Cook Yourself Thin

Tragically not a show about basting yourself in your own fat while sat in a large oven.

No, much, much worse. First of all a perfectly fine looking woman is shown with the title of "Size 16". Then some funky looking female chefs, again with their dress sizes. Although to be honest, you know how TV is supposed to add 20lbs to you? Well, the victim who was supposed to be a size 16 (these are all UK sizes btw) looked a perfectly fine size 14 at most. Three of the chefs looked at least one size more than their title said, and one of them (who is either really short, or all the others are REALLY tall) is apparently a size 10. But if she was, it wasn't in a good way.

And I'd like to point out, if the show hadn't shown the sizes, they wouldn't have even entered my head. But no. That's the way the show sets itself, so that's where I'm going to start. I couldn't care less what dress size someone is, if they're happy and not going to die from being over or underweight, then I'm not going to be the one telling them to lose/gain weight. So yeah, opening credits horror show.

Then the cooking started. The victim loves her full Sunday roast. So the funky chefs have to re-create it, but with fewer calories. So instead of roasting big potatoes with the skins off, roast new potatoes with the skin on. Fair tip, I'll let that one pass.

Instead of some fairly reasonable looking carrots and peas, some oven roasted squash and onions. Okay, don't really see the point and you have used olive oil where the original used only water, but fine you crack on. Yorkshire Pudding? Oh, you seem to have ignored that completely. Right, continue and show me how you deal with the Beef. Ah, of course, you've cooked chicken instead. And thrown away the skin.

Call me old fashioned, but that's cheating. Of course there's going to be MUCH lower calories in something that doesn't have Yorkshire Pudding or Beef! You bastards! This exact sort of thing continued throughout the show.

Carbonara too high in calories? Think this show will help? Nope, they'll make an entirely different sauce for pasta and count what the calorie content of that is instead. Eating too many chocolates? Make a big bowl of truffle mix, stick it all in your fridge after you've rolled it into balls and covered it in cocoa powder, but only eat two a day. Right, not forgetting to assume that the person has self control over food and doesn't eat them all at once, feel terrible and make themselves throw up in shame, obviously.

But the tips don't stop/start there, oh dear me no. Having apple crumble? Have you considered having less crumble and more apple? Well, get this, if you do, you'll eat less calories! Similarly, and this is a suggestion of my own, if I just maybe don't pile the food on my plate and stop eating so quickly, then I'll actually eat less which similarly reduces my calorie intake. But there was more from the funky chefs!

"I'm going to use Fructose rather than sugar", "Oh, why's that?", "Well it's sweeter than sugar so you'll use less of it". Oh good. That'll be the same fructose that has been linked to increased likelihood of weight gain, is it? The same stuff that causes "the liver (to go) bananas and stop everything else to metabolize the fructose" according to the Miami School of Medicine? I'll stick to sugar if that's okay with you, funky chefs.

Oh, and possibly, as you mentioned in very small text and in a very quiet voice, I might just do a bit more exercise as your victim was instructed to do.

Funnily enough the victim was revealed to have lost two whole dress sizes by the end of the (I care not how many) weeks. And she still looked pretty much the same as she had at the start of the show, ie perfectly fine. Wankers.