Listen to the angel or succumb to the devil.

I have managed to lose a lot of weight and am at a weight I am happy with. There is no disputing this fact.

Even better is the fact that I have dropped at least 7 inches from my waist and all the other good indicators such as shirt sizes have gone from XXXL to M or L. My blood pressure is lower and now almost normal and my cholesterol is normal.

I am ignoring BMI as that suggests I need to lose between 2 and 4 more stone and that is not going to happen!!! However even this has dropped from 39.9 to 29.1.

I now face the challenge of trying to maintain the weight I have reached and this is where honesty comes in. Despite all the gains made and my knowledge of how to maintain my weight there is still a bit of me that just likes eating food and this is dangerous.

This doesn’t mean that I am going to slide back to what I was but it does mean that there is always that potential risk.

Meals are generally much better than they were. I cook using much less oil, my meat is lean and I eat less meat. I eat a higher portion of vegetables and fruit with a good mix of appropriate fats and things like bread.

You might then ask what is the problem. This lies in what temptation puts in your way, temptation that easier to refuse when the my disciplined focus was on losing weight.

Now I find myself saying, well a little bit will not throw me off, I can have a bit and I know how to balance it out. Even in itself this is not the issue. If however, I do not keep track of what these ‘indiscretions’ are, I run the risk of accidentally losing the balance in what I eat.

My first few weeks of being at my chosen target weight has involved periods of eating mainly balanced meals, interspersed with ‘go on, have a little bit more’ moments of the treats. As a result my weight will rise by a few pounds and then drop by a few pounds. This is always within my good range but somehow the yo-yo effect is not one I want to continue.

My challenge now is to reach a broadly balanced level without having to put in effort to get there and part of this is acknowledging that I still like food, I will eat when I am not hungry and I nibble at things around me, even if they are not good for me.

This blog is going to carry on sharing recipes but it will also highlight what works well for me in trying to maintain my weight and act as my conscience, alongside my ‘groups’.

Watch this space and don’t be afraid to remind me what I have set out to do. We all need a balance to the little devil on our shoulder.