Why break the habit of a lifetime...?

Old habits die hard, so they say. How very true. In the continuing saga that is my diet, I have finally found a lunchtime meal which is both healthy and enjoyable. I suppose it could be a lot more nutritional if I took the chocolate and bacon out, but it's got greens in it...


I'm just kidding. It's a mix of pasta, sun dried tomatoes, french beans, peppers, tuna and pesto. I have to give thanks to the amazing Mr Carluccio for putting the recipe into my head after I sampled it at one of his restaurants. Meals you try to recreate at home after eating out never quite work out as nice, you go down to the Horse & Cart and order a lovely Beef Stroganoff but when you cook it at home the next day it tastes like Beef Turdanoff, but full marks to me *blows trumpet*, it's pretty amazing. 


My lunches have always consisted of either a sandwich or a salad, some fruit, a yoghurt and a packet of crisps. This to me seems fairly healthy, although probably a bit of a carb-overload. But I've been reading up on all different sorts of diets, coming to the conclusion that I actually can't be arsed to do any of them. Why would you want to waste precious time in your day, every day, counting the calories of every single item you pick up in the supermarket? A single shopping trip would take all bloody morning, just through calculating the calories. I've now taken to checking the saturated fat content of food, seeing as my Mum cut all this out together with lowering her sugar intake and lost loads of weight from her stomach. It's not so much hassle, I just try to stick to under 3g of sat fat. My problem is that because I've been used to eating the same sort of lunch ever since primary school, I can't eat lunch without craving a packet of crisps. No matter how good my pasta dish is (and it is damn good) I cannot get the thought of how good a nice packet of Quavers tastes, out of my head! I'm sitting here right now struggling to see the screen in front of me because I'm seeing a vision of cheesy Wotsits, prawn cocktail Quavers, beef Monster Munch etc in front of my eyes. 


You know what the cruel thing is...? I ate an apple this morning and about 10 minutes later I felt like I'd just swallowed a herd of cows. My stomach grew to twice it's twice AND....I still really wanted a packet of crisps. I never feel that way after a packet of crisps. I feel satisfied - and definitely not bloated! So maybe I just ditch the fruit and salad-only diet and go back to what I know? In fact, that wasn't a question...it was a statement. Right, who's going to the shops.....