing weight, but mentally unraveling. Id become socially isolated, thinking about, talking about or writing about my diet every day. I found myself staring disconsolately into my fridge for minutes at a time, or begging my boyfriend for a slice of ham, or blowing up over tiny things (my reaction to forgetting my computer password? I CANT DO THIS ANY MORE!). Im not the only one who loses it on a diet my friend Ellie once tried to count calories in a fried chicken shop, drunk, at 3am. Another dieting friend, Claire, goes to bed at 7pm sometimes, just in case I eat everything in the kitchen. Even my friend Gemma, who blogs about matters dietary and fashion-related, admits: Once I was having a particularly tough day at work, and a colleague suggested a carb-laden dinner and wine. I broke down. I actually said, But I cant do that, food is the only

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thing I can control right now. Colleagues knew something was going on with me, because I went from hotly debating my daily lunch choices to avoiding any snack-based chat. Some couldnt help themselves trying to top my increasingly visible weight loss, holding forth about their avoidance of carbs or some elaborate juice detox. Some attempted sabotage: one girl from the sales team kept leaving chocolate on my desk. Others objectied me. One female colleague I didnt know well berated me for cutting back, once loudly referring to me as a girl with boobs and a bum out of the blue and in the middle of a meeting. She thought it was a compliment. Im still not sure how I feel about that. Some people, though including thin people I barely knew sought me out to inform me that diets are rubbish and I should just go to the gym (thanks what was your name again?) or that they had never had to diet a single day in their lives (seriously, what is that supposed to be, advice?). These are all good reasons to flip out when youre on a diet. And I did ip out. All the time. But why have I never seen a boy do that? My boyfriend, for instance, has a deep and abiding love of both exercise and doughnuts. If his doughnut-to-exercise ratio gets out of whack, hell go to the gym and pummel stu until the doughnuts are purged from not just his system, but a ve-mile radius, and probably the dictionary, too. Then he never speaks of it again. Hes like Patisserie Thor.

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I DIDNT LOSE ALL THE WEIGHT I WANTED I STOPPED WHEN I FELT MY BRAIN STARTING TO MELT, A STONE OR SO OFF

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because online diet forum phrases like if hunger isnt the problem, food isnt the answer, started to make sense. Now I could see that pizza wasnt resolution to an existential crisis pizza was the logical answer to hey, Papa Johns has a two-for-one deal, shall we order in for dinner tonight? Because pizza is the tequila of carbohydrates, and we cant have it too often, or well lose respect for it. So now Im on the 5:2 Fast Diet (where you limit yourself to 500 calories two days a week, and eat normally the rest of the time), and Ive started a running plan. While this new diet doesnt bring the addictive, fairy-tale losses of before (I swear one morning I woke up with a waist and went to bed the same night with smaller boobs), it is sustainable for the long-term. Of course, when I started it I was on Crazy Diet Lady autopilot, immediately joining the online forum, reading three 5:2 books, watching a 5:2 documentary, and following the #52diet Twitter hashtag. Then I took a breath, remembered that literally ALL I have to do is not eat over 500 calories on Mondays and Thursdays, and just let it go. I thought about non-diet things. The new season of Dexter. The fact that my iPod is packed with terrible Dutch techno jogging playlists instead of real music. Progress is slow some weeks I dont lose any weight, some days I still monologue about carbs, but I am also learning lessons about how I handle food, and trying not to substitute biscuits for cigarettes. And, according to Patisserie Thor Im much more bearable: You still have your moments you did literally just send me out to buy you M&Ms, even though you swore o sugar yesterday but youre not so xated on what youre deprived of any more. Youre a person again, not just a diet. Essentially, I dont think you can lose weight without losing your mind. At least I couldnt. My sense of personal power was so low that I needed to live and breathe my diet for a bit, or risk losing interest, staying in my rut, and wandering straight back into Greggs. But the trick is to know when to dial back the obsession. Once youve got the hang of your diet, theres no need to read three diet books at once, or Google raspberry ketones at 2am. At that point, maybe go outside for a bit. Ask your friends how they are, and suggest going for a drink. Stop saying the word diet, and allow your non-diet interests to bloom again. My role model is Ellie, who has come a long way from her drunk fried chicken shop days. Now she enjoys various successes on a long-term healthy eating and exercise plan, and is resolutely not sweating the small stu. My diet is one part of my life, but I still go to the pub, on holiday and, OK, sometimes even to the fried chicken shop. But if Im doing it right 80% of the time, Im happy. Otherwise, I try to forget about it. In the past few months Ive missed new music from my favourite artists, new books from my favourite authors, and countless new developments in my friends love lives all because Ive been too busy thinking about food. So now, if youll excuse me, Im o to buy a leather jacket.

I remember a weight-loss study that said that the average UK woman diets for vanity and fashion reasons, while men lose weight to be healthy. Is that why, in my tiny unrepresentative microcosm of Some People I Know, the women freak out and the men (OK, man) dont? Because, in general, women want to lose weight as theyre self-conscious, but men just want to be able to punch sharks? I dont particularly want to punch a shark myself, but losing weight was never solely about vanity for me. On that diet, I lost 23lbs (thats 10.4kg if youre reading in metric, or two Maine Coons if youre counting in cats), taking me down to a size 12. Sure, I did it because Id rather be sleek than lumpy, but I also want to be healthier (although this ceased to matter if I was feeling weak and there was some ham right there, within snatching distance, inside a sandwich). Im not that interested in drinking beer now (although, hello wine), but maybe I want to start a family one day. Or at least be able to stand up without saying oof . I didnt lose all the weight I wanted I stopped when I felt my brain starting to melt, still a stone or so o. Eating meals was weird and, after two months of powder, seemed like a terrible fa. I was also very unimpressed with how non-cute my poos suddenly were. But my friends were overjoyed that I was back on the normal stu. At my rst post-diet party, everyone kept handing me goldsh bowlsized cocktails and throwing canaps at my face. I did worry that I might launch my newly svelte body straight into a stack of Greggs pies, but this didnt happen. Partly because my stomach was roughly the dimensions of an acorn, and partly

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