One glass of warm lemon juice (without honey or sugar), 1 cup of (tasteless) green tea, 2 cups of (Sugarfree) tea, 1 glass of (vile) vegetable juice --- Loaded with all this, Virtue and my lunch of 3 (small) rotis and methi saag, I arrived at office. All hell broke lose before I could even press the switch-on button of my comp. It was going to be one of those Hell-in-Office days. Grappling with panic, I asked Anup to quickly get me a greasy chicken patti from the cafe downstairs. The crisis continued and by mid-morning, I felt an acute need to finish the 3 (small) rotis and saag. A little later, by way of a much-deserved break, I went up to the cafeteria and had another (not-so-small) roti, kadhi and chicken, washed down with a Diet Coke (today, I absolutely need one). Back at my desk Anup asked if I needed a coffee. Yes, yes of course, and please get me a paan as well. At 5 o'clock, the girls ordered samosa and chaat from Gupta dhaba downstairs. I said, absolutely not, I cannot have samosas or chaat. I had a double egg sandwich, instead. Staggering home, crisis far from over, I had 4 glasses of chilled white wine (I really need it) followed by a dinner of Kerala rice, sambar and sabzi, touched up with home made ghee. Exhausted by a hard day's work, I fell into bed, and dreamt of making pizza from scratch.... Some months ago, I was on a diet with nutritionist Ishi Khosla, and needed to note down my eating history each day, including the teeny meeny bite of pizza. Such nightmare days of eating would have set off convulsions in Ishi. I'm glad to spare her the pain. She's a good sort and effective too. Believe it or not, I managed to drop the 15 kgs that I was carrying around as excess baggage when I was listening to Ishi. But now we don't talk amy more. I just eat. And drink. Here's a basic truth for all Good Housekeeping weight-loss aspirants: you have to simply control your eating. No amount of speed-walking, jogging or gyming is unlikely to see you past the creamy chocolate mousse or double cheese pizza. There's no hidden trick to facilitate control-eating. You just have to do it. It's difficult. But that's it. Since I parted ways with Ishi, I also ended my love affair with the weighing scales. I don't know when we will be friends again. Till then, I eat on.