WeightWatchers

Yesterday I joined WeightWatchers as my mum said she'd pay for me to go. Part of me was and still remains quite sceptical about being told what is and isn't good for you, but there appears to be a bit more to it than that. Basically, one the basis of your current weight, height, age and degree of activity in your day-to-day life you are allowed a certain number of 'points' per day. They provide you with a booklet called 'Fast Start' which gives you recipes for each meal of the day which you can follow, which add up 16 points or 18 if you factor in a pint of milk for tea, coffee, cereal, whatever. The alternative is to use your own recipes and count the points using a little encyclopaedia telling you how much each food item is, which I think I will be doing more often. Whilst you don't have to be a genius to know that making a salad is healthier than getting an Indian takeaway, I'm already impressed by the information they give you about making changes on a smaller scale- for example, bagels aren't 'bad' for you, but pitta bread is better. I love both, so it's no problem for me to swap. Things like that are quite cool; that I can substitute minor things for others which I also enjoy, without it being a compromise. Also there are a lot of 'no point' foods which you can eat as much of as you want, so you theoretically should never be hungry, which is a big thing for me. As soon as I get hungry or emotional, food rationality goes out of the window. No point things include some foods I love, like artichokes, asparagus, all the classic salad ingredients, and thank fuck Diet Coke, so things look promising. If next week I have lost weight I will be back to trumpet about it. On a side note, it turns out our scales at home make me seem half a stone lighter than I really am, which was a bit annoying when I got weighed at the meeting. Sorry for going on about WeightWatchers so much, I know nobody cares, but hopefully I won't talk at my friends about it too much now.

Health implications of regular vomming aside, why is it not still socially acceptable to force yourself to chunder during meals like the Romans did? I often eat just because I enjoy the taste of things, not because I'm hungry. What somebody needs to do is invent that chewing gum from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory in real life; the one where as you're chewing you get the taste of a three course meal. Although a) in the book it implies that it is a substitute for a meal and must therefore fill you up, which is not the taste-only substance I was hoping and b) taste without texture would probably be a bit shit actually. I think I am thinking about this too much.

Today I have no lectures so am at home all day, and will be teaching piano this evening, although I should be at university for a staff and student representative liason meeting, but can I be bothered to pay the £15 train fare to go and repeat what I've sent them by e-mail already, and leave after an hour to be back to teach? Can I fuck. So I am pretending to be ill. I should probably do some uni work due in on Monday seeing as I'm going to stay at Dan's for the weekend, and e-mail the chap from London Zoo about my placement there, and make it seems like I know something about GIS. I don't know whether to be forward about things and ask if I am the only student in the runnings for this placement or whether there are a few of us that will be interviewed when he gets back from India. If so I should be looking for an alternative placement after another of my three applications was rejected and I don't actually want to work for the third now. I really only want this one at London Zoo though. I would be helping to develop a practical GIS programme for conservationists in Africa, which sounds very impressive and may stand me in good stead for jobs after I'm finished at King's. Also, I could get to go to Africa, which would be amazing. I am looking into going for my dissertation anyway, which looks like it's going to be mapping environmental change and human habitation in a region of the Sahara. Basically looking at climate data, like the hydrological record from lake sediments, and adding to it the record of when the area has experienced human activity by looking at other peoples' carbon dated archaeological finds. In short, being able to say that 'over time, people were able to live here at (x), when there was water available, but then the area rapidly became arid and then evidence for human habitation stops'. It might sound pretty boring but I am really interested in it.

Anyway, I should go, I want to practice some more guitar licks before my pupils start coming, and I have to write out a left-hand accompaniment for the melody-only version of 'Killing Me Softly' that one of my pupils has presented me with. How joyous. Oh, and I have to work out what I am allowed for lunch. I hope balsamic vinegar has no points in it.