Diet Dilemmas
‘What! No way. That can’t be right.’ Andrea got off the bathroom scales, took a few deep breaths and tried again.
‘Damn. It must be the scales.’
She fiddled with the little adjusting wheel, shook them, dropped them on the floor for good measure and gingerly got back on.
‘Argh!’
She couldn’t possibly weigh that much! OK, so she’d had the odd little bit of extra chocolate recently, but work had been so stressful she’d needed it. It wasn’t as if it was that much, only the odd bar or two.
She slipped on her bath robe and cringed as she felt the belt cut into the bulge that insisted on circumnavigating her waist.
‘I just don’t understand’ she thought to herself as she turned on the bath taps.
Her weight was beginning to get out of control. But it wasn’t as if she neglected herself. She ate sensibly-ish, took regular exercise.
The bath, with its profusion of expensive smelling bubbles, was supposed to have cheered her up. But all it did was reinforce her depression as she looked down at the islands of flab that broke the surface of the water and wobbled menacingly.
That was it; time for action. There was no point in feeling sorry for herself anymore. There was only one way the fat was going to go and she was determined to make sure it went.
*
‘Are you sure about this?’ Anna asked. She and Andrea had been friends for years. They sat round the kitchen table with their mugs of tea with skimmed milk.
‘Absolutely. I’ve tried everything I can think of and nothing else seems to work so it’s time to go to an expert.’
‘But you look great.’
‘Anna, I don’t look great. I look fat. Even that gorgeous skirt I bought last month is getting too tight for me. I need to do something about it and I need to do it now before it really gets out of hand.’
‘Well good for you.’
‘Thanks. I’ve made an appointment for tomorrow morning.’
The next morning Andrea was awake with the larks, eager to get her new regime started. She arrived at the doctor’s surgery early. As usual they were running late so she made herself comfortable with an out of date copy of Vogue and the myriad of germs that were coughed and wheezed all around her.
‘Miss Brown. The doctor will see you now,’ trilled the receptionist.
Andrea entered the consulting room. Doctor Thorpe was sat at his desk.
‘Miss Brown,’ he said looking over his glasses, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘I want to do something about this,’ she grabbed hold of her bulging waist line.
‘And what exactly are you wanting to do about it?’
‘Lose it.’ Doctor Thorpe looked confused. ‘I would like you to devise a diet for me to follow. I don’t want to go down the root of all these celebrity diets and fads. I want to do it properly.’
After much measuring and weighing, humming and haring he produced a diet sheet for her.
‘Now, I want you to continue with your present exercise regime and follow this diet sheet religiously. Come back in a week and we’ll see how you are getting on.’
Andrea was determined to stick to the diet and followed it to the letter. She continued with her exercise classes and even threw in a few long walks for good measure. By Wednesday, almost a week from the start of the diet she met up with Anna in town.
‘So, how’s it going?’
‘Oh Anna, it is fantastic. It is the best diet I have ever followed. I seem to be able to eats loads so I don’t feel hungry at all. I’m not snacking on biscuits and I haven’t touched a bit of chocolate in days!’
‘That’s fantastic. When do you go back to be weighed?’
‘On Friday. I can’t wait to see how much I have lost.’
Friday soon arrived. Andrea walked into the surgery with her head held high. She was so proud of herself for sticking to the diet. Not a scrap of extra food had passed her lips.
‘Miss Brown, how are you?’ asked Doctor Thorpe as she entered the consulting room.
‘I feel great. That diet is fantastic. I have always found it so hard to stick to them in the past, but this one is amazing.’
‘Good, good. Let’s see how much you have lost then shall we?’
Andrea took off her shoes and stepped forward onto the scales. She could hardly contain her excitement as she looked down at the numbers. How many pounds had she lost? Her stomach flipped with excitement.
‘Hmmmm,’ Doctor Thorpe frowned.
‘What is it?’ asked Andrea, ‘how much have I lost?’
Doctor Thorpe peered at her over his glasses. ‘You stuck religiously to the diet?’
‘Yes, I followed it exactly. Why?’
He checked the scales again. ‘Well, according to this you haven’t lost anything at all.’
Andrea was crushed. ‘I don’t understand. I followed it exactly. I didn’t cheat, there was no need. I was able to eat so much on your plan I wasn’t hungry.’
‘What exactly do you mean?’
Andrea got off the scales and got the diet sheet out of her bag. ‘I followed it exactly. I had this for breakfast,’ she pointed to the sheet, ‘this for lunch and then this for tea.’
Doctor Thorpe smiled.
‘What? I don’t understand. I followed your instructions exactly. Why haven’t I lost any weight?’
‘That, Miss Brown, is probably because you were only meant to choose one of the options for each meal and not eat all of them!’
