Dear LPG, 

I suspect that I am speaking for quite a few of us now pensioners when I mention this subject and I am not only talking about the ladies among us.  Do you remember way back in your childhood when you had little choice in the matter of how healthy your diet was?  I remember my siblings and I eating what was put in front of us whether we liked it or not and sitting at the table long after most of the family had left it, with nothing to look at but the bit of cabbage that was still left on my plate.  

The head teacher where I went to infant’s school had a rule when it came to school dinners and that was, ‘Every child needs to eat a little bit of everything’, and I remember sitting in the dining hall for ages waiting for one of my friends who nearly always seemed to have trouble eating the things that were deemed good for you. 

But then we get to the bit of life where we can please ourselves and the really healthy stuff goes right out of the window.  I am now talking about the part of life where a lot of us are at college or university or even starting out in the work place.  I hope we all had a couple of years where life was lived so fast that eating was more of an interruption with lots of chips, burgers and pot noodles involved.

The working years are not much better unless you have children and, as a parent you do your best to pass on the importance of eating healthy things while, after they are in bed, you are still indulging in the odd bag of crisps and cakes that you never let them see. 

But once your health starts to suffer a little and a slightly bigger reflection greets you when you look in the mirror, many of us turn to one arguable healthy eating model or another.

I still Prefer to eat all the wrong things but my conscience kicks in when the scales are telling me that I have put on a pound or two because all the sporty, fast paced things I used to do have made way for a slower lifestyle, and I have to admit that food has become more important again.

It’s diet time, but complicated food charts and calorie counting is just not me.  I tried the slimmer’s foods and the meals are quite nice but there is usually not enough of them in the box.  

I have real problems with measuring and watching everything I eat. It is as if my fingers just slip things into my mouth while I am not looking but something has got to be done. 

Ending up at a slimming club feels like admitting that I have a problem to everyone and I am not ready to do that, so I took a look online first.   I learned about the 80 /20 diet rule and that sounds fair and simple enough.   This is where you eat the good stuff 80% of the time and the seriously bad for the rest of it or there is the age old 5:2 where you eat drink and be merry for 5 days and spend two hungry.  

I am going to have to have another go and these look like the most strait forward options.  As I said at the beginning I know I am not the only slightly larger version of my younger self in my age group so I thought that sharing a few of the details might be beneficial to some readers.  

I am sure that the scales and the mirror will let me know how I am doing, and I offer the online guidance I have found just in case my story is shaping up a little like yours… 

                                                                                                           
FL, Bellingham

FL offers a little more information about the diets she suggested…

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