Gluttony

Days 5-8

Then: 216 lbs (15 st 6 lbs)
Now: 214 lbs (15st 4 lbs)

This blog is temporarily suspended. Having had the disastrously delicious seafood linguine the other night (see the consequences this morning), I’ve just arrived at the Sharrow Bay Hotel in the Lake District for a gastronomic weekend. The restaurant here has had a Michelin star for the last 14 years and prides itself on its local fresh produce. Here’s a selection from tonight’s menu – all-inclusive:

Amuse-Bouche: pork and cheese terrine with chutney
FOLLOWED BY
Braised Pig’s Cheek, Sharrow Black pudding, Confit of the Belly and Apple Sauce
OR
Breast of Quail, Truffle Fettuccini, crispy Pancetta and Wild Mushroom Sauce
OR
Fried Calf's Liver on Pearl Barley with Wild Mushrooms and Madeira & Truffle Sauce
FOLLOWED BY
Mushroom Soup with white Truffle Oil
FOLLOWED BY
Fruit Sorbet
FOLLOWED BY
Roast Fillet of Angus Beef, Croquette of Oxtail, Shallot & Thyme Roesti, baby Vegetables, Pea Puree, and Red Wine Sauce
OR
Best End of local Lamb, Herb Brioche Crust, Cauliflower Gratin and Tomato & Rosemary Sauce
OR
Noisette of Venison with roast Butternut Squash puree, braised Red Cabbage, Apple & Raisin, Dauphinoise Potato and Brandy & Port Sauce
OR
Fillet of Sea Bass with wild Mushroom Fricassee, Parsnip Puree and Scallop Veloute
OR
Fillet of Cod with Shrimp Risotto, Seared Scallop and Noilly Prat & Lemon Sauce
FOLLOWED BY
Sticky Toffee Pudding served with Cream and Ice Cream
OR
Stem Ginger Souffle with Honey Sauce
FOLLOWED BY
A Selection of 10 British Cheeses

That’s five courses (or, alternatively, a 10 course tasting menu), including the dish reputedly invented here in 1948: Sticky Toffee Pudding. No pill on earth is going to compete with this. I will pick up the pieces on Wednesday: please join me then. Sorry, Dr Steve, it’s nothing personal.

Well, It's My Birthday...

Day 4

Then: 216 lbs (15 st 6 lbs)
Now: 212 lbs (15 st 2 lbs)


4 pounds in 3 days. Impressive, eh?

For my birthday dinner, I decided not to order a starter. You see, at lunchtime we’d all gone out (the all being my little production team) to a great little Italian bar in Newcastle called Caffé Vivo. I decided we’d just have starters and no mains. But, the menu was so tempting we ordered every one on the menu, and bowls of risotto, creamy polenta, meats and salads, baked parmesan custard with anchovy toast, black truffle Tagliatelle, and… well, it’s my birthday, I kept saying. How long can this excuse go on? Lunch lasted three hours.

It was only a few hours later that I went with the two Mrs Gutteridges in my life to another Italian favourite to have the main course. “No starter for me”, I said to everyone’s surprise. Mum’s jaw dropped in disappointment. “I had an Italian starter at lunchtime”, I said. Actually, I’d had ten.

The waiters liked that it was my birthday. So they unlocked the secret wine cupboard. It lies behind the bar, full of special off-menu vintages for special clients and special occasions. Well, it was my birthday, wasn’t it?

The 2005 Turriga is the most powerful, mellow Sardinian red. A giant gobletful sat in front of me with a steaming bowl of my favourite seafood linguine – my first real carbs for three days. The pasta was buttery and divine, the wine beyond description – it’s a great vintage. A perfect birthday meal.

The other great vintage in the room, Mum, who’s 91 later this month, comes from the school which teaches that no proper meal is complete without a good dessert. She absolutely insisted we had creamy passion fruit pavlova, and the restaurant, which claims that no meal is complete without a good tiramisu, brought me one of those as well with a lit sparkler and a group of waiters singing Happy Birthday. A glass of prosecco and another of limoncello and I was sitting happy as a Buddha – stomach restored to its pre-diet glory. And to cap it all, I completely forgot to take my capsule before the meal. I remembered at midnight as I stumbled into bed.

All my good work undone, tomorrow’s weigh-in is bound to be a disaster.

An Apology, An Award, and An Analysis

Day 3

Then: 216lbs (15 st 6 lbs)
Now: 213lbs (15 st 3 lbs)


I owe the lovely people at Northern Stage an apology. Yesterday I said that their banquet fare was likely to be “wholesome and filling” – in other words, completely inappropriate for my diet. In fact, it was the opposite, and quite outstanding.

We had rare pigeon breast on a little watercress salad, followed by succulent cod and then a tiny little cube of chocolate cake. I avoided the roast potatoes.

Unfortunately what I didn’t avoid was the pile of wine bottles on the table. After two days of abstinence I attacked both red and white – it was almost my birthday, after all. Later, in a haze, I remember a lot of applause and the artistic director awarding me a medal for services to the theatre – it was made of chocolate. At midnight everyone around me sang Happy Birthday. Well, I think it was for me. What a great evening.

We are so lucky to have this great professional theatre company in our city. Jo and I were seated next to Samuel West who’s directing their new production of the geordie classic Close the Coalhouse Door. Sam is the son of our two national treasures Timothy West and Prunella Scales. I was pleased to see that he likes red wine almost as much as I do. We were probably calling everyone darling by the end of the night.  The entire region can't wait to see what he will do with our most loved local play.

