So picture the scene if you can. We’re now all sitting round the dining table — we’re old-fashioned and prefer to sit down at a table and talk to each other while we’re eating. None of these TV dinners where you balance a tray on your knees and chase peas round the plate with a fork. We’ve all got our smaller plates so we can keep a better informed eye on how much we’re eating and wondering what to do next. So, I’m holding forth, telling you what to do.

We’ve come to the “cut down on sugar” rule.

For me, this was easy. I’m not sure if I ever really had a sweet tooth. I’m old enough to have had my very own ration card when I was young — for those of you who haven’t already worked it out, I’m a Brit and an old one at that.

I still have my old identity card lurking in a drawer somewhere. When I was young, there were very few sweets around and chocolate was like gold. So I guess I never really picked up the habit. Sweet things were something special to look forward to — a kind of treat. As a family, we would all make a special occasion of going to the shops, clutching our ration cards. We were all experts on what we could get with our weekly allowance and how to trade points between ourselves (and anyone else in the shop at the same time as us). We knew how to value these treats.

Move forward to the oughties and we’re under under siege from the advertisers. Even as parents, we’re pressured to feed sweetened foods to our babies in the cradle. Children’s lives are dominated by sweetened drinks and snacks. It’s a nightmare because, in many households, they’re never without something sweet to eat and find unsweetened food comparatively tasteless. It’s the same with salt but we’ll come back to that another time.

So, all you people out there, you’ve got to get the “wartime” spirit. It’s back to austerity for you.

OK, so most of you probably had to google austerity or you’re on the other side of the pond (the Atlantic) so never had any problem with food during the war anyway. But the principle is the right one. You have to start denying yourself the worldly pleasure of sweetened foods.

Think of the alternative. You’re like me with a course of phentermine, Acomplia or Meridia and your doctor is advising that you should change your diet. That these medications work best when combined with sensible eating and exercise.

The risk is that you’ll just rely on the pills and not take action on the diet. You’ll not lose what you think is enough weight. You’ll get discouraged and give up.

Now that would never do, would it?So, I took the really big, decisive step. The one step that showed me as absolutely committed to keep on going.I had my eyes retested and got some stronger bifocal lens spectacles.

Now I could read all the small print in my supermarkets and buy all the low sugar or unsweetened foods and drinks.

I adjusted fairly quickly, but the younger ones who come to sit at my dining table sometimes pull their faces at the taste. They’re just not used to it. It comes as a bit of a shock to their systems. But, everyone in my family who eats and drinks it regularly, has grown so used to the taste that the opposite now applies. They find many tinned or packaged foods too sweet now.

And, we’re all losing weight. Of course, I’m losing more than they are because I’m the only one taking either the phentermine or Acomplia, but we all feel so much better for it.

You should try it too. Just stop drinking all those fizzy soft drinks and those cleverly worded “fruit juice drinks” — I suppose there must be fruit in them but there are a lot of those chemical taste enhancers in there along with all that sugar. Stop eating all those snack foods and cut down on the biscuits and cakes.

Sugar is addictive. Fight the cravings. Beat the habit and start cutting down today!

Tagged with: acomplia • diet • losing weight • Meridia • Phentermine