One more day

Day 22  

Then: 220 pounds (15 stone 10 pounds) 
Now: 204 pounds (14 stone 8 pounds) 
Lost: 16 pounds (1 stone 2 pounds) 

There's now just one more day to the end of this diet. 

My target was to lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks.  I've more than achieved that: 16 pounds shed, and it seems to be holding firm, despite the wine of the Sunday lunch. 

In 48 hours we'll be on a plane to the wedding. Until then, I'm playing safe. This was my working lunch today: 

Working lunch

It was leftover chicken breasts from last night's meal, and some salad. Tomorrow, I'll be rushing around: I have to edit a programme, then come back to pack and do last minute preparations for the trip. 

I also have rows of potatoes to plant in the garden before we leave. Not that I have any plans to eat them: this diet has worked largely because of the lack of any bread, pasta or potatoes. But in August, when they are ready for harvesting, who knows how much I will weigh. And I wonder if the lure of homegrown baby potatoes, lifted straight from the ground and served dripping with butter, will get the better of me. I suspect so. 

Anyway, there's no pretending but the diet will be blown the moment we hit the plane on Wednesday morning. It's not just the airline food; it's the knowledge that we're about to indulged by my inlaws who will already have the red wine bottles opened ready for our arrival. But there'll be no guilt: one final light meal tomorrow and I'll be ready for anything California can throw at me.  In the meantime, one final weigh-in.  And the sweet smell of success.  Sugar free, of course.   

Feeling Virtuous

Day 15 

Then: 220 pounds (15 stones 10 pounds) 
Now: 208 pounds (14 stones 12 pounds) 
Lost: 12 pounds 

Today was a difficult day: morning on a train with free food. Lunch in my club in London. Dinner with my son and his fiancee in a pub. 

Today I am allowed a little alcohol for the first time in two weeks. I know - I've broken that rule four times. But hey, I'm human. 

And right now I'm feeling very virtuous. Because here's what I could have eaten today: 

• Breakfast on train (free) - full English, including 2 sausages, with extra toast, butter, marmalade and croissants, orange juice 
• Lunch - the pasta with salmon and cream looked really good 
• Early Supper (6pm) - my son had steak and chips, with extra ketchup, mayo and mustard. 
• Late supper on Train (9pm - free)- Gin and tonic, with crisps followed by Steak and stout pie and creamy mashed potato of course, and sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and Creme Fraiche. 

Here's what I actually ate: 

• Breakfast - porridge and black coffee 
• Lunch -
  
  
  
  poached haddock on a bed of green beans with tiny brown prawns and a tomato, spring onion and olive oil dressing 
• Supper - slices of rare roast beef with some salad. 

Here's a picture of me not eating the potatoes in the salad (there were more potatoes than salad:

• Late supper on train (free) - I didn't actually need this, but I hate turning down freebies, so I had Fillet of sea bass and broccoli. No potatoes or caper and lemon butter. Aren't I good? No - I had a glass of white wine. But I turned down three others - they positively pour it down you on the East Coast line. And then they kept offering me cheese.  Don't they understand how hard it is to say no?

Let's hope the scales appreciate my efforts at tomorrow's weigh-in.