I wonder if my jolly mood has been partly engendered by these diet capsules? They contain Siberian rhodiola rosea root extract, which, according to Dr Steve, was included to lift my mood, which in turn would reduce my food cravings. I’ve certainly been content with smaller portions (hence my avoidance of the potato bowl at the dinner, which is normally vulnerable to wholesale pillaging once I’ve started drinking red wine). Earlier on breakfast was just a small bowl of porridge, and lunch a dry salad with a single slice of ham. But despite this alarming reduction in my food intake, I’ve noticed an uncommon sense of calm since I started taking the pills. Even though I’ve just become 60 (for it is now Thursday), I still feel relaxed rather than depressed.

Indeed, if I begin to analyse my feelings I’d say I’m feeling distinctly mellow, even a bit spaced out. Jo says I’m hyper. Maybe I’m just hungover.

Only prolonged use will tell what effect, if any, these pills are having. Unlike the nightmare Dukan Diet, there are no bad consequences so far, except that I suspect the pills may be having a diuretic effect. I won’t elaborate, though this result may be due to two days of replacing wine with copious amounts of water. Who cares? I’m 3 pounds lighter after just a couple of days. Hurrah: so far so thinner.

A Whole Pound

Day 2

Then: 216lbs (15 st 6 lbs)
Now: 215 lbs (15 st 5 lbs)


When Jo decided to return us to the world of Californian hippie cuisine last night, with her satisfying dinner of tofu, chickpeas and amaranth seed parmigiano, I doubt she suspected that one unfortunate consequence would be acute indigestion.

Having both been up all night (Jo in not inconsiderable pain), by the morning we both agreed that the culprit was the amaranth, and consigned the remainder of the packet to the trash bin. I wonder if 60s communes had similar problems?  It must be tough to spread peace and love with heartburn. So as an antidote, tonight we ate meat: delicious spicy turkey breasts, on a bed of even more spicy kale.

Jo is a really good spontaneous cook. Whereas I learnt my skills in Raymond Blanc’s butter-and-cream-filled kitchen, and so find it impossible to cook anything without an ocean of accompanying high calory sauce, Jo has a natural instinct for amalgamating fresh, Mediterranean ingredients in increasingly interesting but light combinations. Tonight's meal was delicious.

This was our last healthy dinner for a couple of days: tomorrow we’re guests at the annual black-tie dinner of our local theatre company Northern Stage - it's always wholesome fare but very filling - and on Thursday no diet will stop me indulging in birthday seafood linguine at my favourite Italian restaurant. So today was our Healthy Day (we forwent wine again to give us a clear run at tomorrow night's festivities).

The day started well with the surprising revelation that after 24 hours of taking the RealDose tablets, and despite the huge portion of lasagne and chips, I’d lost an entire pound.  Now any dietician will tell you this is irrelevant nonsense – the body gains and loses several pounds in a day – but it didn’t half cheer up my very sleep-deprived mood as I took Izzy down for breakfast. I had a RealDose capsule, followed by two lightly boiled eggs. We were supposed to have one each, but Izzy scorned hers, instead opting for the twin brother of the blueberry muffin I’d devoured the previous evening. It sat on the table in front of her as she slowly crumbled it, holding it tantalizingly directly under my nose. But I didn’t succumb, instead turning my back and focusing on the exploits of Peppa Pig on the television. Daddy Pig was eating a large donut: “Mmm, delicious”, he kept snorting.  He would have made a great bacon sandwich to go with my eggs.

Jo and I were working in the office together today, and at lunchtime she prepared a wonderful salad with smoked mackerel and salmon, dressed simply with balsamic and olive oil. It was like being back in Sweden, except with bigger portions. Swedish people are universally thin, by the way, largely because they eat only very tiny mouthfuls of quite delicious, simple food. By far the best restaurant in St Lucia, we discovered, is a place called The Edge which is owned by a charming and very talented Swedish chef called Bobo Bergstrom. His portions are tiny, but utterly exquisite – the antithesis of the other fine dining establishments on the island. He calls his cuisine 'Eurobbean', which I initially thought was a new type of coffee, until I realise it was a clever fusion of European and Caribbean. He does great sushi too – I guess he'd call that Japabbean.

Maybe I should register a name for Jo's lovely style of cooking.  How about Hippy-Cali-talian?.  Sounds like a song from Mary Poppins. 

Guilty Pleasures

Day 1

Then: 216 lbs (15 st 6 lbs)

I crawled out of bed this morning feeling like lead. Izzy has been suffering from a virus all week that causes coughing and tears at odd moments throughout the night. We’ve taken it in turns to go to her and pour out sympathy and linctus. Poor little love, she’s bearing up with her smiles even when she can hardly draw breath from all the wheezing.  Jo has taken the brunt of it, as I was in Stockholm most of the week, eating cured salmon and smoked reindeer, so last night I felt obliged to take my fair share of sleeplessness. 

As I had a 9am meeting in town, we set the alarm early and I vowed to make myself a nice tasteless bowl of Dr Dukan’s cardboard (see my 2010 posts for the recipe) to kick off this diet. After a sleepless night, what I really wanted was a nice big chunk of toast oozing with salty butter and smothered with marmalade. But having slammed the alarm’s snooze button five times, I realised I had time only for Weetabix.

