Sublime

‘I feel envious, actually. You’ve gained confidence in yourself. You seem really good. Maybe that’s what “a good amount” is truly about. Also, I know this is going to make me sound like an interfering old woman, but they say that the ideal weight for someone of five feet five is actually sixty kilos.’

We are all familiar, of course, with the truism “You are what you eat.” But over the past generation we have learned more and more about the nature of our hungers and how incredibly malleable they are. Scientists and authors like Brian Wansink and Michael Pollan have pointed out how our hungers are learned.

monounsaturated fats are chemically stable.

whole, unprocessed food, healthy fats and wholegrains.

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, no foods are off-limits, none proscribed. On the five days a week when we’re not restricting calories, we both eat freely – fish and chips, roast potatoes, biscuits, cake. The Illinois study certainly found that volunteers encouraged to eat lasagne, pizza and fries during ‘off days’ still lost weight.

don’t just wait for disasters in order to learn,

Another facet of this enforced shrinking is that those with fat bodies are deemed somehow incapable of knowing what is best for them.