DRINKS

We have already noted that in Phase I all alcoholic drinks, including wine, should be avoided Drink water or tea, or herbal teas if you prefer. But avoid sparkling waters, as these can cause bloating and upset your digestion.

In any case, I suggest you drink very little water with your meals, as you risk diluting the gastric juices thereby upsetting your digestive system. At least if you must drink, do not start doing so until half-way through the meal. Do not drink as soon as you sit down to eat; this is a deplorable habit people have fallen into, which accounts for a good many of the metabolic problems they run into in digesting their food. Drink between meals, instead (at least a litre of water a day). And see that you do!

A reminder that, if you have to eat a large meal while you are in Phase I, you must abstain from the alcoholic aperitif. Try a tomato juice or a Perrier instead If you really cannot get out of accepting something alcoholic (if, for example, your host has made a kir for everyone), then do so, but do not drink it. Moisten your lips with it from time to time, to be seen to be taking part in the general conviviality of the occasion but do not swallow any. Sooner or later you can find a convenient moment to"abandon"your glass somewhere without anyone noticing. If you find it difficult to get rid of, you can always use a little ingenuity Put it down within reach of someone who is knocking the stuff back; people like this can generally be relied on to pick up someone else's glass by mistake, especially if it is full. As a rule, there is at least one of these individuals at every gathering. If all else fails, there is always the flower-pot, the champagne bucket, the open window in summer or the basin in the cloakroom.

Advice if you have to attend a social function when you are in Phase 1 : Accept the glass of champagne that is handed to you, and hold on to it for a while. Put it to your lips from time to time if you can bear to do that without drinking any. Then discreetly put it down somewhere.

Party food, though, can constitute a real headache. But it need not be an insoluble problem.

There is no question of eating sandwiches, however dainty they are. But what is in the sandwiches is good stuff: slices of salmon, sliced sausage, egg, asparagus, and so on. If you have the nerve and skill to separate the topping of an open sandwich from its base, good for you! Where there's a will, there's a way. But failing this, there is always party fare which comes within our rules.

Cherchez Ie fromage! There is always cheese around, in one form or another, in slices or, more usually, in little cubes.

Failing this, try to track down the cocktail sausages! But exercise restraint; think of the cholesterol !

If you think you are one of those people who just cannot resist a table laden with food, if you think you will inevitably succumb to temptation because when the hunger pangs strike your will-power will evaporate, then try this : before you go to the party, nibble something that is within the rules, to "line your stomach".

In the mid-nineteenth century a forbear of mine (my great-great-grandfather), who had six children, was invited with his family to lunch with the managing director of the company he worked for. I am told that my great-great-grandmother took good care to see that the children were fed a hearty soup before they went. With their stomachs thus lined, these delightful children showed a good deal less unseemly enthusiasm than they might have done, when dishes of a magnificence they were quite unused to were set before them. And my great-great-grandparents acquired the instant reputation for having extremely well brought-up offspring.

So if you are afraid of giving in to temptation, eat a hard-boiled egg or a piece of cheese before you set off for your party. And you can get into the habit of always having with you some of those little individual cheeses like "Babybel" or "Laughing cow"'.

These items can also be dipped into whenever you feel peckish, though dried fruit or high-fibre bread is even better. However, except for children, who should eat something at teatime, hunger should not strike between meals, as long as your meals are well thought out and are high in fibre. In any case, do not confuse having tea and having a nibble between meals! And be careful about consuming lipids when you have had a carbohydrate meal. Do not, for example, eat a piece of gruyere at 9 o'clock in the morning if you only breakfasted at 8 o'clock.

What if you are invited to friends ? This can be a trickier situation, and you will have less room for manoeuvre.

Well, let us look at various possibilities. Maybe these are friends that you know well ? They may even be relatives. In that case, you will be relaxed enough with them to "put your cards on the table". Ask them in advance what is on the menu. You need not be afraid, even, to make a suggestion or two.

But let us suppose that you do not know your hosts very well. In this case you will have to play it by ear. If the occasion is a very special one, it will be a meal in line with the occasion, and I should be surprised if rice, pasta or potatoes figured as a major part of the menu.

If there is foie gras, go ahead and eat it, even though it is not to be recommended as food to be eaten freely in Phase I. But just once in a while it will do no harm. But please do not eat the toast served with it. There is no reason why you should; even politeness does not demand it.

If you are served a magnificent cheese souffle, you can eat it along with everyone else, even though it will contain flour. But knowing that it puts you "in the red", exercise restraint. Do not make a bad situation worse by accepting a third helping.

If the starter is a pate en croute, you can eat the pate, which is generally protein-lipid, and leave the crust discreetly on the side of your plate. Given that you are not among close friends, no-one is likely to be rude enough to remark that you ar e "leaving the best part"! And even if the hostess is wondering why you did not like her pastry, she is unlikely to ask you outright.

When it comes to the main course, I should think you would have no difficulty, as the accompaniments are usually optional. You can take a symbolic helping of rice or pasta, but no-one can make you eat it.

If all this leaves you still starving, you can make up for it with the salad, if there is one, and, particularly, wi th the cheese. If you help yourself generously to the cheese, your hostess will be pleased and will find it easier to forgive you for leaving the crust from your pate. An attractive cheese-board needs to have a good range of varieties, and guests rarely try many of them because they have no room after all the bread they have eaten. So it is up to you to do justice to the cheese-board!

The dessert is likely to be the most critical point of the meal, as it is always hard to say "no, thank you". So insist on a very small portion and, like others who have eaten too much already, you can leave a substantial part of it on your plate.

Wait as long as possible into the meal before you start to drink. Give priority to drinking some red wine with the cheese. Should the whole situation turn out to be worse than you expected, and, despite being still in Phase I, all your ingenuity could not protect you from the assaults of the bad carbohydrates, then your only recourse is to be more vigilant than ever thereafter in pursuit of your new way of eating.

You must realise that in Phase I you are still very sensitive to glucose. The object of this phase is to raise your tolerance level; as long as it has not reached a satisfactory level, your sensitivity to glucose remains high.

Obviously, if after denying your body bad carbohydrate for a while, you quite suddenly feed it a huge quantity, your metabolism will have a field day. And in a single evening you will bump up your fat reserves by more than the amount you have taken up to a fortnight to lose.
The further you are into Phase I (which should last at least two or three months), the less catastrophic the effect will be.
On the other hand, if you "go overboard"two or three weeks after starting Phase I, you run the risk of returning virtually to square one. This can be pretty discouraging. If this happens, you will just have to tell yourself that although you may have lost a battle, you still have a good chance of winning the war.