h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I used to smoke. Then 22 years ago I gave it up - 'cold turkey'. Six months later I was 20 kilograms more of a man than I was before! It hasn't got any better since.

I ENJOY food more than I should, more often than is necessary and in greater quantities than necessary.

Can you imagine living a life where you must smoke three cigarettes per day, but not a whole packet? That's what dieting is like to me!

Food is part of leisure time in the modern urban experience. As an ex-chef and sometimes food critic, I cannot escape the escape that is food, and do not intend to. Despite the quantities--and quality--of what I consume, I still keep my girlish figure. How? Staying active. I don't mean the daily 10K, but staying off the couch or behind a desk plays a part in keeping the machine in working order.

Dieters. Those are the people who need help. What organism would chose starvation over survival?

It's hard for those who, like me, have to sit behind a computer all day in their jobs. I am a big foodie since childhood, and although I can regulate my hunger now, it used to dominate my life. It wasn't even hunger back then (never allowed myself to feel it as the next meal was always there) just a compulsion to fill the void.

But I still spend a large amount of my energy thinking about food. Either staying away from it or giving in to it. What a waste of time!

I can relate to this.

Not only have I recently quit smoking (see the conversation on nicotine) but I have been a lifelong food addict.

I'm trying to treat dangerous foods like alcoholics treat alcohol - just not having any in the house. That seems to help. I have systematicaly replaced all the snackfoods in the house with healthy stuff and I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I eat because I am bored, worried etc.

It's a long, nasty road to weight loss but I think I have a good plan in place.

When I gave up smoking, I kept one cigarette in a packet on the coffee table in the living room. That way, I was able to look temptation in the eye every day and reject it. After three months, a mate of mine smoked that cigarette when he ran out one night.

But I find that this doesn't work with food. Perhaps this is because I'm not denying the temptation entirely, as I did with the cigarettes. I have had a psycho(logist)suggest that I should savour small portions of food before I eat them - a sort of 'feast with your eyes and nose, not your mouth' approach. The more I look at it, the more I want food! Even talking about it makes my mouth water!

My job also keeps me glued to a seat, if not to a desk. I rise at 5:30 am and leave for work at 6:00 Meetings, meetings and more meetings and I drive at least two hours a day on top of that. By the time I get home at 19:00, I am in no physical or psychological frame of mind to go for a quick 10k run, I can tell you!

My previous boss had the same problem and proposed a unique solution - he said he needed a shapely, very fit secretary who would make him the offer: 'If you can catch me, you can HAVE ME!' I believe he's still looking for that one!

FATCATS FOREVER ! ?