Dukan wouldn’t have approved of the carbs and milk, but the good doctor Sisskind is marvelously tolerant. He’d like you to follow his guidelines, and really hates processed cereals, but he isn’t proscriptive or dogmatic. Bearing in mind the agony of the 2010 diet experiment, where I had to turn a shade of grey-green before Jo made me see sense and start eating properly, this time I’m doing my own thing. I’m starting without bread or other white starchy products, potatoes or heavy carbs. I’m certainly not giving up wine – although I aim to abstain just twice a week, starting with tonight. Well, this was the plan. Unfortunately the day had other ideas.

The theory behind these little pills is fascinating. According to the blurb, they have four key ingredients.

The first two work to increase the body’s supply of adiponectin, the hormone that makes your fat cells burn fat for energy and which also decreases the body’s ghrelin levels. I was so sleepy, I didn’t really feel I needed any energy this morning, so there probably wasn't that much for the first two ingredients to do.  These were piper betle leaf and dolichos biflorus seed extracts.  Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for making people hungry. I guess I am ghrelin-dependent.

The next key ingredient is a sugar blocker. It’s a green coffee bean extract which is supposed to prevent carbohydrates from turning into fat. Let’s hope it works on Weetabix. Apparently it works by inhibiting glucose absorption, which helps reduce insulin resistance, the reason why people turn whatever they eat into fat.

Together all these ingredients are supposed to more than double your fat loss during a diet. To this cocktail of slimming elixir, they have added one more ingredient: Siberian rhodiola rosea, which attacks cortisol. In other words, it’s a stress buster. It’s certainly the case that the happier I am the less I eat, and that any form of anxiety usually takes its remedy in Green & Black’s chocolate ice cream. The label having been read, in went the first little brown capsule, and half an hour later the Weetabix. My diet was on its way.

Why the name RealDose? Because Dr Sisskind believes that it’s important that ingredients are sourced from the same places and used in precisely the same doses as in human studies which lie behind the science. It’s a strong marketing idea. How will it fare when faced by a man with absolutely no willpower whatsoever? Watch this space over the next few weeks.

Lunchtime came and in went another pill. Unfortunately the location was a little “greasy spoon” café we found in a gap between two very stressful meetings. The menu was limited to say the least. My colleagues had chilli, rice and chips. I had lasagna and chips. I think the other choice was chicken curry and chips - we are in the north east of England, after all.  The chips were soggy, dripping with fat, and totally delicious.  I am admitting all this with no small amount of contrition: my diet was derailed almost before it had begun.

After two hours of pitching to prospective clients and a 60 mile drive home, I arrived exhausted and starving.  That's my excuse for grabbing a fresh, soft, juicy blueberry muffin which was seductively waving at me from the kitchen table.  The guilt only hit me as I picked up the last crumb.  I generously threw it at Truffle and Mabel, who were sitting at my feet with doggy tongues hanging out.  This diet is going to be a long, tough journey.

Later Jo came to the rescue with an extraordinarily inventive vegetarian meal. She, too, is losing weight, but without the help of the piper betle leaf. Instead, she has vowed to eat just healthy, wholesome food.

Tonight she prepared butternut squash roasted with thyme and olive oil, which had been combined with chickpeas and juliennes of courgettes, lemon zest sautéed in garlic and chilli. On the side lay, eccentrically, a mound of cooked amaranth seed.  Amaranth is full of protein, apparently, and is really quite tasty when cooked with spring onions (which Jo still calls scallions) and a little parmesan.  Sitting atop this feast was a slab of fresh tofu, marinated with fresh ginger, lemon juice, and Jo's magic ingredient, Braggs Amino Acid (a more healthy alternative to soy sauce).  The tofu had been fried in garlic oil and finished with thin slices of fresh red chilli.

By now, the lasagna and chips were long forgotten: though I suspect I’ll remember them only too well when I weigh myself tomorrow morning. I wonder how much today's excesses will have added to my waistline.  Oh dear.  Let's hope Izzy sleeps through the night.

A (Far Too) Big Birthday

Day -1

Now: 216lbs (15st 6 lbs)

I do hope this wretched week crawls by. In fact, I’ll be quite happy if Thursday doesn’t bother turning up at all. I’d like it to be Wednesday 1st February for quite a few years – until my brain has caught up with my age, that is. For on Thursday I’m due to reach the terrible milestone that marks the beginning of my sixties.

Why on earth do we pretend to celebrate big birthdays? They take years off your life. On my 40th, I took over a Russian restaurant in Chelsea and about 100 friends and I sampled every one of the 76 vodkas in the bar. I don’t remember a lot about what followed. Apparently we all decamped to my flat at four in the morning. I woke up at midday to find that my friend Rowland Rivron had spilt black coffee all over the white shagpile carpet and upended every item of furniture, including the wardrobes and the grand piano. It took me a week to recover; the carpet never did.

My 50th was rather less wild but just as exhausting. Having discovered a talent for cooking, I decided to cater my own dinner party for 100 friends and family. It was a complicated four-course meal, so I spent most of the evening in the kitchen searing scallops. It was stressful beyond belief. Rowland was there again: but by now he was married with children, so he simply made a rude speech about how ancient I’d become. Time tempers the wildest spirit. Since my 40th birthday I've managed to add a pound to my weight for each year of my indolent, exercise-free life. 

I read somewhere that having another child in your fifties makes you feel younger. Sure, I’ve rediscovered the joys of jigsaws, and I can recite whole episodes of Peppa Pig, but since Izzy arrived, I can’t say it’s been exactly rejuvenating. Constant toddler-carrying hasn’t removed my middle-aged spread, instead it’s given me a permanent twinge that feels suspiciously like a need for a hip replacement.

