Watching Waistlines

I have fallen in love with Anthony Bourdain. He hosts a travel/food show on Discovery. It's basically just him, traveling and eating. He is a New Yorker and has that droll New York sense of humour, but is also very intelligent, cynical and world weary. The only thing I don't like about him is that in spite of the fact that he seems to drinks heavily, smoke constantly and eat enormous amounts of high-carb/high-fat food he is stick thin. I've always maintained that old adage "never trust a skinny cook" and while I probably wouldn't trust him I certainly wouldn't turn him down either. He has that bad-boy thing working for him with a razor sharp wit, and even though he is cynical he also manages to maintain respect for the country he is in and the people with whom he interacts. He seems to only make disparaging comments about his countrymen and their food/lifestyle choices. A scene from his restaurant showed him reading an order which said "no butter, extra béarnaise", he ranted "No butter? What the fuck do they thing béarnaise is made out of? Morons." A very attractive man.
Unlike Bourdain, my love of food and my passion for cooking is very well reflected by my body shape. I am perpetually on a diet, living in depravation (no, not depravity....well...) and lamenting my vast wardrobe of clothes that no-longer fit.
I've always been a fatty, to varying degrees. I was a skinny little kid that developed into a fat little kid, turned into a lean teenager then became a voluptuous but slender adult. If the roller coaster had stopped there, I would be happy. But the combination of my Honours year and a job in a bakery had me spending hours studying and eating bread and pastries. I did Weight Watchers and lost the weight. But I didn't keep up my active lifestyle and soon chubbed up again. I went back to WW and worked incredibly hard at the gym and jogged, cycled and swam for about 12 months and managed to look HOT on my wedding day. But a crap marriage and 2 miscarriages soon turned to depression which turned into blubber. After the girl was born I hit my all time record fatness (and coincidentally depression) level. This time I went to Sure Slim and low-carb/starved my way down again. The past 2 years with my new love have, unfortunately, due to the distance thing been focused on food and wine and my weight has gone up again. I tried to drop some weight for our wedding and spent a fortune on a personal trainer and tried to stick to the Sure Slim diet again. I was eventually able to row 1000m in about 4 ½ minutes, but didn't loose a gram.
I have since moving here been trying to follow either WW or SS eating and have been going to the gym at least twice a week – again, I haven't lost a gram.
So today I embark on the Tony Ferguson diet, again low carb but with protein shakes and more flexibility than SS. By mid-morning I was craving a cheese sandwich, but I have been good and have made it through the first 6 hours OK. Apparently after 48 hours I will stop being hungry and the weight will start dropping. Fingers crossed.
I have no desire to be thin, I like curves and I like softness, I just want to get rid of the double chin, beer gut, wobbly arms and thunder thighs. I don't care if I have a big bum or big boobs, I can live with that, but my goal is to get from the wrong side of size 16 to the other side of a 14 (bordering on 12), that will do nicely thank you.
So Bourdain has now become porn for me: watching an attractive man eating. Like Vogue Travel and Living magazine (of which I have many): gorgeous places I will never go and sumptuous food I will never eat. At least I get to watch.