But you did mention ‘disagreeing very strongly with blogs being used as marketing tools’. And my whole blog is a marketing tool for my little shop (though I do appear to have lost the plot a bit recently). So maybe you’d just disagree very strongly with it.

As for eating habits - you do sound more and more like me. I’m half-Italian, so have a genetic predisposition towards yummy food. Maybe we should just swap recipes instead?

Paola - Sorry, didn’t mean to get a bit ranty/ratty, it’s just that I have a dreadful habit - like so many other people - of subscribing to ‘I don’t know how it works but it does!’ diets for about two weeks and then never touching them again, which isn’t healthy for me. I understand the whole principle thing, and the appetite reduction thing sounds great - thing is, it’s just not the exact problem I have - me, it’s just not taking enough exercise and basically preferring little bits of rich food over little bits of bland food - it’s not that my appetite is too big, it’s just too discerning.

But thank you again - leave your url! Why would I hate it? I bet you anything I wouldn’t. I don’t hate anything. Except racists, homophobes, ‘new puritans’ and closed-minded right-wingers. And I’m sure you can’t be Any of those, you sound too nice.

I’m so sorry, I wasn’t trying to market anything via your blog. It’s just that your post struck a chord (particularly the bit about clothes shops and mirrors and cameras) and it sounded like you, as I do, already eat a reasonably healthy diet, just too much of it.

And for me this oil diet thingy somehow appears to have turned me into the sort of person who can leave food on her plate (this is a miracle); eat half a chocolate bar without OBSESSING over the other half; positively craves fruit and vegetables, and doesn’t even hear the siren call of the fridge if she’s not feeling hungry. Which has made my head a much more relaxing place to be with regards to food than it has been in ages.

But I shall stop banging on. Thanks anyway for writing the post and I hope you find the Thingasyetunspecified soon.

BTW, I haven’t included my blog address because you would HATE it :)

So I thought your post was brilliant and brave and left me feeling overwhelmed. When I first started reading little red boat it was pretty obvious that you are smart and funny and lovely. Wanting to put a face to the blog, I looked at your About Me, and I concluded that you are also very pretty, and normal sized, ie notfat.

Which is all well and good, but left me feeling a tiny bit sad, resentful and wistful (as several times a day) that I can’t be in the club of ‘normal’ people, the ones who aren’t at least automatically disqualified from being happy, or attractive, or any kind of exciting.

So I was very surprised. You say it all so well, about not being able to admit to anyone that you hate it, and about being seen as pitiable. I hate walking around knowing a little bit all the time that people are seeing me as disgusting, and what’s worse, culpably so, and that it colours just a little bit every relationship I have. And I hate feeling all the time a little bit (or a lot) disgusting, and a little bit (or a lot) culpable (don’t mention the childhood…).

All of this, even though I’m basically happy being who I am.

So I too will never be skinny, but somehow became Determined. Whilst being determined I have learnt to dance, taken up Pilates, had some counselling (I was also determined to be more sane - mens sana and all that), and been swimming and cycling insufficiently often. Main obstacles to determination have been cake and having to go back and live with my family (enough to drive anyone to cake…). But I am still Determined, and I figure I’ll get there.

Thank you for the post - it’s good to feel not alone. Good luck.

Le Figaro called Zidane’s head-butt “odious”

But perhaps Mezzanine’s comments which provoked him (deliberately) made Maserati the “most odious.”

I don’t think I will though, you know?

I mean, it looks really great, and I’m glad it’s working out for you, but I’m really trying to stay away from the whole ‘I don’t know how it works, but it does!’-Fad-diet-industry, and concentrate on eating healthily, cutting back on alcohol, sugars, fats etc - and doing lots of exercise.

Also, I disagree very strongly with blogs being used as marketing tools. I think it’s a terrible shame. Apart from this guy, obviously. He’s just hilarious.

However, in the last few weeks I have been trying Seth Roberts’ (with whom I am in no way affiliated) Shangri-la Diet. He’s been marketing it via blogs, so there’s loads of info about it out there, though this was the blog post that got me into it.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/05/the_strangest_e.html

The premise is completely mental, so much so that I thought it was a hoax when I first read about it. Essentially you have two periods of fasting for two hours minimum during a day, during which you consume nothing but a tablespoon of flavourless oil, or drink sugared water. And that’s it.

There’s some spurious-sounding science behind it but essentially it’s supposed to act as an appetite suppressant. And it sounded so mad and so easy that I decided to try it. And I’m eating everything I want to eat, but I’m definitely eating LESS, without feeling hungry, or using any willpower whatsoever. And I’m losing weight. Slowly, but definitely.

Weird stuff, but you may want to try it. At the very least you could get a couple of blog posts out of it.