Will Bob lose weight?

July 31st.
I am delighted, though surprised that I have received two comments on this blog. Although StanandTel may be answering the wrong blog by mistake, I thank them for their comments and the awful pun. Diarrhoea might lead to some dramatic weight loss, at first by fluid depletion, but in the long run is a bad way to lose weight. My plan is to demonstrate that weight loss can be achieved in a healthy and enjoyable way. Cancer would be another way of losing weight, but again is not to be recommended.
I maintain that ratatouille is a useful word; it defines very clearly a particular dish, made up of rather watery ingredients, very little carbohydrate and when cooked properly, delicious and filling, though that depends a bit on how much you eat. Glottal stops are a bit of a mystery; I probably use them without knowing it.
I'd also like to thank The Food Police for the suggestion that the wicker diet might be considered. Its very tempting but I am not desperate - yet.
The ratatouille gradually improved in flavour over the weekend, probably because of the addition of salt but some dishes do improve with time, particularly stews. It may have something to do with the release of flavours, whatever they are , from the ingredients. Don't bother to reply to that comment- I don't want to know. I have eaten a lot of meat, ham, beef and chicken, plus quite a lot of cheese and salad, a daily yogurt, a peach and a nectarine and a couple of icecreams over the weekend and went swimming each day. The outdoor pool was almost empty thankfully and there were no infants floating about in armbands blocking the swimming lanes. Today squash. Tonight beer( none strangely over the weekend)

July 29th.
For unknown reasons I was overcome by drowsiness yesterday and took no exercise in spite of my best intentions. Perhaps it was due to all the lettuce or is that just a myth propagated by Beatrix Potter? I did cook a ratatouille for the weekend but I have to admit it is a bit disappointing and nowhere near the dishes I have eaten in France. The bacon and eggs was completely lovely and delicious however, as was the small steak I had later. One apple, one icecream and one yogurt. One fatman, you might think, but I do seem to be a bit thinner, or at least that's how it seemed after a swim this morning and before a lunch of roast chicken, beans without butter and ratatouille. The beans were purchased and were from Warwick and were a big mistake, lacking flavour and rather stringy.
My own beans would probably been enough but I was in a shop before I had a chance to check whether there would be enough for three people. In today's Guardian there are several further letters on the subject of runner beans and they all seem to agree with the views on the subject I gave you yesterday.( Who are you? Is there anybody out there?). In the same edition Marina Hyde bemoans the the fact that Madame Tussauds' has a model of Jolie and Pitt's baby. I thought at the time of the birth that the press was going overboard about getting pictures of the neonate; after all, who cares? I didn't care then and I don't care now. As it turns out I now know what the trio look like but up to today I was in blissful ignorance. He's too old to wear a baseball cap back to front but he looks very ordinary. She looks fairly ordinary too, except she has an unpleasant blemish on her left upper arm (self inflicted). The baby just looks, as you would expect, like just about a squillion other two month old babies.
Its all due to the modern curse of 'The Celebrity'. I'm not sure why I allow myself to get so grumpy about them but perhaps they serve a useful purpose in allowing me let off steam by howling and shouting with rage at the television.
More swimming tomorrow but probbly more beer tonight.

July 28th.
One of the the great pleasures in life is listening to Test Match Special. For various reasons i find it very difficult to get this programme except on my car radio or using the Digi-box of the television at home ,so it is a bit limiting in where I can be during a test and still receive the programme. At least I can get home to watch the highlights on Channel 5 at 7.15 which is also a good time to be eating. While I am on the subject, I have a chance to moan that it is not shoown in its entirity on BBC who, apart from the open Golf, only show minority sports such as tennis ans swimming and occasionally athletics. Someone should explain to the controllers and to the deluded Steve Cram that watching a few unknown athletes running round a track just isn't interesting. Furthermore, I do wonder why lottery money should be used to boost the career of a few professional athletes. I'm afraid we're in for some concentrated rubbish from the so called pundits, sports writers and Lord Coe as the London Olympics gets closer but the fact remains that we Brits are good at accepting sporting defeat and actually don't care how many medals we win. Actually the fewer the better since they won't become commentators in the future. Another thing they haven't twigged yet is that success on the track or the football pitch doesn't make you articulate or even coherent.
During last night's cricket highlights I consumed a lot of ham, cheese,tomatoes, two apples and a yogurt. There will be more runners this weekend. I read a letter in the Guardian today that many people have noticed that their beans have done a runner(his joke, not mine) and have had a lot of flower but it hasn't set. I am not completely sure that I understand what this means but presumably it is in some ways related to climate, watering, possibly chemicals affecting pollenation or bad luck. Mine, I'm pleased to boast, are fine.
As I am about to press the 'publish' button I see that England are 272-3.

