Good friends who won't diet

Oh I see! I was ignorant, I thought I wasn't overeating. I was sticking to 2000 calories a day and didn't realise that not only was it too much for me, it was calories in the wrong sort of food. The sort of things that leave you still feeling hungry. It takes a very long time to stop missing biscuits with your afternoon tea and swap them willingly for a handful of grapes or an apple.

Belated apologies to you janea for attributing the thread to you!

I typed out a post yesterday but could not post it as the little 'wheel' just kept winding very slowly and I couldn't get on to GN (was it just my PC?)

Now I can't remember what I said so it can't have been that important.
I will now read all your much more interesting posts

I thought the large red wine glasses were not supposed to be filled right up - they were supposed to contain about a third to allow the wine to 'breathe'. If you give it time, of course!

Was durhamjen's point about the calories in alcohol or about the fact that we all have things that we find difficult to give up! Food for some, alcohol for others? That was how I read it but I realise I may have been on completely the wrong track.

I know that I eat too much of the wrong things, and I know that I would be a lot healthier if I lost two stones, but I don't find it at all easy to do it. It's easy to look at others and wonder why they don't do things that would obviously be of benefit to their health, but I don't think it's that simple. And I don't think trying to persuade others - friends or relatives - makes the slightest difference.

It is very easy to put on weight, 'nightowl' but far harder to take it off again - and harder still to stay there if you do succeed in losing it!
I put on quite a lot of weight with medication I was on, lost most of it but not all, and it is creeping back on. Why? I think the cold weather makes most of us crave higher calorie food with more carbohydrates.

I think if someone tried to tell me that I ought to lose weight for the good of my health I would dig my heels in and ignore them. You have to want to do it for yourself and your own wellbeing.

A few years ago I worked with a young girl, she was about 18, who was very overweight. She used to say 'I eat because I'm miserable, and I'm miserable because I eat.' Sort of makes sense.

I don't drink alcohol at all , but I think carbs are my vice , I bake my own bread

Me too, Aggie. I have to freeze it all now, and just defrost it as and when. But oh the smell when it comes out...

I made a malt loaf the other week, I had to freeze some of it else I would have eaten all of it more than my fair share!

It's obvious that eating makes them happy, janer and I don't think any amount of hints, plain talking or recipes is going to change them.

But it all starts in the shopping basket. If you buy Doritos ,you will eat them. If you bake and freeze then the food can be apportioned. I do buy cream to whisk into sauces although sometimes I laugh at myself using low fat milk on my leek and potato soup and adding a swirl of cream. Granjura my DH takes risks like climbing on the roof or up trees but if he lives to 96 like your father I shall be very happy and not complain
It's worth remembering that there are five glasses of wine in a bottle so if the bottle is empty and you've only had two glasses you have a problem. The you was not referring to anyone on this thread!

Or perhaps you just have very big wine glasses?

I've never met a carb I didn't like!! I know I should lose weight but somehow I just don't. I have been very successful on diets when I was younger and always lost several stones. However, they made me absolutely obsessed with food. I was very thin though. I was a skinny child too.
Colleagues when I was working were on constant diets with massive fluctuations -really unhealthy to go on holiday, as one did for example, and put on 18lbs in a week. I worried about her metabolism.
So I'm plump and happy now. I judge myself by whether I still fit my clothes and I do. DD says I must have been fat for years then!

Rose I think you're on to the problem when you said 'eating makes them happy'. That's not quite to sane as saying we enjoy our food, I'm sure most of us do.

To say it 'makes them happy' sounds as if they don't have enough of other things in their life that make them happy, and that could be the problem.

I think you're right, he had just retired, she was feeling hemmed in at home, she enjoys cooking and is an excellent cook and maybe it became their hobby. One that got out of hand. They have even got a gardener in, I had been thinking they could at least get some exercise out there.

I find that drinking from an especially lovely crystal wine glass that holds a smaller amount, means that two glasses worth last long time.
I don't know why, but I think its to do with the glass. x

I dont think that good cooks have it easy in the trying to lose weight way.

Mary Berry does OK but yes, certainly Nigella and most of the men are a bit 'cuddly' '

They taste their cooking as they go along, and then have a full meal on top.

She is very given to putting their meals on facebook, with photos, and I groan. I think I shall have to 'hide' her posts.

I think I know the person you are talking about Jane

I am talking about people I know in real life Anya.

I take your point completely S2B

Mary Berry is very self-disciplined - I wish I was the same!

You can know what you should do in theory but the practice is often difficult. They sound as if they just don't want to know and don't care either.

I thought there were six glasses of wine in a bottle, so I can't be that bad!

Sour grapes, lol. Mary Berry may well be very self disciplined, but she is wrinkled like an old prune. Us more cuddly ladies tend not to be ;)