Crown Prince supper
One in five of us start a diet every month, apparently. That means one in five of us stop a diet every month too, or so it says in the Daily Mail.
Do we really? It sounds like complete madness. Start a diet March 1st. Stick to it for a week or so. Pack it in. Pig out. Start another diet April 1st.
Don't we know better than this by now? Surely everyone must have read countless times that the only way to lose weight is to choose a way of eating you enjoy and is healthy and that will get the weight off slowly/steadily over time. You carry on until you're at a comfortable weight, then you simply carry on – maybe upping portion sizes a little – so that you don't put it all back on again. Simple.
And yet I know that not many of us do follow that simple way. We still want the quick fix. We still want to miracle diet. We still want to believe what the guru tells us and not what our own common sense tells us.
Will we ever learn? I hope so. Yes, I've tried various mad or not very nice diets during this Challenge. I did it to find out whether I had been too harsh in the past on fads and crashes and pseudo-science that isn't science at all. And I found out that no, I hadn't been too harsh – most of it is not only rubbish that doesn't work, but unpalatable rubbish too.
And in the past few weeks there's been yet more research that yo-yo dieting is bad for us – it's better to stay a bit overweight than keep losing then gaining.
So if you're thinking of trying yet another diet this month, please stop – don't be like the March hare or the April fool this October.
If you're not going to stick to it, don't start it – you'll be much happier for the next four weeks, I can assure you.
Ate last night: A fairly light supper of roast Crown Prince pumpkin chunks with feta cheese, rocket, pine nuts and a lemon dressing (see photo). Every year we grow squash and pumpkin and the Crown Prince is one of the best. It's even tastier than butternut squash. You can use pumpkin or sunflower seeds if the current extortionate price of pine nuts puts you off buying them.
Recipe – serves 2 generously
- 500g Crown Prince pumpkin
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Juice of half a lemon
- ½ tsp caster sugar
- ½ tsp French mustard
- Salt and black pepper
- 100g feta cheese
- Handful rocket leaves
- 1½ tbsp toasted pine nuts
1. Peel the pumpkin and cut into chunks. Put in roasting tin, coat with 1 tbsp olive oil and seasoning, and roast at 190C for 45 minutes, turning halfway through. Meanwhile shake together the remaining olive oil with the lemon juice, sugar, mustard and seasoning.
2. When the pumpkin is soft and golden, stir the dressing gently in and divide between two plates. Top with the crumbled cheese, rocket leaves and pine nuts to serve.
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