Memoirs of a dieter

I have a confession to make. Against all my principles I've gone on a diet. A proper, sign up, drinks shakes instead of meals and get weighed sort of diet. Fear not, I still fit into my wedding dress, it's just that I have put on weight since coming back to Australia and it really was showing no signs of stopping piling up and I felt fat. Our diet really is horrendous, given that Graham won't eat most vegetables they don't make major appearances at our dinner table. He always has a cooked breakfast, which is really addictive, and for lunch I either had a sandwich (with a huge chunk of bread because it's really difficult to cut very fresh bread i.e. 10 minutes out of the oven, with our breadknife) or sushi (so, rice) or noodles. Unfortunately the discovery that Noodle-box in Cairns Central Shopping Centre did wonderfully tasty takeaway noodles and stuff did nothing to help stay a proper weight. I know I could exercise and I did try and keep up with the swimming which made me feel great but then Graham's work start time changed so my morning routine did and I didn't seem to have enough time. Then it was raining and I HATE swimming in the rain. I also hate fishing grubs and bugs and stuff out. Graham brought home an abs machine from work one day but I just can't get myself motivated enough to use it often enough to be of any use. He did promise to buy me an exercise bike* which I could at least ride whilst watching tv or reading but it never materialised. So, I've become a disciple of Mr Tony Ferguson and since last week I have: a shake for breakfast (I have soy ones so they don't taste as milky) a soup for lunch (sometimes, I put vegetables in it) 2 pieces of fruit a day (allowed fruit that is, so no melon, grump) a minimum of 3 cups of vegetables a day (allowed ones that is, I'm only allowed carrots 3 times a week, go figure!) a palm size piece of protein (chicken, lamb, any lean meat) and 2 litres of water a day (this is really, really hard. I've got a litre bottle of water on my desk - just keep sipping, just keep sipping...) No carbs. At all. (so no bread, no rice, no potatoes, no nothing) a treat of 2 glasses of wine a week (if I only have 1 piece of fruit the days I have a glass) It sounds really difficult, but actually, it's not. The hardest thing is smelling the bread cooking every morning and not having garlic bread. The 3 cups of veges is quite a lot of food and I have to have it at dinner due to being at work during the day so my evening meal is lots of veges and a bit of meat and there are some stir in sauces that I can have so I don't actually miss the rice or potatoes (not that I have any rice at the moment, given that Graham in an experimental phase used nearly a kilo of basmati rice as burley (something you put in the water to entice the fish) and I hadn't got around to buying some more). They also have jelly which I can eat as much as I want as so yay! When I signed up, they told me I could lose 8kg in 6 weeks. This seems a bit extreme to me and I'll keep you posted on how I do. Not that I want to lose that much, or I'd get lost in the dress! *because I'm not stupid enough to try and ride a bike on these roads, Cairns has the highest bicycle accident rate in Queensland I think, mind you, seeing how some people ride I'm not surprised. The Asians in particular like to go down the wrong side of the road, the wrong way round roundabouts and just not pay attention to what's going on around them at any given time)