Another Packet Of Cardboard

Days 32 & 33

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 5 pounds (201 lbs)

Three pounds lost in two days, but I’m only back where I was on Sunday morning, before the encounter with the Stroh rum, and still a pound heavier than a week ago before Jo’s birthday.

I’ve now reached the halfway stage of this diet and thankfully I see no parties, guests visiting or other diversions approaching before the big day, which the photographer has now confirmed – August 21st. She’s coming to take our family portrait and I’m determined not to let the side down.

It’s going to require an enormous effort to get over the next hurdle – 199 pounds. Yesterday’s picture on the beach confirms how far I have to go, and today I'm publishing another. My mother-in-law says Izzy and I are two peas in a pod – we certainly have the same profile and double chin. I can’t believe that my overweight face is 14 pounds smaller than it was a month ago – I was huge. I’ve promised to publish “before” and “after” pictures on the last page of this blog. I’ve selected the “before” one, and it’s hideous.

Speaking of peas in pods, I see thousands of them waiting to be picked and eaten in the vegetable garden, next to their broad bean friends. Dukan says peas and beans are off limits. I say life’s too short, but there's definitely no more risotto primavera for me. Perhaps use them in salads. The mizuna leaves are up and ready to pick: they'll join the baby spinach and beetroot, mustard greens and wild rocket in a wonderful green feast tonight. Perhaps a little wild halibut on the side, to keep Dr Dukan happy.

The last time I was 201 pounds was in 2003, when I first got my job running a big production company in Los Angeles. The city was so full of glamorous young things that I felt utterly ancient and overweight, so I decided on a diet – I just wanted to get down to a respectable 195 pounds.

That diet lasted precisely one day. The enormous portions and margueritas did it for me, and since then I’ve put on nearly two pounds a year until, back in LA the week before I started this, I was an absurd 219 pounds. So I suppose getting down to 2003 levels is already an achievement. But to do now what I couldn’t do back then? That’s going to be some uphill battle.

I'm going to take the dogs for a long walk, but first I'm going to make a steaming bowl of cardboard. I bought myself a shiny new packet of oatbran yesterday. It's taken me exactly a month to get through the last one. Hopefully this will be the last I ever need to buy.