Two parcels arrived this morning and I groaned: people are already remembering the event I’m determined to ignore. The first was from my eldest daughter, with strict instructions not to open till “the big day”. Of course I immediately tore it open.

Inside was a book called “The 4-Hour Work Week: How to Escape the 9-5 and Join the New Rich”. It’s a best-seller, apparently – no wonder the author can enjoy a 4-Hour Work Week. I immediately resolved to write a book called “Do No Work At All And Make A Million.” Chapter One: Write book called “Do No Work At All And Make A Million”. Chapter Two: Wait for royalty cheques and put your feet up.

The second package turned out to be three small jars of pills, sent to me by a very nice chap I met on holiday. He’s a doctor: well he has a medical degree and he’s using the qualification to make himself a fortune. He’s invented some new diet product that’s getting people excited in America. Of course, I offered to test it for him: if you’d seen me on the beach in St Lucia, you’ll know why. Talk about scaring the locals.

It’s called RealDose Weight Loss Formula No 1 and the label says it has ingredients clinically proven to “Accelerate fat burning, Reduce appetite, Increase energy and stamina and Enhance mood”. Now we’re talking.

In truth, there’s a tiny asterisk next to each claim that leads to some small print warning that “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.” Well, they’re about to be evaluated by me.

A couple of years ago I started this blog and lost 20 pounds in 64 days. Then I had a target: my wife had booked a photographer to take a family album.  The pictures of a 195-pound me bedeck the house, like images of some distant and long-lost cousin.

The weight took quite a while to return.  Indeed I entered 2011 at just a little over 200 pounds.  A year later I've added back all I lost.  That's why I have no photographs of me on the beach in St Lucia, but plenty of the svelte Dr Steven Sisskind and his delightful family.

Over dinner one night I offered to test out his formula and Steve agreed to send me three months' supply.  I'll start taking the pills tomorrow morning:  one before each meal.  Although I doubt I can lose ten years by Thursday, or even 10 ounces, I've set myself some rules.  I'm cutting out potatoes, bread and ice cream.  Everything else stays as normal.  I shall weigh myself each day.  And I shall be honest.

It's going to be difficult for the first week.  On Wednesday I have a black tie banquet to attend; on Thursday nothing will stop me enjoying a large bowl of birthday seafood pasta and a large bottle of Sardinian wine in my favourite Italian restaurant;  and this weekend Jo and I are going to spend two nights in a Lake District hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant.  Heavy rain is forecast:  there will be nothing to do but eat the most wonderful gourmet food.  So I doubt Dr Sisskind's diet pills will have much effect for a while.  But over time I hope we'll win through together, and on May 1st I shall post a new picture.  Wish us luck. 

Picture Perfect: The Last Post

Day 64

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215lbs)
Now: 13 stone 13 pounds (195 lbs)

Well, it’s actually far from perfect, but rather better than I looked two months and 20 pounds ago. Here’s the proof:


It was a close run finish. Dr Dukan always conceded that followers of his diet regime might need a little wholewheat to get the system moving from time to time. He’s not kidding. I rather panicked at the last moment because I weighed myself last night and was still well over a pound short of the target. I suspected this was because of the constipation caused by my relentless diet of morning cardboard (see recipe in an earlier posting) and dry lunchtime chicken. However much fresh garden salad I consumed, nothing shifted the bloating.

So I opened my first loaf of bread since June and it did its stuff within half an hour. Sorry to be so basic, but they say blogs should be truthful – and some of you have shared this journey with me for the whole 64 days, and I've had several emails from people who've been inspired to join the regime. Good luck to you all.

As the photographer arrived I weighed in at 195.4 lbs. This is the lightest I’ve been since I was going out with Anneka Rice in the mid-90s. Even then Ms Rice complained about my weight (in fairness, during the relationship I had expanded from 185 pounds, which was, and is, my “true weight” for my height and build). I remember her saying one morning, rather cruelly, but I confess accurately, that I was looking pregnant: this, just as I got out of the bath. That could well have been the beginning of the end.

I began a diet that day, but failed as miserably as I have in subsequent attempts, including the one where Michael Grade and I competed with the Controller of BBC1 and sent each other cakes and messages to try and put each other off. I’ve described that journey, and my failed 2008 attempt to emulate it, in another post.

Alright, a more cynical reader, or indeed an ex-girlfriend, might point out that I look as pregnant now as I did then, but I do feel that my Dukant diet has been a resounding success. I genuinely feel better, lighter, healthier and everything else I promised myself. More importantly, I’m proud of my family snaps, the first of which is published here and more of which will appear later this week on Blog From The North.

They were a nightmare to shoot. The talented photographer, Pam Hordon, was an angel. Unlike Izzy, who had no desire to be part of the polite and formal family group shot that Jo and I had envisaged. She insisted on sprinting round the garden instead of sitting quietly on my lap. Thus the “sitting” became a running.

The shoot reminded me of a film I made about the Walton Sextuplets, which included a photo session with Lord (Patrick) Lichfield attempting to take a family portrait in a formal garden on their second birthday (here's one of the more successful pictures which has been scanned onto a fanzine site). The shoot was a glorious nightmare, with Lichfield waving a little bird at them, which they all studiously ignored. Just as he was set to take the picture, one of the six would run off into the distance. Miraculously, Patrick managed to get all six looking at the camera at the same time, and the Waltons were far better behaved than Izzy. It was fortunate that Pam was more than a match for her.