July 27th.
I never feel that swimming is as good as squash or running because you don't sweat, but its probably better because it certainly burns up energy and exercises different muscles and probably more muscles than other sports. The problem with it, as far as I am concerned, is firstly that it is boring and secondly the breathing technique is all important. I am not very good with the breathing and seem to inhale quite a lot of water, so its not my favourite exercise. Unfortunately its a bit hot for running and/or squash at the moment and my usual squash partners are away.
Feeling thinner today after a meal last night of lean ham, Philadelphia cheese, tomatoes and Chinese leaves. There is something not right about the flavour of these leaves which were only purchased because because I couldn't find crisp lettuce in the shop that day. Only one yogurt and plenty of grapefruit juice. I'll have to go shopping again tonight- one of my least favourite activities. Of course, the more interesting the food is, the more tempting it becomes, and the shorter time it lasts in the fridge.
I keep seeing notices that we should be drinking about two litres of water a day and possibly more in hot weather. It can't possibly suppress hunger but I suppose if one drank half a pint of water it would stop one nibbling between or before meals. So, more water and more exercise and less inhaled water from now on.

July26th.
There is still no evidence that this blog has any regular readers but for those that might be interested, this week's disappointing weight loss amounts to only one pound. At least it wasn't an increase. I blame a number of factors, the potatoes, the yogurts and the bat that came into my bedroom at 2.30 am this morning. It is not the first time they have come in and they must realise it is not the best place for a feed but it can take them a while to find the way out. My approach to the problem is to open all the windows wide, shut the door and leave the room in a hurry. The windows were already widely open when it flew in, so it's a bit off-putting for the summer months if I have to sleep with the windows closed. So what do you do when driven from your room in the night by bats? Your specs are still by the bed with the novel you had been reading and there is nothing worth watching on television except a film about a gastronomic tour of France which makes you feel a bit peckish. So you have a drink and yet another yogurt.
The first runners of the season were delicious and probably didn't need the slab of butter I put on them. Then there was smoked cod fillets fried with cheddar(seriously strong) and some salad. More exercise is needed.

July 25th.
Living with other people or having guests in one's house leads to much more eating than normal; bigger and more frequent meals. One doesn't like to offend others by not at least offering food at conventional meal times even though one isn't hungry. Equally likely, the guests don't want to offend by refusing food. Conventional meal times are also a bit of an oddity. Primitive man didn't sit down to breakfast, have a mid-morning snack, eat lunch, have tea and later dinner or supper; he ate when food was available. I can almost hear some people saying that he didn't live very long either but that is not an argument in favour of many meals each day. There were plenty of reasons why he didn't live very long.
I have never understood either why people frequently state that they are unable to function without eating breakfast. Why? We all have an in-built mechanism to regulate our blood sugar. Some people, especially women and children get very bad tempered and irritable if they are hungry. Are they really hungry or just creatures of habit? I don't suppose that many of us in Britain who have access to a computer really know what real hunger is like. How many of us have even gone a whole day without food?
So one of the ways of cutting down one's intake is to eat fewer meals. This is especially pertinent to those on diets since each meal provides a further opportunity to cheat.
One medium potato baked in its jacket with cheese, ham, smoked salmon, salad, a yogurt and a couple of large glasses of red wine provided the bulk of yesterday's meal. Very healthy but will it be compatible with weght loss? Weigh day is tomorrow.

July 24th.
Really new potatoes, i.e those that have just been dug up are almost irresistable. Cooked with fresh mint, there is no need to add butter, though the addition of butter adds further to the pleasure. I didn't resist the potatoes because guests came for dinner and the beef and vegetable stew was demolished. The addition of celery was a mistake I shall not repeat.
Only days to go before the first runners will be ready and within a few weeks I hope that home grown 'perpetual' spinach will be on the menu. The problem with spinach is that you have to cook so much to get so little and when you drain them I feel that a large amount of their goodness is thrown away. Perhaps one should drink that dark browny green fluid separately and then eat the spinach with the rest of the meal.
One icecream(wafer),one peach, one apple, many cherries, Four pints of bitter, two cocktails, two thirds of a bottle of red wine,three yogurts, some cheese, salads, three rashers and one egg completed the weekend's intake that I can remember today.Some gardening and one session of swimming. Trousers stii seem just as tight. Weigh again on Wednesday.

