My War on Food, or, Food's War on Me

So, like nearly every other woman in the world, I'd like to lose weight. Getting back down to my birth weight would be ideal of course so I could finally rock some hot pants, but I'll settle for 70 pounds or so. Making things even more urgent is this stupid Sarcoidosis (yes, the disease you've probably heard of on House) and the positive effect that losing some weight would have on my bones and joints.

Now, I've always had issues with food. An excessive love/hate relationship, if you will. While living in China I once took an 8 hour round trip hard seater train surrounded by gawkers, phlegm and the general filth that accompanies squat toilets and the absence of rubbish bins to eat at a Subway. And it was totally worth it. I even once flew to Hong Kong to eat at TGI Fridays. And in the UK I've driven 4 hours clear across London traffic to eat Taco Bell. (That one wasn't worth it.)

So adding my obvious unhealthy relationship with food to the steroids I'm on for my scallywag sarcoidies and I've become a ravenous, insatiable monster that wakes up at 3am craving a full English breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, beans and toast.

This concerns me, as I'm a vegetarian.

So, in speaking to one of my consultants (dr) I raised the issue of my weight and how losing weight might effect my sarcoidosis and medication and she gave me some hard truths (see, it's fine to go along thinking on your own that you could probably lose a few pounds. But when a medical doctor points out that you're a fattie-fat-fattie the denial that you have been so happily living in dissipates and you're left with little more than an action plan and a non-existent sense of self-worth)

So my action plan consists of a Real Food diet - eating as little processed food as possible and a diabetic vegetarian diet (salad) and, here's the kicker, drastically reducing the amount of bread, pasta and grains that I eat. So kind of low carb, but without meat and with fruit.

We'll see how this goes, but I'm envisioning something like this by day 3: