Since being with my partner, I have put on one entire stone. There is no mystery as to why – it is because I have spent too many nights on the sofa with a glass (ahem) of wine and some really good food, which invariably contains all or one of the following: cream, butter and cream or butter, full-fat creme fraiche and cream.
I’ve never needed to diet and never had an interest, until now, where my weightiness forces me into sporting the latest trends in maternity wear. It’s not a good look for a small, non-pregnant woman. So I read Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat, of which the inevitable movie will come out in 2011. The book, out since 2004, is a thumping bestseller because it tells women it’s ok to eat what they fancy, without guilt: albeit eat like a French woman. Eat well. Chew your food. Don’t have twenty biscuits, have one. All that sort of thing. It makes perfect sense and I’m all for it. Her kick-start for this new rosy lifestyle is her Magical Leek Soup, a beautiful, cleansing leek broth passed down through the generations as cunning way to lose pounds quickly.
The recipe – leeks and water – is simple. What can be more cheapeaty than that? Read the book and try it. But no-one, surely, can beat my record of buggering up the Magical Leek Soup diet. I made the soup, had some leeks, sipped some broth, then just a few minutes later ate two snickers in a row because I felt so deprived. I don’t even usually eat Snickers, damn it!
Cheapeats readers: do you have any super-quick lose pounds tips like the above? Recipes and ideas welcome!