It's the moment every dieter hopes will never come, but will Sarah Vine stay on the health wagon if the pounds are no longer shifting?
And so, dear readers, it has happened. The moment the fatty dreads. I have plateaued. Stopped. Ground to the proverbial halt. I stepped on the scales on Sunday morning and had lost no weight. Stepped on them again today and appeared to have gained half a kilo.
It has put me in the mother of all baits. I am like a teenage girl who, having done all her homework on time plus extra boring reading, is told by my mother that she can't go to the party after all. It's so unfaaaaiiir, I wail, to no one in particular.
I've done nothing wrong. On Saturday night, I dodged the rice at a dinner party and ate only the meat and veg. On Sunday, I had one single solitary lamb chop with leaves for lunch (it was a fasting day) while everyone else got new potatoes (cooked by me, natch). I've drunk gallons of liquids, hardly any of them alcoholic.
I am bored out of my mind. Food, once such joy and a delight, is now little more than a chore. So much of it has to be chopped, diced, liquidised, soaked overnight. The effort seems extreme, the reward paltry. I long to sink my fangs into a soft, warm baguette filled with with something illicit, preferably mayonnaise-based.
If I could silence my hunger pangs with a pill, I would. Tonight was stir fry veg with prawns. Okay, as these things go. But not exactly beef Wellington. Lunch was sashimi. Snack was a chia pot, all slimy like frogspawn. I even went training in the searing sodding heat.
All of which I can cope with, so long as it works. When it's not, the Green & Black's Almond Milk beckons.
Oh, to feel the soft sweetness as it melts on my tongue, the anticipation of pleasure as I bite into another chunk. Blueberries just don't have quite the same kick.
The problem, I have worked out, is that I am just that little bit more greedy than I am vain. I need to see results, otherwise my resolve slackens.
We shall see what tomorrow brings.