The pictures show a leaner, more sprightly man than before: still just as old, of course, but perhaps more ready to enjoy the next round of fatherhood with my beautiful young wife and my gorgeous, if rather exhausting, daughter.

Thank you for following this blog to this, its final chapter. I shall be attempting to remain at this weight for some time, despite Dr Dukan’s exhortations for me to carry on down to my “true weight”. Jo doesn't want me to carry on: she thinks I'm just fine as I am (or maybe she just wants her life back). My appetite wants me to be a stone bigger.

If Dukan prevails, and I lose even more than I have to date, I may update this blog: I will have consumed an awful lot of oatbran by then. If he does not, as seems more likely (judging by the large bacon cheeseburger I had just half an hour after this photograph was taken and the seafood linguine I'm preparing for supper tonight), this will be my final word on the last moments of my ex-waistline. But you may catch the occasional visual clue on Blog From The North. I look forward to welcoming you there.

Not All Fat Ladies Are Pregnant

Day 63


Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 0 pounds (196 lbs)

I have a terrible confession about a major weakness of mine – a paranoia, even. I can spot a close acquaintance on the other side of the street and, mid-hail, will stop myself from saying his name – just in case I’ve confused him for someone else.

So, to avoid potential embarrassment, I utter a strangulated “Hi there” and wait for him to acknowledge me. Often confirmation of the person’s true identity takes several minutes. I can’t just say “How’s Dorothy?”, or “Are you still with the Gas Board?”, just in case my friend isn’t the friend I think he is, or isn’t married to the right person, or in the right job. So I tend to come out with phrases like “How are things?” and wait for a clue in his reply to reassure myself that I’m both talking to the correct person and that I really do know what he does, who he lives with and all the other essentials to ensure safe ongoing discourse.

This long established fear of awkwardness and humiliation would keep a psychotherapist in new couches for life, I’m sure. Something in my childhood, some terrible mortification long hidden behind a mask of uncertainty, will have prompted this terrible discomfort. My two years of therapy in California failed to grapple with it: I had bigger skeletons from my past to uncover.

In the 1980s I made the world’s worst talk show producer because I could never recognise any of the guests. I once told a well-known artist in the Groucho Club how much I liked his movies. He replied “I like Lindsay Anderson’s work too, but sadly I’m not him”. I was so distraught, he sketched a portrait of me which he gave me “to remind me who I am”.

So, as a result of this perverse obsession with identity, I’ve always been very careful about what I say to anyone. Most of all, I keep quiet about their appearance. I’ve even stopped saying how well people look since a former work colleague whom I did recognise (also in the Groucho Club) revealed, after receiving my congratulations on his slim physique, that he’d just been diagnosed with cancer. Sadly I read that he died last Sunday.

So imagine my surprise when three people in the last 24 hours have had the courage to come straight up to me and declare, bold as brass, how much weight I’ve lost. I’m full of admiration – for them, not me. I’d be too scared to say that to anyone for fear of the consequences. But why only three, and why in the last 24 hours, when I’ve been hovering around this weight for a week and a half? Maybe they are secret readers of this very blog?

Tomorrow I’m going to wear a big badge with “The Diet Is Over – yes, I’ve lost nearly 2 stone - you can congratulate me”. But first the photographs: so I can carry the proof forever.

The Final Hurdle

Day 58

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 0 pounds (196 lbs)

One pound and one week to go. Next Saturday Jo, Izzy and I have our family portrait taken and, if things go to plan and I don’t suddenly rediscover the joys of cappuccinos and ice cream, I should have hit my target weight of 195 pounds. When I’m dead and buried, this is how Izzy will remember me.

Yesterday my friend Justin asked me the question I’m refusing to think about: what happens next?

Well, at the moment I can’t think beyond Newcastle United’s first home game of the season, next Sunday, when I hope to be sitting in the bar with a steak and kidney pie, chips and a pint of Grolsch. Except that, after two months of abstinence, I know that will just make me feel ill – even if we beat Aston Villa, which is a most unlikely event. Jo has organised a little celebration with friends after the game at our favourite Chinese restaurant – noodles and rice have been banned along with everything else I really enjoy in life and I’m really looking forward to Mango’s fried pork dumplings and steamed scallops and prawns.

The question is, how much of this diet will continue, and where will my weight be a month or two from now? The short answer is, I don’t really know. But one thing is clear: I’m enjoying this new body. I actually feel rather more alive than I did two months ago; I don’t huff and puff climbing stairs or hills; I am more confident in my clothes.

I’m still a whole 14 pounds off my so-called (called by Dr Dukan) “real” weight, but Jo says she doesn’t want to be married to an old wrinkly. At the moment I'm gently gliding down by just a pound or two a week - I doubt this will continue.

So I’ve set myself a new target: I intend to stay below 200 pounds forever. Quite how I achieve this once my taste buds come across all the banned substances again, I don’t know. But I may well keep up the cardboard breakfasts, and even have the ghastly roast chicken-only lunches from time to time. And I shall certainly keep weighing myself – not daily, as I have been for two months, but weekly. And I’ll publish the weight in my other blog, www.blogfromthenorth.com, where today I’ve posted a more extensive version of the Size 34 jeans saga I shared with you earlier in the week. Jo and I went to Gap on Thursday and I bought dozens of Large (not Extra Large!) shirts and a couple of pairs of new jeans. It was a most satisfying feeling, quite worth all the pain of the last two months.

And to keep me motivated there will be the evidence, the Before and After photographs. I’ll be posting them as soon as the photographer sends me the evidence. And they’ll sit on this site forever, as a permanent reminder of how I was, how I became and, hopefully, how I’ll never look again.

