Some people have no problem remaining effortlessly slim, whatever they eat. I have a friend who regularly consumes enough food to relieve the famine in about 6 countries you've never even heard of, yet remains a steady and annoying size 12. Then there's me, who only has to look at a calorie to gain a pound. I've always had a problem maintaining a healthy weight. I've lost the equivalent of about 9.5 people over the years, and regained the lot. But now it seems I might have finally cracked it due to the Doggy Diet.
Before you head for the sick bucket, the Doggy Diet does not involve eating Bakers Complete and snacking on rawhide chews. Nobody - not even a dog - deserves to be fed Bakers Complete. However, to take full advantage of the Doggy Diet and all its benefits, you do need a dog. Please read through to the end of the post before skinning and jointing the dog and putting him in the slow cooker. You're not going to eat him, but he is going to help you to lose weight, just like Paddy is helping me.
One obvious benefit of owning a dog is the need for regular exercise. The dog needs it, and the human has to go along too, so they get exercised along with the dog. Now Paddy is 9 months old, he needs a lot of exercise, so I take him into the orange groves, let him off the lead and walk the ridges while he bounds around chasing rabbits, climbing hills and wearing himself out. Okay, I'm not running with him, but I am out walking for around an hour every day, whatever the weather.
However, there are other, less obvious benefits of owning a dog when it comes to weight control. As any dog owner will tell you, food is a major motivation in a dog's life. They can't get enough of it. When we brought Paddy home, we were determined that he was not going to be the kind of food pest dog that won't let you eat a meal in peace. So we hit on the strategy of saving him a little of the food on our plate, as long as it was suitable for him, and then putting it into his dish when we'd finished eating.
Paddy's a clever boy, and he soon cottoned on that if he sat quietly under the table while Mummy and Daddy were eating, there were two big advantages. He was there to catch any scraps that fell from Daddy's plate - which happens on a regular basis,as Tony, unlike the dog, has proved impossible to house train. Also, if he was a very good boy and didn't drool on Mummy's knee while she was eating, he'd get to share the crumbs from the rather poor man's table.
And there are two advantages for us in this as well. For a start, I'm very much aware that the dog needs to eat healthily, so I tend to make sure all our meals are low in fat with plenty of nutrients. I kind of did that before, but it's a requirement now Paddy shares our stuff. The other advantage is that, if I'm saving something for him, that's calories I'm not eating, since I serve up the same size portions as normal, but Paddy gets at least 10 - 15% of it.
Another advantage of the Doggy Diet is that it stops you snacking. Paddy can't hear me when he's a few feet away and I bellow at him to drop the knickers he's just stolen form the washing machine. However, no matter how carefully I open the fridge door, he can hear it from the farthest reaches of the garden, and he comes bounding up the terrace steps to see what he can scrounge. As I can't bear to see the look of sheer disappointment on his face when I say 'No Paddy - nothing for you,' I tend to keep the fridge door closed unless it's unavoidable, so there's less temptation to snack.
Thanks to the Doggy Diet, I've lost 15 lbs over the last 3 months without even trying. I'm looking and feeling a lot better for it too, and people are starting to notice. So, forget all about the fad diets, and the special menu diets delivered to the door. Get yourself a dog and try the Doggy Diet. It works, and you got yourself a friend for life into the bargain!