Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet: From Pig to Twig [Paperback]

So we went and found out about diets, about what worked and what didn't; we cherry-picked, we fiddled about - we wanted, for instance, to eventually be able to drink and to have the odd piece of chocolate - and, armed with our own user-friendy version of a high-protein, low-carb diet, away we went.

It worked: we lost five stone each in a year. That was just under three years ago, and we haven't put any of it back on. So we thought we'd write about how we'd done it, in blow-by-blow detail, charting the emotional ups and downs, providing recipes, and all sorts of other stuff we found useful, like trying to unravel the reasons behind our overeating. I'll bet you a roast potato they're the reasons you overeat, too. We think unravelling them is crucial if you're going to keep the weight off.

We also thought - completely insanely, in retrospect - that we should be photographed wearing leotards and tights at every stage of the diet, and leave the pictures absolutely un-retouched, so readers could see for themselves that it really works. The pictures - they're really quite grim -
are all in there. So that's something to look forward to.

The other thing we really wanted to do was to write a diet book for real people - people like us, with kids, jobs, dogs and the rest, who didn't have the time or the energy to cook themselves separate meals, or to sit miserably in the corner with a lettuce leaf. People who actually had a
life, liked going out, went to the pub - and who wanted to carry on with all of these things while dieting.

Above all, we wanted to write a diet book that started off from a place of love. We are so sick of women being made to feel terrible about the way they look. During our research, we came across a pile of diet books - many,
though not all, written by middle-aged blokes - whose basic premise was 'You're a fat freak and you're killing yourself'. That approach - see also 'your insides are like sewers,' naming no names - is appalling. We start
off with the premise that you're pretty fabulous, and that you're going to be even MORE fabulous when you slip into that tiny little dress you thought you'd never in a million years fit into. It's not about body fascism: we're
not interested in dropping from a size 12 to a size 2. But from a 22 to a 14? Yes please.

We're really, really pleased with the way the book has turned out. If you're at that stage where you think, 'You know what? Sod it. I'll just stay this size and avoid full-length mirrors,' then please buy it. We've so
been there. Plus we're busy, greedy and undisciplined. We did it none the less. You can too.

Oh - one last thing. Low carb diets have, post Atkins, got a slightly sinister reputation: there are an awful lot of otherwise intelligent people who think that eating low-carb means having red meat three times a day, with a side of butter and another of cream. But all low-carb means is dumping the stodge: it is completely possible to follow our way of eating and shun red meat altogether, eating chicken, fish, tons of vegetables and good fat in the form of olive oil. What this basically gives you is a Mediterranean diet, widely acknowledged to be the healthiest in the world. So if you're thinking hmm, I like the sound of this but I'm worried about clogging my arteries, please bear the above in mind. No one's clogging any arteries, or sitting down to devour packets of lard. I'll leave you with that attractive visual.