Dusting Off The Old

Day 49

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 1 pound (197 lbs)

Oh so close. I can’t wait to announce that I’ve dropped below the 14 stone barrier for the first time since – oh, at least the 1990s. Today I accidentally pulled on a pair of Armani jeans that were minding their own business in the bottom of a drawer. They were size 34, which I haven’t been able to squeeze into since I went to the United States in 2000.

Sadly these were jeans I must have bought sometime in the eighties. They had a tight crotch and thighs and flares. Jo was singularly unimpressed when I showed them off in the garden. “Take them off immediately and throw them away” was her command. “And promise me you’ll never, ever, wear them out in public – not even when you buy the newspapers.”

Later I tried a whole host of other trousers and jackets which have been languishing unloved in the wardrobe for years. They all fit perfectly now. But they all look absolutely terrible.

This is a bitter disappointment. I’d kept them all, like bits of old electrical equipment, mobile phones, sockets and spare lightbulbs for redundant fittings, along with keys for long-forgotten doors and several dozen battered curtain rings, because I’d always hoped that one day they might come in useful again. Similarly, I’ve always believed that my unrelenting expansion was going to be reversible. But it’s been so many years, so many seasons… maybe the 80s will become fashionable again. Perhaps in 2020?

Now it's time for the weekend festivities: in my version of the DuKant diet, the YuKan, I'm allowed pretty much what I like at the weekend. So it's off to the pub for steak (no chips) and a nice glass of Chateauneuf du Pape. And we'll see what the damage is on Monday.

Weekend Blues

Day 44

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 4 pounds (200 lbs)

Thanks to a weekend of excess (potatoes, several glasses of wine, even an ice cream) the dizziness has evaporated. Not so my stomach, which put on three pounds.

As the guilt struck, I reread my last post. So I do have an excuse, but I feel overstuffed and hungover: in fact, positively human again.

Back to the cardboard on Monday. And definitely no alcohol till next Friday night. Which will then leave me just two weeks before the big day.

The Incredible Shrinking Hulk

Day 42

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 1 pound (197 lbs)

I fainted in the garden this morning. I was inspecting the labels on some of my bushes and all I did was stand up; suddenly the world started spinning. I sat down quickly on the grass and after a few seconds the plants slowed down and stopped. Then, when I lifted myself back up, this time more gently, it happened again: we have a circular lawn and the bushes round the edge spun like a top.

This is not a pleasant side effect of this diet – assuming that’s what’s causing it. I guess it’s all I deserve, having had virtually no sugar or fats for the last 42 days. Sure, I’ve lost 18 pounds (in fact, it's 22 pounds since I first went to Los Angeles just 7 weeks ago), but I’m now wondering what it’s doing to my health.

Jo was very worried when I told her, so I met up with her for a very early lunch at Fratelli’s, our favourite Italian. She said I was obviously in dire need of complex carbs, not just moist card (which, in the form of oatbran, was all I've been eating every morning). I immediately ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio, which usually cures most of my ills, and by the time that had kicked in, a large plate of chicken stew arrived, with Italian sausage and those most complex of carbs, borlotti beans. Izzy had penne with tomato sauce, and they brought Jo a flattened sirloin steak, coated in breadcrumbs alla Milanese, which I think the chef must have thought was for me, as it filled the entire plate.

That jolly meal soon had me right as summer rain, but, at Jo’s insistence, I made an appointment next week to see our doctor: she says I have to check my blood's pressure and sugar level. She also says I'm looking green again - perhaps I'm anaemic. I've bought a packet of Multibionta 50+ probiotic multivitamin pills ("For Today's Hectic Lifestyles"). Frankly, right now this 50+ doesn't feel like doing anything hectic. After the Pinot Grigio, a long afternoon snooze is what he really needs.

I knew this diet would ultimately do me no good. But I’m pleased that I’m just a couple of pounds off my final (initial) target. Even if I may not actually survive till August 21st. Or if I do, the photographer may have to correct the colour of my portrait to take away the green hue. Hopefully by then that'll be my only resemblance to the Incredible Hulk.

Me and Tony Soprano

Day 41

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 2 pounds (198 lbs)

Last night I was browsing through the special wallet I keep for my trips to America (I have a whole different set of credit cards and a few dollars in case I have to jet off to the States at short notice), when out popped Tony Soprano. He stood there, redfaced and stern, with his heavy double-chin-bedecked red neck, daring you to look him in the eyes. A terrifying sight, this large heavy set monster was clearly a product of too much Barolo and meatballs. The photograph was on a laminated card that read: California Driver License.

The photograph, taken in August 2004, stood above a notice that I needed prescription glasses and had grey hair (did they really have to rub it in? Why not just print “Description: Old Fat English Bloke”). It also stated my precise weight at that time: 208 pounds. I smiled – that’s ten pounds heavier than I am right now.

Then I couldn’t get the picture of Soprano out of my mind. Well, not him exactly, but the pasta that went with the meatballs that caused the man's double chin. I have a huge craving for Fratelli’s homemade linguini - it's the first place I'm visiting the day this diet finishes. At least I have only 23 days to last. That’s assuming I don’t murder anyone in the meantime: God, this diet has put me in a bad mood.

