People on diets piss everybody off

Example of annoying dieters:
See Gwenyth Paltrow's website 'Gloop'
and Cameron Diaz's new 'Body Book'
for confirmation.

DAY SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT and NINE

The truth is: people on diets piss everybody else off. Nobody really wants hear about how 'good' you've been today, or how you nearly gave in to the cookie jar at work but managed to veer off at the last second. They don't care about your 3 bean salad, or your 'after-gym smoothie'. Those things are really annoying. 

But to the dieter, these things become an overwhelming part of day-to-day life. As soon as you restrict your diet, you start to think constantly about food - what you're going to eat and when - what you'd rather eat and how much of it. Some people even start adapting their social lives to fit around their diets - they stop going to dinner with friends in case the burger and beer deal proves too tempting, they go to the gym instead of the pub after work, and they say no to that night out because they're 'going for a run tomorrow'. In other words, they become instantly quite boring. 

Like people who do a lot of charity work, these people are annoying because they make the rest of us feel bad. I went through a phase of healthy eating, training and charity fundraising last year and I have never been so annoying. (Note - it is the people who donate money, and not just the fundraisers, who deserve to feel good.) (That's not to say they don't work hard. Bar charity skydivers.)

At the risk of sounding like I've been paid to say this, this is what makes the 5:2 diet so appealing. It's a part-time diet, so some days you're that infuriating person who turns down offers of sweets and chocolate and yaps on about having no energy, and other days you're in the pub quaffing pints of beer and packets of pork scratchings. You might not achieve a body like Beyonce's any time soon, but at least you can tell people, between mouthfuls of crunchy pig fat and Guinness, that you're on a diet. 

Today is my second 'fast day' of the week, where I'm only allowed 500 calories. It's absolutely fine, I'm breezing through it. Even though this morning my strict 45g of porridge erupted in the microwave, leaving me with a kind of small sticky, not very satisfying oatcake for breakfast that I had to first peel off the outside of the bowl. 

I keep meaning to take pictures of my portion sizes in case anybody's interested in how it looks, but when I actually get round to eating I tend to be too hungry to think of getting my camera out. After 11 hours of study though, a 200 calorie dinner looks a lot like this:

I'm going to weigh myself at the end of the week and compare to the beginning of the week to see if there are any changes. Unfortunately I've not had time to do much exercise as exams are coming up. 

Before I go, just a quick note to say thank you to everybody who's taken the time to read my blog. I'm always surprised when people actually want to read my stuff, which is usually scrawled in diaries that nobody will ever see. Also thanks to my mum, who is doing the 5:2 with me even though she doesn't need to.