Friday July 21st.
My spelling is quite reasonable usually; its the typing that lets me down.
Another weekend coming up which makes it more difficult to stick to dietary plans because of social interaction. It should however be possible to avoid eating bread, pasta, potatoes etc. Alcohol is a different matter and I know that it would not be possible to stick to a strict ration.
I had intended to cook a beef stew with vegetables last night but in the end couldn't be bothered to do any cooking so I had a surprisingly filling cheese salad, a particularly tasty peach and a yogurt. And a few cherries. And an apple. Sounds very healthy. No exercise because I was working all day but I am planning a long swim today. There is always gardening and I suppose it does you good though most gardening seems to be clearing things up rather than the sort of stuff you see on Gardener's World. The beef stew will be the main meals of the weekend. That's one of the things about living on one's own- its not worth cooking dishes just for one meal, so one tends to eat much the same for three consecutive days. The peaches were particularly good but so they should be at 44p per peach in Morrison's. Usually the peaches I buy go from being inedibly hard to inedibly mushy and rotten and I miss the optimum moment to eat them. Perhaps there never is an optimum moment to eat them and there never is a time when they are ripe and juicy before they go bad. There is of course quite a lot of sweetness in good fruit but I don't want to give up fruit particularly as I have a good crop of pears this year. The plums are rather few and far between but they will be delicious and are best eaten straight from the tree. Pears are a bit like peaches in that they go suddenly go bad and the secret is to remember that they can still be very juicy inside while still very firm on the outside.
Before the fruit there will be the runner beans which the locals round here seem to call 'kidney' beans. I don't understand the logic. If they called butter beans or broad beans kidney beans, it would make sense; but not the runner. Home grown runner beans are one of the highlights of the gardening year for me but perhaps if there were more produce from the garden, there would be more highlights. I therefore am planning to apply for an allotment and grow artichokes and sweetcorn and raspberries ( the queen of the soft fruits and jolly expensive in the shops ) and other things that do not thrive in my garden which does not get enough sunlight.
I had been musing overnight about meals in fiction and it wouldn't surprise me if someone has already written about this. There are some characters in fiction whose life revolves around food. Maigret was often tempted by an enticing dish in a restaurant or at home but now I come to think of it Philip Marlow never did much eating. Elvis Cole seemed to cook rather pretentiously as though the author is trying to impress the reader, rather than feed the detective. I suspect him of being a hamburger man. Poirot was a bit too pernickety about food though I can't exacly remember what meals he ate. I will have to be more attentive in future and maybe make a note of meals in the books I read. I hasten to record that I do not read Agatha Christie these days. More on this theme in due course. Perhaps I wll produce a recipe book of meals in fiction. 'Detectives' Diets' maybe, or 'Fictional Food'.

July 20th.
Then very first comment from my reading audience, possibly my only audience, states that my blogs are rather food orientated and perhaps should contain interesting snippets about my life. I think that the snippets will actually take over a major part of the blogs eventually but I must stress that it is necessarily food orientated as the purpose is to demonstrate that weight can be lost painlessly by manipulating food intake, preserving interest and flavour at the same time, without feeling hungry.
I believe the Guardian has had articles about authors' favourite meals in literature fairly recently. It just happens that I have been reading some of the works of Andrea Camilleri and of Manuel Vasquez Montalban both of whom have detectives who enjoy food and describe meals and their preparation in great detail. I seem now to be reading two books wcich also give the menu of some fairly large meals.The first and rather shorter of the two is Adios Hemingway by Leonardo Padura Fuentes. It is set, not surpringly in Cuba. I have yet to find out what 'quimbombo' stew is. It is probably eaten with white rice, fried malanga, avocado salad, watercress and tomato and followed by guayaba jam with white cheese. I think I will go to Cuba to find out though I doubt if it would be possible to lose weight eating such food.
The second book I am reading at the moment is Anna Karenina in which there is early on a description of a fairly massive meal eaten by Levin and Stepan Arkadyich consisting of three dozen oysters, vegetable soup, turbot with thick sauce, roast beef, capon and stewed fruit!
Yes, I do often have two books on the go at the same time, particularly if one is as long as Anna Karenina. I suppose that since food plays such a large part in our daily activities, its purchase, preparation and consumption in both routine and sociable settins, it is no surpprise that it crops up in literature as well. Still more surprising really that it doesn't feature more frequently. So there are snippets for you; my taste at the moment in books and my plans to visit Cuba.
Back to everyday life, I was eating more cod last night, cooked in the oven with grated 'seriously strong' cheddar with a salad. Why do they call it 'seriously' strong? They never refer to food as 'seriously bland'.
Finally, I should point out that the time that appears on these blogs is very inaccurate and they are usually written during daytime in Britain.