Right now Jo is sitting opposite me in the office eating a takeaway curry from Rasa, my favourite Indian restaurant in the world. I can smell the spiced calories drifting across the room. Meanwhile I'm having a plain two-egg omelette and a small mountain of dry roast chicken. I hate her. This morning she issued me with a warning: don’t let your face get too thin. Apparently there’s nothing less sexy than a wrinkly neck.

Now there’s a dilemma: how do you lose weight without wrinkling? The Dukan book provides no solutions. Does anyone have any ideas?

Summer Days Drifting Away

Day 40

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 2 pounds (198 lbs)

Last night we roasted 2 poussin with paprika and slices of Iberico ham on the breasts to keep them moist. When they were cooked, we sat them on a bed of wild rocket and let the warmth of the birds do the wilting and their juices act as a dressing.

Beside them, we heaped a stirfry of sweet peppers, bok choi and spicy mustard leaves, with thick slivers of garlic and hot dried chilli crumbled into the oil. We used peanut oil with some Mirin – Japanese rice wine – and a splash of dark soy. A spoonful of minted peas blanched straight from the pod, and long thin whole baby carrot soldiers, with green stalks cropped like Mohican haircuts. Garnishing the dish, a row of baked cherry tomatoes still on the vine, dotted with a mist of balsamic.

We looked at the plates, kaleidoscopic in their various textures, colours and flavours and we thought: there’s only one thing this meal needs. So, for perfection's sake, and indifferent to the rules of the diet, we poured two glasses of cold, fragrant, dry pink Sancerre. The ultimate meal for a summer’s evening.

And still the scales show two pounds lost since yesterday: that’s 17 pounds in 40 days. Where will this end? Only 3 pounds to go now to my primary target of 195 pounds – and still 3 weeks before the dreaded photograph.

I think I will soon have a dilemma: when to stop? How thin can a chap get?

My Vegetable Garden

Day 39

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 4 pounds (200 lbs)

My vegetable garden has been supplying all our needs for over six weeks now, and should carry on doing so until the first frosts of winter.

Here’s what the raised beds are currently producing (from bottom left, clockwise)

1
Red Onions
Shallots
White Onions

2
Bok Choi
Chioggia Beet
Red Beet
Radishes: French & English
Oak Leaf Lettuce
Lettuce Sansula
Lollo Rossa (for July/August)
Lamb’s Lettuce
Arugula
Red Leaf Amaranth
Strawberries: Royal Sovereign

3
Courgettes
Carrots
Spring Onions
Wild Rocket
Maris Piper Potatoes

4
Potatoes: Arran Pilot & Charlotte
Spinach
Lollo Rossa (for August/September)
Little Gem (Cos) Lettuce

5
Peas
Leeks

6
Broad Beans
Runner Beans
French Beans
Parsnips

7
Red Beets
White Beets
Golden Beets
Red Purslane
Mustard Greens: Pizzo, Red Giant and Homiz
Persian Cress
Purple Mizuna

Then, at the back of the picture against the wall, you can see the soft fruit area, with:

Blackcurrants
Redcurrants
Whitecurrants
Gooseberries
Raspberries
Apples
Pears

and, at the back, under the dovecote, is the herb parterre, which, as well as a lot of bindweed, is home to:

Parsley (French, Italian and Curly)
Origamo
Marjoram
Greek Sage
Purple Sage
Lovage
Sorrel
Coriander
Chives
Salad Burnet
Fennel
Dill
Basil and numerous different Mints
Bay, numerous Thymes

Also, in the main garden, I’m growing artichokes, bay and rosemary (and about a dozen different thymes as well as camomile and some mints, and in the orchard we have Cox, Braeburn, Worcester and Bramley apples, various pears and, best of all, three whole treesful of juicy Victoria plums, which should be fully ripened by the end of my diet.


So, Dr Dukan, I’m afraid the “vegetables every other day and no fruit at all” programme just isn’t going to work for me. Not this year, at least.

This Little Lamb Didn't Die In Vain

Day 38

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 4 pounds (200 lbs)

Yesterday we had more farm-to-table food for Sunday lunch. The only thing that travelled further than the journey from our garden was a leg of a new season lamb, which involuntarily baaed its way from a farm in Great Whittington, just over the hill.

To accompany it, we had a range of different baby leaves (mizuna, cress, various mustards and rockets), Arran Pilot potatoes, baby red beets and white beets, baby courgettes, peas and the first of the new broad bean crop. We draped the banquet with a lamb jus made with our own mint.

The meal was unbeatable. We felt we had to toast it with another bottle of red wine.

And I was still only 200 pounds by Monday morning.

Tears Before Suppertime

Days 37

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 4 pounds (200 lbs)


Yesterday I revealed exclusive details of my YuKan diet. In it I confessed that weekends operate on slightly different rules than weekdays, particularly on Saturday nights.

This week, our idea of a date night was to go to the cinema to see Toy Story 3. Like all grown men, apparently, I blubbed incoherently into my popcorn throughout the last five minutes. It was too embarrassing to repeat the story here, but if you want to have a laugh at my expense, I have bared all on my latest Blog From The North.

We sought solace, red-eyed, in a local restaurant called Blackfriars. It’s probably the first really good English food we’ve had in the north east since we moved here three and a half years ago. They make great claims about it being “farm to table”: in other words, all their produce is locally grown - they have a map of the farms that supply them on every table.

That’s all very well if the chef can cook. Almost every restaurant in the region makes similar claims: but as far as I can make out almost none of their chefs know how to handle their ingredients. The food comes out as mangled and tasteless as if it had travelled from Brighton.

