Dieting

I just love starting a new diet, in fact, I do it every couple of weeks. The first few days are full of enthusiasm and resolve.

This week I started yet another diet. On Saturday, I bought another cookbook for my collection. It's called, THE PERFECT RECIPE FOR LOSING WEIGHT AND EATING GREAT by Pam Anderson (not THE Pam Anderson from Baywatch). She's written about three books about the Perfect Recipe. I had met her when I was taking my cooking lessons from Cooking by the Book in the City.

In this book, she outlines the plan she used to lose 42 pounds over an eight month period. This plan allows an afternoon break with one or two cookies and a glass of wine while preparing dinner. The thing I like most about her recipes is the fact that she doesn't use substitutes, like diet foods. Today for lunch I had a nice salad with smoked salmon, egg, tomato and lettuce with balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil. The recipe also calls for melba rounds, but I didn't have any and used Oysterettes, which added a little something.

For dinner I had seared chicken breast with a sauce made from orange juice and Dijon mustard. Very tasty. I had my glass of wine with dinner because I felt that if the chicken turned out awful (it didn't), at least I'd have a glass of wine that I liked.

Of course, the dreaded exercise is included, so with my first week's enthusiasm I walked a mile on Monday and another today. There's a park nearby with a walking track that I'm going to use until it gets too hot, then it's back to the treadmill in the air conditioned gym. Twice around the track equals one mile. Let's hope I can keep up this enthusiasm.

The best thing about this diet is that I don't have to buy any special diet foods, just good, nutritious foods. One suggestion that I may find hard to take relates to weighing in. She suggests that you wait a month before checking in. That's going to be very hard, I need some positive reinforcement.