I know well that people talking about their diets is just about as boring a topic as you could imagine , however , obese people – like me- even those -again like me – with an ostrich ability to bury their heads in the sand find themselves facing this four letter word every so often.

The buzz word for diets over the Christmasin Ireland was low carb. My son-in-law was the first to moot it as a diet from Sweden, then Tom, a young sportsman friend laid up for six months with a broken leg claimed it’s success but it was Lucinda O Sullivan in the Indo, a food critic with the sort of necessity of eating for a living as I have extoling it as a painless method of weight loss that finally clinched it for me.

I am (but of course) doing my own version of this.
I have decided to eschew for six days of the week all the bulk carbs I normally eat with each meal viz ; Bread, Potatoes , Pasta , Rice and also to exclude from between meal snacking on biscuits or cake.
Nothing else is going to be excluded, butter, cream, cheese (my firm favourites) are allowed, but of course are eaten in lesser quantities without their carb fellow passengers- butter and cheese need bread like cream needs cake.

So far very little pain at all, I will discuss weight loss at a later date when I have had the nerve to climb on the scales.

Principal difficulty is breakfast- formerly being a la francais i.e. bread, croissants and jam.

On our way to the ferry in Cherbourg at Christmas we stopped at an absolutely charming hotel in Chinon called Hotel Diderot , there (as well as about 150 jams) they offered a plate of fresh goats cheese drizzled with honey and scattered with fresh walnuts. I tried it. I was conquered.
This is now the basis of my new breakfast.
I have added some fresh fruit to the mix, I now line a plate with some fruit (Satsumas and Mangoes have worked well) cover this with a generous disc of Fresh Goats Cheese (it must be like a set yoghurt ) and then proceed with the honey and walnuts.
This has so far provided me with a pain free breakfast.

If I manage to keep this up I will let you know in a few weeks if it works.