July 19th.
At last, the news you have all been eagerly awaiting, or at least that I have been eagerly awaiting, as there is no evidence that anyone else is reading these blogs, my weight today, measured on the same scales as last week, has dropped by exactly two kilogrammes.Ha! Easy.
I don't know what they put in pate ( there is no acute accent on the keyboard ) but I thought it was mainly liver. The duck pate which spread very easily on the crisp lettuce leaves (Romaine) last night had a sweetish flavour. I will have to find out how to make my own. I followed the salad things, lettuce, celery and different cheeses, with cod baked in foil with butter, tomatoes, garlick and a squeeze of lemon which was surpringly filling but not so filling that there wasn't room for a couple of yogurts.
I am hoping that not only will my breathing technique during swimming will improve with practise, but also my spelling/typing. Apologies for the glaring errors.

July 18th.
I was very disappointed to find an unusual whito fluffy mould growing on the last portion of the chicken and aubergine concoction rendering it inedible, so I returned to salad, ham and later to bacon and mushrooms. It does not sound particularly healthy and since I didn't enjoy it anyway, I will not be repeating the experience. Chees of different varieties wrapped in lettuce leaves never lets me down.
Started swimming yesterday and as long as this good weather continues I plan to gradually swim more lenghts day by day- if I can avoid drowning. I'm hopeful that my breathing technique will Improve with practise.
No potatoes, rice, pasta, biscuits, sweets, bread, jam etc. Easy.

July 17th
A weekend of surprisingly modest alcohol intake has passed ( Three pints bitter and one bottle of lager) but the main concoction of the weekend was a disappointment. Chicken breasts first cooked in onion and garlic and then cooked in the oven with tomatoes,celery, aubergines and courgettes. Enough for three meals as you cant cook that sort of dish just for one meal, especially on the hottest weekend of the year in a kitchen with an Aga.But the dish was surpringly bland though perfecly edible.
The usual yogurts and salads with cheese, some roasted salted pistaccio and some sardines completed the weekend's intake. All fairly tasty and varied. No potatoes and still not a crumb of bread. Belt on trousers feels as tight as before. Will weigh again in two days.
Of course the amount of exercise taken makes quite a difference to the overall balance of calories consumed and calories burnt. Its impossible to estimate how much exercise one takes at work but did play squash for forty minutes and did several hours gardening. Really too hot for too much heavy work. Perhaps swimming would be the thing.

Compter incompetence led to the title being published twice on its own. It might be a clue to last nights feast though I maintain that each potato was only a mouthful and there were only six. Still no bread, sugar, sweets,biscuits etc and I have to say that its easy but is it effective? We shall see.
A weekend ahead will of course inevitably lead to some social drinking. However, if dieting led to a life without social acivities the whole object of this exercise would be wasted. I am trying to show that weight loss can be achieved painlessly and at the same time that food can remain tasty and pleassurable.Last nights feast included more cheese
(Double Gloucester with chives and onion), more gammon, tomatoes,olives, lettuce and celery. And the potatoes. And a yogurt. Doesn't sound too painful, does it? Of course, that was the only meal of the day as breakfast and lunch have been abandoned long ago.

Wednesday 12th. July
A day without bread, potatoes, biscuits, gravy, sweets or sugar. No, that is not quite true as the fruit in the corner of a Muller yogurt is sweetened but it sounds rather like an Atkins approach. Boursin wrapped in lettuce leaves, tomatoes, cucumber and olives followed by gammon with spinach, carrots and more tomatoes. And of course the yogurt.
I feel thinner already but have no plans to re-weigh for at least a week. The problem as I see it at the moment is that it is difficult to keep doing this without becoming rather obsessed about every crumb or morsel consumed and that if it is to become a way of life it should be effortless and rather less pre-meditated. Early days, I know, but I do not intend to totally avoid carbohydrates and am certainly planning to eat potatoes though possibly in more modest quantities than before.