Not so the team at Blackfriars. It was, quite simply (and I’m aware this sounds like a terrible foody cliché) intelligently, competently and sensitively prepared with outstandingly fresh ingredients. I had queen scallops and the freshest sea bass (they called it rock bass, but I thought that only came from North American lakes); Jo had chicken with morels in a superb broth. Then we both had puddings – yes, puddings. Oh, and a huge Super-Tuscan red from Villa Antinori. That was to get over the movie.

And still only a pound added by the morning.

The YuKan Diet: The Proof Is In The (Lack Of) Pudding

Day 36

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 3 pounds (199 lbs)

Back on target. I'm in celebration mode, because my biggest personal milestone is now past me – the 200 pound barrier.

I haven’t been this light since – well, I actually can’t remember the last time. Funnily enough, despite the loss, and palpable changes to my physique, I still feel somewhat overweight. Just as I did in LA back in 2002 when I wanted to get down to 185 pounds. So maybe Dukan is right, and my true weight is still another stone away. But I shall be very, very happy if I lose another 5 pounds over the next couple of weeks.

The deadline coincides with Newcastle United’s home game of the season, against Aston Villa. My season tickets arrived in the post this morning. I shall have beer at half time and meet up with Jo afterwards at Fratelli's for some seafood linguini and a bottle of Sardinian wine. What a celebration that will be!

Progress is likely to be slow till then, because I’ve now adapted Dukan to my own lifestyle. Whereas he forces you to live like an antisocial hermit for two or three months, I don’t want to lose either my life or my wife. So here are the rules I've been using over the last few weeks:

Breakfast – always one plate of cardboard (see earlier posts for recipe) and either an egg (boiled or poached) or a fruit fat-free yoghurt. One slice of wholemeal bread every two days.

Snack – none. Don’t even think about it.

Lunch –
Weekdays (in the office): Tesco chicken, served cold so you want as little as possible. Yoghurt (but you can only have two per day because of the fruit sugar content).
Weekends: large plate of smoked salmon, or trout, or any lean meat, with a mound of delicious garden salad and a light lemony or balsamic dressing OR
1 Craster Kipper, grilled, and a grilled tomato with basil and balsamic.

6pm Snack – yoghurt if you haven’t already had two (see above).

Dinner –
Weekdays: Any fish, or lean meat, cooked simply with as much salad or vegetables as you like. Potatoes every third day.
Weekends: Saturday OR Friday night: whatever you like, even a light dessert. But no chips or fried food, curry or chinese food, though you can now have new potatoes in moderation (3 small ones per meal). If in a restaurant, go for chicken or fish – no pork, lamb or fatty cut of beef. Always order sauces on the side (you can taste and even dunk, but don't let your food go swimming). One glass of red wine each night. Half a bottle if you’ve something to celebrate. Don't feel guilty - ever.

Sunday lunch: as per weekday evenings, with either half a pint of beer or a glass of red wine. No dessert.

All I know is, this compromise (YUKAN) diet is working well for me. I’m not hungry, I’ve stopped feel faint, and my slimmed-down profile is the proof, with 16 pounds - over 7% of my body weight - disappearing in just over one month.

Nooooo!

Day 35

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 6 pounds (202 lbs)

How on earth did that happen? Two pounds heavier.

Yesterday I had no cardboard, but a solitary kipper for lunch (the kitchen still smells of herring nearly 24 hours later). I adore Craster kippers, and Dr Dukan says I can. Or at least he doesn’t say DuKan’t.

Two raspberry yoghurts as snacks: oh, and two sirloin steaks, a couple of small freshly-dug Charlotte potatoes, two baby courgettes, with their flowers, and a mound of Mizuna and other exotic leaves.

Dukan says I can have as much protein as I want – hence the double steak. He thinks that’s all I should have had. But, honestly, I was gardening all afternoon, so how does he expect a chap not to faint with hunger?

By 7pm I was dying, and beginning to crave ice cream, so Jo gave me a “protein shake”, which tasted of chocolate and aspartame. It has no calories, carbs or, as far as I can make out, any recognizable ingredients, but it’s supposed to keep Olympic athletes going. I gardened like mad in the rain, in my perpetual race against the weeds. The weeds have been winning this competition all summer. I’m determined to get the upper hand this weekend, our first for ages without guests and other distractions. So, according to the rules, no excuses for alcohol.

Jo says my disastrous weigh-in is because we didn’t have dinner till 10pm, and so the metabolism didn’t get going to burn it off, or some other dietician-speak stuff. I just think it was that couple of potatoes. And the fact that, since the resumption of dietary activity, I haven’t properly – oh, you don’t want to know about that, I’m sure. Back to the Tesco's chicken today. And the cardboard for you-know-what.

Yesssss!

Day 34

Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 4 pounds (200 lbs)

Cardboard for breakfast; dry Tesco chicken from a packet (and a strawberry yoghurt) for lunch; for dinner Izzy and I shared a slab of cod with steamed broccoli.

That’s it – apart from about a gallon of water and one Coke Zero. Izzy sat happily next to me eating her meal and saying “yum” – almost her only word – at every mouthful. I could have thought of better descriptions for the food, but at least one of us was enjoying it.

Afterwards I popped her in the backpack and took her and the dogs on a long walk round the fields – I’d worked up a sweat by the time we got back. The result this morning: diet hits target. Result.

Jo says I’ve become a diet bore again. And moody. And she doesn’t care that she can now see my abs where before there was just belly. She wants her old cuddly husband back. I said she can have me back on August 21st, not a day before.

Tomorrow: 199 pounds. Please…