Diet averse

Stew!  (Image taken from deliciousmagazine.co.uk)

I was on the phone to my Mum the other day, discussing cancelling my subscription to Weight Watchers magazine because I found the recipes a bit “diet-ey”. Which D found amusing for some reason – “Of course they’re dietey,” he said, “It’s a diet magazine.”

I HATE the word diet – although dietey sounds a bit like doughty which I like...but the word diet, and the concept of diet food, stinks of deprivation and misery and steamed vegetables. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read some skinny sleb or other enthusiastically saying that their dinner tends to consist of grilled chicken and steamed veg. I bet they don’t leave the skin on the chicken either. If I thought I had to live on that for the rest of my life I’d attempt hari kiri with a piece of blunt spaghetti.

Take this week, for example. Among other things I’ve put away a great slab of sirloin steak and a rather delicious split pea and ham soup with a crusty, buttered roll for dunking. On Tuesday, I tucked into a hearty beef and red wine stew which I’d found lurking in the freezer, served up with Cheddar dumplings*, mashed potato and creamy leeks. I’ve sampled the new, limited edition Penny Pigs (I assume Penny is Percy’s girlfriend; she is lemon flavoured in any case), eaten several segments of chocolate orange, and a good few fistfuls of Maltesers. None of these things are dietey, or dietesque, in the slightest.

There are concessions, of course there are. I mean, I’m finally learning a bit of portion control – the steaks may have been huge, but there were no potatoes on the side because they just weren’t required and the Maltesers were weighed out. The “creamy” leeks were made with half fat Philadelphia. I haven’t had any wine. I’ve exercised. But, I suppose the point I’m trying to make, is that the concessions have been, relatively speaking, fairly small. I’ve been able to enjoy what I’ve eaten safe in the knowledge that it is a million miles away from a joyless plate of chickenandveg.

And at the scales today, I’d somehow managed to lose 6.5 pounds. I’m willing to make a few concessions for success like that.

*For the recipe, pictured above, pop across to the Delicious magazine website – according to the nutritional info it works out at a pretty reasonable 10 pro points per portion.