Sugar, stop worrying you are stressing yourself out. I've gone the basque route, even though i've gone from a bloated size 16 (my massive vino days) to a size 12 (stopped drinking and then spent fuckloads of my inheritance on fat freezing, yep it got me on the right track but what a fucking waste of a decent house deposit
)
After that, I got a nutritionist for my mental health (I am on the bipolar spectrum) and found I had LOADS of food allergies (and recommend anyone gets checked) as that was causing so much water retention/bloating and internal problems.
Basically i have to cut out wheat/dairy (which I thought) and loads of other random things, but was told I need meat (I said to my nutritionist "I try to get a lot of meat on a daily basis!"
) I reckon apart from that the biggest things are to cut out sugar (sorry Sugar!
) and grains and try and go for a paleo type diet, the weight will drop off. Since christmas I have gone back to sugar and prosecco, but i have given up smoking.....(SORRY this is kinda off topic) but I think it's important in terms of how long you are able to keep going workwise, as so many of us don't have pensions etc/ or property investments to rely on. (YET!)
Sugar is so hard to quit and it is the biggest thing in terms of zapping your energy and is more addictive than smoking/alcohol etc. You will work harder, longer and be happier without it. Plus you will lose the weight. First step though is get allergy tested as you may be messing your body up without even knowing, I can't believe I have about 20 allergies and only thought milk/wheat were the culprits.
In terms of money making (or shaking your money maker!) I am sure the nutritionist is absolutely right. It's hard and I am still getting there, but if (when it becomes a habit again) it makes the difference between waking up and feeling energized at 6am or waking up feeling crap at 11am (as I have been doing this winter), there is no contest. To get back on track (sorry guys) that is going to make all the difference to making the income in the meantime that we will need for our retirement (and I am 49 next week so need to get my skates on!)
Hope this helps someone at least, it cost me a lot of money to find this out but if it points someone else in the right direction, then it's added value