Easy to say, isn't it?

I'm not dieting any longer. That is, I am still intending to lose weight, but if a diet is to continue for more than a few months, it has to become the way you eat, rather than a temporary regime for the time it takes to get to the weight you want to be. I think it's useful to be very strict for a time, because you need to adapt to food with less fat and sugar, or whatever you're cutting out, and your tastebuds and stomach learn to stop expecting rich food while you still have a determined mind. But the reason most of us are overweight is not that we can't lose weight, with more or less effort and change, but that we relax, after a while, into our old ways. And we get away with it too, at first. One indulgent weekend, one relaxed holiday, will put on few if any pounds, and then it's easy for the Saturday morning croissant, the nightly chocolate, the Friday night fish and chips or Chinese takeaway, to become part of life again, and it's really hard to arrest if 'all' you've put on is an odd half stone and your clothes still fit.

A year or two down the line, however, it's a different story.

So, I have relaxed somewhat, and yet I haven't. A snack is still a ricecake or some raw vegetables, but if I'm offered a chocolate, I'll take it if I want to (my family are too kind to think of giving me chocolate for Easter, I'm sure) - but not a second one, and only once a month or so. I still will eat porridge or dry toast for breakfast and I won't have toasted cheese for lunch (quite possibly never again - oh woe, that's not a thought to encourage me). I'll continue to eat huge amounts of vegetables to distract me from the small helping of meat - but on Sunday I will have some Yorkshire pudding with my roast beef.

In fact, nothing has changed. I am going to behave the same, pretty well, as I have been since the end of October, but this is now the way I eat. My diet, rather than 'a diet'.