July 12th.
After a week in Valencia it is obvious that a list of food and alcohol consumed would be boring in the extreme. Suffice to say that much beer,wine, assorted tapas and paella was enjoyed. The overall weght gain/loss :- nil. Exactly the same, though of course different clothes and different weighing scales may disguise a very minor weight change.
Returning to the computer after an eight day absence, I am embarrassed to see that I had made a mistake in an earlier blog that BMI was Basal Metabolic Index. Of course it really should have said Body Mass Index which relates weight to height. My apologies.
One further significant thing has occurred during the last few days and that is that I have been reading William Leith's book 'The Hungry Years' which I can recommend to those overweight or obese people who have a problem in discussing their weight. There seems little point in worrying about your weight unless you really want to do something about it.Just as alcoholics have to admit they have a problem before they seek help, so the obese must admit that they are overweight so they can sensibly tackle the problem. Leith's book vividly describes the psychology behind the bingeing though I do not agree that excessive insulin production is the cause of the 'hunger' that drives the obese to eat more and more. Increased insulin production by the pancreas is necessitated because the obesity causes Insulin Resistance. It is of course typical that people have to think that there is some explanation for their bad habit of overeating other than gluttony. This seems to be a more than adequate explanation in someone with a rather addictive personality- in his case not only for food but alcohol, drugs and sex. He may be right that increasing his intake of carbohydrates doesn't assuage his hunger but this is more likely due to the loss of the usual control mechanisms in the hypothalamus.
I am now back at work so there is a good possibility of a more predictable diet. There will be no daily alcohol and meals will only be taken at home after my return from work. I will port the meals I consume the following day and also the amount of exercise Itake. On holiday I walked several miles each day or perhaps strolled is a better way of putting it. At work of course I cannot estimate how far I walk but I'm on my feet most of the day. I have a plan to take more exercise than before.

The first day was inevitably chaotic due to alcohol, the World Cup quarter finals and computer illiteracy. The aim of this record is to show that it is perfectly possible to eat and enjoy oneself and at the same time to lose weight. There is no doubt that an increase in my weight of two stones in the last few years has been associated with an increase in fatigue after physical activity, with a definite feeling of unfitness, with a feeling of breathlessness and discomfort when bending or kneeling or crouching. Furthermore, some of my favourite clothes no longer fit.
There is compelling evidence that the higher the BMI (Basal Metabolic Index), the greater the incidence of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and osteoarthritis becomes. So although I am told that I look 'better' for gaining weight, I am prepared to sacrifice such vanity to feel better.
The blog began on the first day of the second half of the year and I propose to reduce my weight to just over eleven stones by the end of the year using a strategy that will seem difficult to discern at first because the published food and drink consumption does not appear to be likely to lead to weight loss. However, I am confident that a gradual drop in weight will occur.
Food and drink for July 1st:- 2 cans and 3 bottles of beer
2 glasses White wine
2bread rolls and 1 slice bread
2 small new potatoes
6 chipolatas
1 chicken breast
salad stuff
Comment: was a guest of friends, so no chance (or desire) to turn down hospitality. England's loss in the quarter final might of been an excuse or reason to drink even more but the match had 'goalless draw' written all over it, so there was some relief when it was all over.

July 2. At the British Motor Cycle Grand Prix, Donington Park. Very hot sunny day. Excuse for drinking- thirst and sociability. Food and drink:-1 cheese and ham roll
3 rashers of bacon
3 bottles of beer
1 small Chinese takeaway meal
The meal seemed fairly small and consisted mainly of 'aromatic' crispy duck in pancake with sauce etc. I don't know why they call it 'aromatic'. It simply smelled of duck to me. These sorts of meals are impossible to quantify. You have a bit of this and a bit of that. Note, I am not recording the consumption of water or squash or tea or coffee which is taken with some cold milk but no sugar.

July 3. At home for the last time for a week so access to computer will be limited for a week. I will keep a written diary to be added on return with my latest weight. Food so far today:-
2 Muller Fruit Corner Yogurts( peach and apricot)
1ten inch thin ham and pineapple pizza ( a major mistake- tasteless,boring and too big)

He shows all the signs of an ageing fat man and is keen to reverse one of the trends.

Bob has consumed a list of meat and beer. He weighed in at 13st 1lb before the binge.