*** Apologies if the cake photo is upside down – sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t and I can’t work out how to fix it!

One of the downsides of moving to Portugal is that I’ve gained weight. I brought scales with me here so I could keep my weight under control, but whenever I’ve stepped on them and noticed the extra few pounds I’ve kidded myself it’s only a small gain and I can get it off easily enough … and of course those small gains have added up to a humongous gain – 25lbs, to be perfectly frank. Ok, that’s only around a pound a week so if I was on holiday it would be a pretty good result – but I’ve been here nearly eight months now, and if I carry on gaining at that rate I’ll soon be right back where I started.

Seems to me there are two key issues. The first is that every day feels like a holiday here – even the days when I’m doing Proof Fairy work – because all I have to do is step out of my house and up into the garden and the view across the mountains puts me straight back into holiday mode! And that means it’s far too easy to kid myself that those beers by the river, or the coffee and cake, are fine because I’m on holiday. But it’s not – I live here now, Portugal is my home. I need to get my head into real life living here mode and stop the rot, before I undo all the good work I did between 2016-2018 to lose 6 stone.

The other issue, of course, is that the food is just so damn tasty here – especially the bread, pastries, cakes and cheese. Back in the UK last year I was perfectly happy (well, reasonably happy) with my two small slices of wholemeal bread as my Healthy Extra B. Here I find myself demolishing freshly baked white bread rolls, tucking into Pastéis de nata on a regular basis, snacking on huge chunks of cheese, and cooking everything in olive oil, even though I have FryLite on the shelf. And of course there are the meals out too ….

I need to face reality – I’m getting tubby and my size 12 slightly elasticated jeans won’t fit me much longer. I’ve already had to store a few things I’ve outgrown. So the campaign to lose weight starts here – I’m going to start following the Slimming World plan as closely as I can from today onwards. I’m not kidding myself it’s going to be easy – for a start, I’ve not seen wholemeal bread in the supermarkets, and fat free yogurts and quark are difficult to find. I also don’t want to miss out on meals out with friends or the occasional treat – but it’s all going to be recorded and estimated in terms of syns.

My goal is to lose at least half this excess weight – that’s 12.5lbs – before I go back to the UK for Xmas. That’s only around a pound a week, so is eminently doable so long as I do this properly. And that’s where I need your support and encouragement – I don’t know if I can do this on my own!

I don’t want to clog up my blog with daily posts but I do want to make myself 100% accountable (and also keep a record for my own future use – you never know, these posts may become a book one day!) so every week I’ll be posting my food diary for the week, along with any useful foods I’ve found or tasty recipes I’ve tried, given the restrictions of shopping in Portugal. So please bear with me if these posts aren’t of interest to you – I will still write about life here!