It’s that time of year again isn’t it, where every other article you read and every other programme on the telly box is talking about diets and losing weight. Some of them are okay, but most of them are written or presented by folk who look like they wouldn’t know one end of a doner kebab from the other, and that raises serious credibility issues in my eyes. I caught the tail end of a programme tonight, and as the camera panned out and the credits rolled, the words of the presenter were left hanging in the air…

“It’s simple really. You just need to eat less and exercise more.”

No shit, Sherlock. It’s that fucking easy is it love? Right then. Praise the Lord! Let’s all eat less and exercise more and we’ll be skinny in no time. World obesity obliterated, because we’re all just going to eat less and exercise more. I might have been a bit more forgiving if she hadn’t prefaced the bleeding obvious with the words it’s simple really…

The science might be simple, but the execution relies far more on the human factor than a scientific equation, and that’s a buggeration factor that we just can’t overlook.

It’s like that old sleight of hand trick with the cups and balls. You can keep your eye on that ball ’til you’re blue in the face, but it’s never under the cup you think it’s going to be under when the cups stop moving. My balls are never under the right cup. And what I mean by that, is no matter how hard I try to keep a watching brief on everything that’s going on, something always ends up in the wrong place.

Just think for a second about all the component parts of being successful in the business of losing weight. You need a balanced diet, with representation from all your food groups. Plenty of protein to help stave off the hunger pangs. Not too many carbs if you can help it…easy on the fat, plenty of green stuff and some fruit thrown in for good measure.

Sleep. That’s important too…not too much but enough to replenish your energy levels. And plenty of exercise to get your heart rate up several times a week. Water, drink plenty of that but go easy on the salt, or your body will cling to the water like a fucking camel.

Stay away from trigger foods, you know those things where one means one packet, or one tub instead of the one bite that skinny people refer to. And don’t substitute one trigger for another, right? Eating fifteen bananas instead of fifteen hob-nobs is still fourteen bananas too many.

It’s exhausting, keeping your eye on so many cups and balls. No matter how hard I try, when I get to the end of my day and I do a quick recce, there’s usually at least one ball missing, or it’s under the wrong cup. So when some skinny fuckwit looks down a camera into my living room and tees up her pearl of skinny wisdom by saying it’s simple really…well, forgive me for wanting to punch her bloody lights out.

On the surface, it’s not rocket science. But for every one of us who gets to the end of the day with at least half of our balls in the right place, and a mental note to do better tomorrow, it’s cool. We’re doing fine. We’ve got this. It’s not about perfection, remember?

It’s about getting up again tomorrow and doing it all over again 🙂

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