All tomorrow's pasties

Okay. I am thinking of going on a diet. With M. I don't believe in diets in the conventional (WeightWatchers, SlimFast, F-Plan, Atkins) sense, and possibly not in the GI sense either, but I am moving quite strongly in that direction.

Mainly, of course, because I am a bit of a dobber at the moment, and so is my boyfriend. Unprecedentedly on his part, as he comes from the school of scrawn - less so on mine, as I come from the lair of lard.

But - and I can't stress this enough - I don't want to be thin. I was built for comfort, I wasn't built for speed, and I am fine with that. I have only once in my life been thin, and that was after six months budget backpacking in Asia including a week on a drip in hospital, itself following ten days of keeping nothing down. I had no choice *but* to be thin, but my body put up a spirited fight nonetheless.

The world wants women to be thin, at least, the developed world does. And I do feel that, of course. But I have long and successfully maintained that it's better and healthier to fight the self-esteem battle and enjoy your food than to starve yourself or chuck up and be physically admired but miserable.

If you have appetites, it does come down to that. Not everyone does, but there are a lot of hungry miserable women out there who would be a bouncy 14-16 if they only let themselves.

But all that aside, I could do with losing a bit, and so could M. We would feel better about ourselves and each other, I think, and I might even get back into my lucky jeans (my lucky *pants* on the other hand have no elastic left so I could get into those even if I was the size of a house).

And what's appealing about the GI diet is that it's a different way of eating, good for energy levels, balancing of blood sugar and promotion of healthy bowels, heart and other parts. I shifted my eating habits quite drastically last year after I went to see the Bum Lady (much less wheat, much less dairy) and I have definitely got healthier as a result. This seems like a kind of natural progression: anything based around lots of veg can't be bad.

Can it?

joella