to be miffed at India Knight for writing a weight loss book....

[jasper]

When she is clearly still overweight ? AND it's just a rehash of low carb?
AND it's called Pig to Twig. TWIG?????

Phew, there, I've said it.

I am prepared to be told I am a nasty piece of work.

(By the way I am overweight too)

As far as I'm concerned she can write what she wants, but I was vaguely irritated by the Times (which I pay good money for) printing extracts from it.

You certainly haven't been the first to notice this on mn. I bought it and enjoyed reading it, it is well written but I thought the diet itself was a bit unrealistic to stick to. And I'd imagine that I was right judging by recent pic's of her.

India who?????????????????????????

aha, you can tell I have been away too long!

Yes I thought it was a good read ( I LOVE a good diet book - goes so well with crisps and wine)but just can't get over the balls of writing it while still being fat.

Same goes for Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Loss Solution. He's a bit lardy too.

actually i was SHOCKED at the supposedly 'thin' pic of I.K. in the sunday times yesterday - she looked utterly humungous! not much of an advert for her own book if you ask me. sorry to be a bitch but......... !!!!!!

I bought the diet book (idiot proof diet) and as said, thought it a good read but didn't think it realistic for life. I started to feel really sick in the mornings at the thought of protein.

They say its easy in social situations but then one of them describes picking apart sandwiches and vol au vents at a funeral It is just another low carb diet where you have to count the carbs which I found quite tricky (clearly an idiot!). They didn't give you the carb amounts in the book but suggested you go out and buy another book or count them on a website. I found the website didn't have many of the things I was eating. I did find it slightly confusing in that the allowed foods weren't totally spelt out so I went by the shopping list. Then I found things in the recipes which were not on the list.

They seemed to say you could eat as much as you like of certain foods but as you are counting the carbs, this isn't actually true. The bit about carb counting seemed to be mentioned once in a paragraph just before the start so I didn't actually realise til a week in...

I read her diet book, discarded by another MN-er.

I felt sick reading most of it, and it was completely unrealistic about socialising, being out of the house etc.

Interspersed with a load of drivel about her and her friend. And how often they poo.

It's obviously thoroughly unhealthy.

Oh poor India - she did pretty well you know - she lost 5 stone !! Not everyone is meant to be skinny !!

Must say that my Lighter Life counsellor isn't terribly inspiring - having slimmed from a size 26 to size 16 - whereas I am a 16 wanting to be a 12 - but Hey - she has done really really well to lose that much weight and has reached a place she is happy with !

Really - not everyone wants to be a size zero ! India is a tall lady too - and quite a big build - so I suspect even at a skinny weight many of you would still say she was big !

As Morrisey once said - Some girls are bigger than others, some girls mothers are bigger than other girls mothers !! (My mantra !) and of course now Mika too with Big girls - you are beautiful !!

She has a site with a forum, iirc. To talk about diets or something.

Absolutely fair enough that she has lost weight - good for her! The problem is that the book would, imo, put any sensible woman off trying her methods!

Yes it's www.pig2twig.co.uk

I'm on her diet - it's fab ! I am - I do believe- a sensible woman !

Yes, brave of her to show herself as still over weight as the slimmer version. It's almost unique - here I am fatter than is normal for that height but you too can get to be this weight if you follow my book. GOod for her and she's lost 5 stone - she must have been very big before then. She's quite tall I suppose. But even so she is not a twig and still has a way to go I would have thought.

I would guess she's size 16 but I'm not sure if that's what she admits to.

Michael Winner on the other hand seems successfully to have lost weight and become what looks more like a normal weight and he has a book about it too. I can't imagine India K gets paid much to write for teh Times so I don't think it's wrong for them to let her plug her book in articles in the Times.

I think Michael Winner lost weight by getting some almost fatal disease from an oyster he ate at the Sandy Lane (bless)....he almost died and still cant walk properly. Not sure how he made that into an entire book but makes high protein, low carb sound positively sensible!

it should have been www.daddypigtomummypig.com

I know but he did the diet before and wrote the book before the oyster thing. I suspect he lost weight because he fell in love and I think is engaged for the first time in his life.

This is a diet book for the really fat people segment. Dieting is such a big market that it has loads of segments.

Some people start at size 12 and want to be size 8, and there are diet books aimed at them.

Some start at size 22 and would be thrilled to be a size 16 (which the group above would be horrified at), and India Knight's book is aimed at that dieting segment.

Sorry, Scatterbrain

True, a very segmented market. But don't those who get "down to 16 stone" really want to be more normal weights or what used to be normal weights before the British got so fat they forgot what normal weights were?

Probably they do. But when they have got down to a size 16 they enter a new segment and buy a new sort of diet book.

Getting from 22 to 8 in one diet book is a bit of lost marketing opportunity .

Yes but I'm sure at no bit in the book which I did buy and threw away once I got to the eating bit because its so dreadfully unrealistic and v high in fat, anyway at no point does it say me and my mate are both still rather comfortably endowed, so yes twig does seem to be a tad misleading. Perhaps well padded branch would be more apt.

Also I'm not aware of the dieting market for people who are so tremendously obese that they can't even dream of aiming for a normal weight. Actually maybe I should pretend I was one of those people rather than feeling rather squashy and miserable at a size 14/16 - except when I go to the US when I feel like a supermodel.

rookiemater - the dieting market for the super obese is stuff like stomach stapling. Another league entirely

Xenia I am almost "down to 16 stone" and you are utterly correct - that is only a mid-way target to my 10 stone goal... I started at 20 stone; I am doing fantastically well.

I am on a low GI diet and TBH it is the only one I can see working AND stick to!

I haven't read much of the IK one but not much of it makes good nutritional sense (whereas the low Gi rules do and they are for life...)

I can't wait to get to target - I am aiming to be there by September and then I will be utterly normal (size 12/14 which to some may still be "fat" but to me and my height/body structure - I'll look GORGEOUS!)

LewisFan - congratulations

Wow well done you Lewisfan. I have heard excellent reports about low GI diets, in fact some eminent dieticians on Radio 4 were recommending it as the bet way of avoiding later life diabetes.