But why don't you try 'calorie control?'

All I can say initially when I hear someone say---‘why don’t you control the calories you eat and then you won’t have to take that dramatic step you are taking?’ is----well WTF do you think I have tried for the last 30 bloody years!?

Yeah, crude I know, but true! I have been there done that and exhausted all reasonable regimes; the ‘fad,’ well thought one ones---you know the ones from the ‘fitness, weight-loss industry that sucks billions of dollars from ‘followers’ pockets worldwide each year. So many of them are based on dishonesty and in the very least--- ‘failed science.’ I go back to something I have said so many times.

‘How many fat people over 40 have you seen who have lost weight and kept it off---indefinitely?’ Be honest and don’t just focus on the very few who you do know. Remember the many others who have just continued their ‘yo-yo dance with fat,’ and gone on to develop all the illnesses that go with that deadly dance.

I have been called weak (maybe I am), selfish, (we all have a bit of that in us) greedy and possessing an ‘eating disorder.’ I can probably go along with the latter. Either way, I have reached a time when, enough water has flown under my bridge to make me think that time is running out. I have to cut the source of the water and stem the flood. OMG---what a lot of crap!

Today, less than a week before my operation, a source very close to where I live told me to do an ‘ethnic’ diet (one that has existed for a few thousand years) and to basically ‘calorie control’ my intake. She was very concerned at my ‘extreme solution.’ I respect her opinion and her offer of support. If only all neighbours for all of us were the same---would we not have a better world?

OK---off to break open yet another Optifast bar for lunch. I am so over them!