How I landed on low-calorie-density as the ideal solution for a fat foodie

The answer to my foodie-and-fat dilemma came from a rather unlikely source.

One of many delicious eat-yourself-thin feasts on my Tuscan terrace

Something I haven’t talked about in the Downsizing Diva, is how I found my way into managing weight without giving up the foodie-life-of-Riley, and a food palette that I could use to create food that I not only loved eating more than anything else, but made me feel fantastic and helped me lose weight at the same time – and as successfully as any of the life-of-misery miracle diets I’d been on for most of my life.

This is an extract from my not-yet-published The Art of Downsizing Deliciously:

‘Joining Weight Watchers was a new and unexpected departure in my relationship with being fat and trying not to be.  It has been a long relationship – this year dieting and I are heading for our Ruby Wedding.   Of course, we go back much further than that, but to start with it was just a casual thing – a teenage flirtation with anorexia; no sweets or pudding when I was eight (bridesmaid; a tiny bit chubby).

We were not an obvious match, what with my passion for eating the very best real food I could muster and long-running opposition to junk food, and their commitment to 1-cal spray, artificial sweeteners and an impressive crusade to sell more chocolate bars than W.H. Smith.

And my usual squeeze was a drop-dead miracle diet, scientifically proven to make me slim beyond my wildest dreams, banish all mortal illnesses, and make me live forever*.       All I had to do was eat Chihuahua berries and forsake something or other for all eternity.  Usually several something-or-others, and the ones that made life worth living and a social life possible.

*Terms and conditions apply.

All would go well until I went out to dinner and had to choose between sending a list of things I couldn’t eat (annoying), refusing to eat what they’d cooked (rude), or throwing in the towel and tucking in.  The diet always insisted on total monogamy, so having strayed, I might as well eat everything in sight, and start again on Monday.

This was unfortunate if it happened to be a Tuesday.

It nearly always was a Tuesday.

So for nearly forty years, I had been on an impossible-to-stick-to diet, and when I wasn’t sticking to it (Tuesday to Sunday), I was stuffing my face with all the things that I would never, ever eat again come next Monday.

Occasionally, in desperation at my ever-expanding girth, I would take myself off for a week at a famous clinic in Austria where, for a significant portion of my yearly income, they would give me practically nothing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The sort of thing anorexics get for free.

I would leave, many kilos the less, with instructions to avoid dinner for the rest of my life if I wished it to be long.

I did not get to be morbidly obese by being good at avoiding dinner, and before I was on speaking terms with my credit card again, all the kilos would be back, sitting snugly around my internal organs just like before.

And then I met Weight Watchers.

When I first clapped eyes, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.  My pulse did not race.   Frankly, it looked about as exciting as a Tupperware party: there was a table piled high with biscuits and chocolate to sell, and no magic buzzwords; nothing I must or must not eat if I wanted to be one of the saved.

But the woman behind me in the weighing queue told me she had lost 60lbs, and the one in front, 40lbs. My usual thing was to lose 10lbs and then put 12lbs back.

I decided it might be worth a second date.

But the next morning I woke up with a sinking heart:  I was on a diet.  Again. Which meant …

I paused. Something had happened to the end of the sentence; I gave it a good shake, but it made no difference: it still said that I could have whatever I wanted for breakfast.  I had to repeat it several times.  I considered rushing out of the house and stopping people in the street to tell them the news.   

Instead of strictures, rules, and promises of eternal salvation, I had been given a whole raft of foods to eat freely, a daily allowance of points to spend on any other foods, and a weekly lump-sum for going out to dinner or raiding the cake tin.  Nothing – absolutely nothing – was off-limits: what I ate and when I ate it was entirely up to me.

I didn’t see how it could possibly work, but I immediately put it to the test, hot-footing it to the local café for an almond croissant.

I am very keen on almond croissants, and many a diet has perished amongst the crumbs (I am lying: there are never crumbs). Eating one on the first day was like ringing the doorbell and running away from the ogre’s castle.

From time to time, I glanced up at the ceiling, but it showed no sign of falling in; Satan did not perch on the rim of my cappuccino rubbing his hands in glee.  I could see from my natty little app that it had used up nearly half of my daily points, but that did not mean I was going to starve for the rest of the day: with all the eat-as-much-as-you-like* foods, plus my remaining points, I could still have two substantial meals. The thought made my heart flutter with excitement – this could be my future: I could fill up on all the free food and use my points for a bit of life-of-Riley on the side.

*In the interests of absolute honesty, WW says nothing about eating as much as you like; that was just my spin on it.

The list of free food included – with a couple of exceptions* – fruit, veg, and pulses, plus eggs, tofu, fish and shellfish, skinless chicken and turkey breast, and fatless yogurt.  All low-calorie-dense (LCD) foods.

*Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and avocado

Chicken breast was a bit of a steep learning curve – I like bones and lots of skin – and fatless yogurt may contravene human-rights legislation, but the rest of it, with a little encouragement, could be delicious.  I now eat so much fresh fruit and veg that my greengrocer thinks I am supplying the elephant house at London Zoo, my fishmonger has bought two racehorses on the proceeds, and the commodity price of lentils and chickpeas has gone through the roof.

It was tough having to use a teaspoon instead of a shovel for butter, olive oil and sugar, and cakes having to be eaten ONE piece at a time and not very often – but the rest was right up my street.

I was very sceptical that I would actually lose weight – I took eating as much as I liked from the list of LCD food very literally and Riley never felt left out – but at the following week’s meeting I stepped on the scales and found that 2lbs had disappeared.  It seemed a tiny drop in a very big ocean, but it kept happening week after week after week.

It took a bit of getting used to – living without all the recriminations and guilt: my hair shirt had to be thrown away because the moth got it; my Tuesday-to-Sunday stuff-my-face routine has gone, and my hundreds of diet books glare at me accusingly as Mondays – their ‘special’ day – come and go without me even glancing in their direction.

But we are still going strong, I have lost well over 3 stone, and life-of-Riley and I are finding that meeting up a couple of times a week keeps the relationship fresh.

It turns out that an organisation devoted to 1-cal spray, artificial sweeteners, and selling sweets and snacks, has dreamt up an eating plan that is equally at home in an ultra-foodie’s kitchen.’