When I began this challenge to avoid the supermarkets I'd got high hopes of effortlessly losing weight as a result. After all, most of life's unhealthy food comes from the supermarket - doesn't it? No more bumper bags of crisps or oven-ready pizzas.
It's not as if I particularly NEEDED to slim down - more that as a 21st century woman being bombarded with never-ending airbrushed pictures of scrawny celebrities and perfect bodies, weight loss is pretty much a standard and ever-present life goal.
Unfortunately it hasn't quite worked out. In fact, since January I've managed to put on 6lbs. I attribute this partly to the fact that I had a tummy bug just before Christmas, which brought the year to a rather lean conclusion, but also to the fact that perhaps I've been slightly too enthusiastic about my new (and extremely yummy) supermarket-free diet.
For the last three months I've been chowing down on real butter, loads of different cheeses, cream, lovely pies, scrummy bread, chocolate brownies, thick sauces, and generally just a truck-load of really wholesome food.
The problem is that I have an absolutely HUGE appetite; I'm pretty much the human equivalent of a labrador. The word "full" doesn't really enter my vocabulary. After all, I'm a Yorkshire lass, brought up in a family where love is demonstrated by feeding someone until they are in actual physical pain.
And now we're shopping in farm shops and buying our food from local bakers, it's just so tasty that I can't get enough of it!
So lovely tasty food + my huge appetite = weight gain.
Okay, so is this really the end of the world? Well it's not particularly convenient. I've got several pairs of trousers that now no longer fit and with summer just around the corner I fear I could be unveiling a muffin-top beneath my t-shirts.
But there's an even more pressing reason to bring the bulge under control, as at the end of June I'm going on a beach holiday to Majorca with my mum.
"But your mum will love you just the way you are," my friend pointed out when I was moaning to her about it the other day.
Not true, sadly. My mum has a cracking figure, she's practically a size zero, and she will think nothing of pointing out that I've got a backside the size of Brazil if I accidentally block her sunlight with my thighs.
"Hmmmmmm, you've put on weight," she will say as she eyes my bottom with disapproval as we sit sipping our cocktails by the pool.
"Do you really think you should be eating that?" she will ask, while looking pointedly at my bingo wings, as I tuck into an icecream sundae at the beach bar.
So it's time to think about dieting. I know it's still three months away, but this is good because it means I can diet in a gentle and hopefully not too traumatic way, rather than doing the panic starvation plan when I realise I've only got three weeks to go before I get on the plane.
Unfortunately I'm not really feeling very enthusiastic about dieting right now. I like butter. I like cheese. I like both of those things together in a really creamy sauce. And I like chocolate.
I also like to eat until I feel sick.
So I'm on a bit of a sticky wicket. I need to find a diet that allows me to eat huge quantities of scrummy food and still lose weight. If anybody has heard of such a thing then please do give me a shout!
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