The end!

Well, phases 1-4 of the diet are now finished, according to the official regimen. Today I move into phase 5, where my habits are supposedly all broken and the pounds will carry on falling off until I get down to my healthy weight, as long as I keep using the tools given in the book to spot those habits and squash them until they're gone for good.

I still feel a bit of a cheat though. I kind of miss the structure that the first phases gave to my life and made me feel like I was achieving things. I'm not sure I've achieved the weight loss that I'd hoped for. I should be 4 - 8 pounds lighter by now, and I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow to see how I match up to the official prediction.

I have had some email correspondence from one of the NDD staff team regarding the online version of the No Diet Diet, and they say that the programme is a bit better developed for stage 5 of the diet there, because presumably they have more space to explain it, and I also get access to trained and experienced NDD people for help when things go wrong, or to ask questions. I think I might try it and see because there have been points where I wasn't sure whether I was doing it right.

Although I feel much better about my life, I can still see habits that I'm stuck in and I still feel a bit powerless to change them.

But here are some really positive things that have come out so far:

• I feel full up quicker than before - or rather, have learned to spot when I am truly hungry and when I am merely bored or thirsty;
  
• I don't get chocolate cravings any more;
• I don't feel the need to have a Diet Coke so often (unless I'm at work, when it's still an ingrained habit sadly);
• I've learned to recognise a lot of habits and have found them easier to knobble than I would otherwise;
• I don't feel forlorn and tempted at the same time when seeing photos of delicious and (formerly) 'naughty' food in magazines or in advertisements. It's just food to me now, rather than some kind of religious taboo;
• The desserts that gave me awesome guilty pleasure before (eg chocolate fudge cake) seem less tempting, even over-rich, and in some cases a bit disgusting;
• My ability to leave food when I feel full, rather than Finishing My Plate Like a Good Girl, has increased. Left-overs no longer induce guilt; rather, they are a satisfying achievement.

So, all this is great! I must continue to relish and live out these new things.

Hopefully tomorrow I will report back to you with some concrete statistics.
Oh yes - my weight - that.