THE LOSING BATTLE 

I COULD NOT LOSE!

 IT'S now 11 weeks since I started a sponsored slim, prompted by the double incentive of trimming my figure by at least 16 kilos (35 pounds) and raising £500 for research into Crohn's disease,  which has afflicted the lives of two of my grandchildren. To put myself under even more pressure, I decided to expose my progress - or lack of it -  in The Courier, the expat newspaper I edit on the Costa Blanca. 
Six weeks into my diet, my 13-year-old granddaughter Daisy had lifesaving (the surgeon's word)  surgery to remove part of her intestine after her weight dropped to five stone (70 pounds). I'm delighted to say she is making an amazing recovery whilst, of less significance, I have managed to shed exactly 20 of those 35 pounds. 
At the same time,  CICRA (Crohn's In Children Research Association) has so far benefited by over £600 - and if enough kind people stick with me, I'm confident we'll round it up to £1,000 well before June 30. That's my deadline to hit my goal weight of 77.2 kilos or 170 pounds. 
Meanwhile, I've been chronicling the action (or is that contraction?) in my Grumpy Old Gran column in The Courier. Anyone with nothing better to do can find my confused ramblings at www.thecourier.es  Even better, feel free to sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/Donna-Gee (I said 'feel free' not 'it's free'!) Anyone who donates £1 or more will be rewarded...albeit in Heaven.
If you haven't all surfed off somewhere else by now, the following is my latest update - published in The Courier on March 29, 2013.
Oh, and if you are wondering what DDD is, you'll have to read on.
Hey, it's suddenly gone very quiet. Is there anybody there? 

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IN the fullness of emptiness (otherwise known as dieting), a stone and a half is not a massive amount of weight to lose.
I am not in the same league as those ‘Slimmer of the Year’ winners the formal diet groups use to promote their weighers (that’s a play on ‘wares’, you know I can’t resist a pun).
Anyway, I mean  those sylph-like ladies  whose ‘before’ picture portrays a bouncy castle with a moonface perched on it – and whose ‘after’ photo makes Kate Moss look like Humpty Dumpty.
At the start of this week, my official weight was 84.8 kilos (187lbs) – a far cry from the 205.5lbs I blubbered in at  11 weeks ago.
It’s now reached the stage where people are actually NOTICING  that I’m visibly less portly than when I began Dumpy Old Gran’s Sponsored Diet 11 weeks ago.
I’ve also been staggered at the number of strangers who offer me encouragement and advice – and ask me whether I am following the Weightwatchers, Slimming World or whatever diet.

My granddaughter Daisy...surgery saved her life

It happens  just about everywhere from supermarket car parks to Indian restaurants and even Wok Buffets.
Yes, believe it or not, Donna’s Delicious Diet allows me to dine out three or four nights a week – and still lose weight.
It’s all down to instinct. I have friends who keep telling me I am doing it the wrong way but I am losing weight and they aren’t, so there!
Anyway, I tailored my own diet to keep it simple. The basic DDD rules are…

• Minimal intake of bread, potatoes, pasta and rice
• Fry as little as possible - if you have do, fry it in its own juices
• Eat lots of fresh veg and fruit
• Avoid biscuits, cakes, sweets and gooey desserts (two squares of chocolate allowed each day).
• And finally, as little alcohol as possible.

Fish and most meats are OK as long as grilled, oven-cooked or microwaved. I opt for chicken much of the time for health reasons, while steaks are reserved for restaurant forays. For me, a medium-rare sirloin accompanied by a nice salad takes some beating, even when I am not dieting.
At this rate, I’ll soon be the best judge of steaks in the Costas (all offers gratefully accepted!)
And those Indian and Chinese outings? Well, I can still get away with a Tandoori mixed grill, which was always my favourite Indian dish anyway – plus ONE poppadom. The difference is that I used to drown it all in curry sauce and top it up with a Peshwari nan. Fat lot of good it did me.
Until Sunday, I had a blanket ban on Chinese food because so much of it is fried. But since my three companions voted unanimously to stop off at a Wok Buffet  and I was in someone else’s car, my plan was to just sip a drink while the others poured oodles of grease into their digestive systems.
Had this been a traditional Chinese restaurant, I would not have eaten. But I had no problem jumping out of the frying pan, tempting as it was, and enjoying  a large prawn and tuna salad. That was  followed by a cocktail of fresh  strawberries, lychees and kiwi fruit, none of  which broke my self-imposed rules.
My friends tell me  I should drink eight glasses of water a day, that I can’t do it without lots of exercise and that I mustn’t eat after 7pm.
So what am I doing right?
Still, the way things are going, I’ll soon be a catwalk figure. Yes, I’ll be able to walk my cats that challenging 200 metres to the recycling bins and back without gasping for breath!
As well as my ongoing weight reduction, I’ve also lost a total of 55 centimetres in body measurements, including eight centimetres off my midriff. And that’s with very little exercise because of the danger of straining my less-than-perfect heart.
Going back to the diet itself, I never did eat a lot of carbohydrates, so it’s been no problem cutting out chips, pizza, pasta and potatoes, and minimising my bread intake.I’ve also developed a taste for fresh cabbage, cauliflower, carrots etc, which go down nicely with roast chicken, cold meats, salmon and tuna.
I’ve got into a routine that is rapidly becoming a lifestyle, rather than a food-deprivation experience. And I can’t imagine ever going back to my old greedy ways, which would have killed me.