Can a fat girl slim? Part 3 common sense

Diet talk can get a little dull, but I read an interesting piece in today's Times, which sums up my approach to weight loss and maintenance.  A full and  more detailed report on the same piece is  in the New York Times
To summarise; despite sticking resolutely to a diet, weight will always stop coming off or may even start to gain.  This is due to the remarkable ability of the body to adapt to survive, it will evolve to survive in the new conditions therefore all diets will ultimately fail.
The main reason, I think, that my diet/regime has succeeded, is that I surprise my body daily, so it is never quite sure what it is going to get and I never eat less than every four hours and less than 1200 calories (that's a guess as I don't count calories at all).  I deliberately have days when I have 'treats' like huge slices of chocolate fudge cake (yesterday) and eat plentifully and with enjoyment.  It is a bit like interval training, even when you slow down you still go at a pace, so that you never fall into the feast and famine trap which really destroys the metabolism.

Breakfast has always been a challenge, it is just about the only time of day that I don't want to eat.  With my new regime I have been trying to eat eggs on toast, but can't stomach it.  To kick start the metabolism we need something that is wholesome and calorific (to fool the body into thinking it is a 'normal' day).  I eat about 100 grams of sunflower seeds, which I have just read on the side of the packet is 500 calories! I had no idea! But the calories really don't seem to matter.  It gives me the energy to get out, walk the dog and then exercise like a loony for an hour at the gym.

Lunch tends to be a huge amount, but relatively lo cal, so I fry up (with very little fat) meat, onions, leeks, cabbage, carrots, whatever is around, and dress it with a dab of mayo and liberal amounts of Worcester sauce.  The frying pan is full and I eat the whole lot.  I have a HUGE appetite, which is why I got so big on 'normal' food.  I am now resigned to the fact, and rather than pick miserably at lettuce leaves, I have adapted my buying/eating habits to reflect the truth.
In the afternoon I have tea and a small bar of Green and Black's chocolate (on a 'good' day), but on a day off, I have cake or biscuits or similar.
The evening meal tends to be fairly small, a piece of meat and some salad and veg and brown rice.  I am rarely hungry (as long as I have eaten in the morning, if not, I am ravenous and would eat the sofa).  To satisfy the 'fancy' something craving,  I have a camomile, vanilla and honey tea by Twinings which is delicious and zero calories, I have managed to 'train' myself into believing that it is a treat by always drinking it and doing something relaxing, looking at blogs, reading books, listening to music that I love etc.

My only 'rules' on diet days are; nothing premade and prepacked, no wheat, very little pure (white) sugar, no dairy, nothing overly reliant on chemicals for taste or its existence.
On non diet days, because I haven't really restricted anything, there is no feeling of a need to 'blow out', it just means it's OK to have the huge slice of cake or join in with the rounds of cocktails.
It is a misnomer to label my regime as a 'diet' which might indicate a short term measure, it has to be forever, with a mix of strict days and free days.  The ration is about 3:1, but the 'free' days are important in order to not fully adapt.  It is like a maestro playing a concerto, the magic is often in the pauses.
Today's piece explains why, despite consuming, what appears to be rather a lot of food, I have lost more weight and successfully kept it off than my days when I starved all day, ate nothing but cocktail nibbles, exercised continually, was always hungry and was still the size of a house.
The worst thing is that this new study proves that in order to lose weight you need to eat less calories than you consumed putting the weight on.  Ie if you added on 250 calories when you put on weight, you will now have to take off 500 calories to lose the same amount, so the real lesson is don't put on weight in the first place!

Can a fat girl slim? part two for the love of veg

In my teens I couldn't eat meat, it was partly principle, the discovery and comprehension of the correlation between sweet little lambs, piggies and calves and cutlets, sausages and veal, and partly that I just went off the taste.  The down side is that my stomach became a bottomless pit which could accommodate mountains of carbs and in turn I became a mountain of a girl.
In my twenties and thirties I tried meat and sea food rich diets, but they just left my exhausted all the time (and constipated) all the time.
By my late thirties and forties I rediscovered vegetables, salads and fruits of all varieties, and, along with a little meat, they seem to have been the source of my weight loss.  The sad thing is that it has been so easy, with not a hunger pang in sight, I try not to think of all the year's that I wasted trudging around after my skinny friends, too embarrassed to try on clothes when we were out shopping, knowing that if I was lucky I might squeeze into a sixteen, and those were the humiliating days when changing rooms were communal.
It's difficult to get excited about vegetables, the way that they are presented in a supermarket.  My inner conspiracy theorist is convinced it's because if we were all passionate about vegetables, there would be no need for any ready meals or junk food.  I buy mine from this fabulous market, where you can touch and smell everything and there is a long discussion as to the relative merits of the Spanish or Canary Island lettuces, the local cabbages and the eternal orange vs blood orange debate.

I have never been much of a cook, but just smelling the coriander and the ginger, or the thyme and the mushrooms and it is obvious how well they complement each other, and the meat suits the vegetables, it needs to be delicate for the coriander and ginger, but can be stronger for the thyme and mushrooms, but is only a supporting role to all of the other flavours. I am learning as I go, but wouldn't be if I bought everything prepacked from the supermarket.

From a child I have been fascinated by these 16th Century paintings by Arcimboldo, these are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and the gardener is the last one.

He didn't have much success while he lived, and his work was considered a bit of a joke, but I could look at these for hours, with hindsight, it was like he knew what we all need, after all, we are what we eat!