They had chocolate oranges on half-price at WHSmith...it took a lot of restraint not to buy a load of them yesterday.

I make dhokla - they're hugely fattening because they contain flour and oil. Don't let the yoghurt component fool you!

i am worried that once i move to england in september i will stuff myself with chocolate oranges, scones, muffins, steak and kidney pies, cornish pasties, yorkshire pudding, indian food etc - all the stuff i have learned to live without abroad - aaargh! i'm on a diet and i don't want to put on weight again!

i am very bad at saying no.

the main reason i don't eat chocolate here (in the netherlands) is because i haven't found any that i particularly like (my local stopped selling cadbury's a while back).

Ooooh...I love boterkoek and gemberkoek and stroopwafels and bokkepotjes. If I lived in the Netherlands I'd be twice the size I am now

Lost 3lb this week! Woohoo!

Aloha - what kind of oil? Is it one of the "good" oils (so I can eat guilt-free)?

Since when is flour fattening? Unless you eat loads of it. Actually dhokla can be made from chickpea flour (this is the one I prefer) so in fact you are getting nutrients from that too.

Juno, my grandma uses sunflower oil - not too bad and the amount of oil is not a lot!

swantje, when i came over it was similar for me - all those enticing english sweets especially. the things you just don't get easily in other places but which you love because you used to get them as special treats when you were a child...
so you have learned to get them whenever you have an opportunity, because opportunities are rare...
and now all of a sudden, there are muffins etc. every place you look. soooo dangerous!
however i found that after a month or so, i was finding most things plain bland. i found that while all those muffins really look appealing, there are in fact only few which live up to my expectations. so, after eating myself through a whole lot of muffins (etc.) in the beginning, i now find it lots easier to retain myself...

Flour contains starchy carbohydrates. Foods made from it, eg. pasta are fattening.

Well, it depends how much you eat. You need starchy carbohydrates in your normal diet. As long as you're not eating giant bowls of pasta every day, you'll be fine.

bread and butter pudding, spotted dick... the list is endless.
i am an ex-forces child, so i ate english food while i still lived with my parents. since then - nada!

i've just lost 20 kilos (10 more to go...) so that weight would be back on in a split second if i'm not careful! maybe time to start working out...?!

How did you lose 20kg????? Share tips please!

easypeasy - no more than 1000 calories a day and you'll be dropping the weight, i promise you that...

Swantje, that's incredible. You must have lost over a 3rd of your body weight

(given that ideal weight is around 45 kilos for a short-arse like me, anyway).

Re: dokla. Asda brand dokla contain 150 calories per 100g, and not too much fat. I reckon I can fit them into my diet.

well, my goal is 65 kg (i'm tall - 1.77m), so by the end i will have lost a third of my body weight