Weight watching

Can there be anything more disorientating than turning up at a restaurant to have dinner with someone who has brought a pair of digital scales with them to weigh their food?

‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, as my friend pulled the state-of-the-art Salter slimline model from his briefcase the moment we sat down at our table.

‘I told you, I’m going to be weighing everything I eat from now on,’ he said assertively. ‘Don’t argue with me about this, I warned you I would be bringing them.’

My friend had indeed rung to warn me that he would be bringing a set of scales with him that evening, but naturally I assumed he was joking. Also, by set of scales I assumed he meant the sort you stand on. I thought the big joke was that he would be weighing himself before and after eating. It never occurred to me that he would be weighing the food. Apparently this is called ‘portion control’ and is all the rage with the more cutting-edge dieticians right now.

I can only think that it works by making fine dining so embarrassing that you don’t dare do it very often. My friend, however, has not reached that stage yet. He seems to be thoroughly enjoying the experience of ritual humiliation. He unpacked his scales from the box and set them on the table. A couple of diners clocked the move and did some disgusted headshaking.

I tried to relax and look at the menu, but it was impossible to have anything like an enjoyable evening with the Salter slimline gleaming menacingly on the table like an unexploded mine. ‘I can’t stand it,’ I said. ‘You’re going to have to explain to me how you plan to use that thing and what exactly the procedure will be. I need to be prepared. I need to get my head round it before it happens.’

He struck an outraged tone. ‘Look, this is very important. I don’t care what people think of me.’

‘It’s not what they think of you that’s the problem,’ I said. ‘It’s what they think of me. Did you consider the implications for your friends and loved ones when you started this new weighing regime? And who is this dietician, by the way, so I can go round to his house during the night and decorate it in loo roll?’

Unmoved by my protestations, my health-conscious friend set about ordering a fillet steak and three vegetables — of specific colours, according to the diet’s requirements. Truly, if I hear any more about food combining I’m going to scream.

‘It’s all down to the peanut butter and beetroot,’ said a girlfriend the other day as she defended her ‘lose a stone in three days’ diet.

‘Only broccoli, live yoghurt and walnuts,’ said a disembodied voice from the corridor as I sat in my office last week.

‘Cabbage and something vile,’ said a lady in a shop as she tried to explain what was in her dark-green murky protein drink, which frankly looked as if it would have been more at home in a pond than in a stomach.

When my friend’s steak arrived he beamed that smug but slightly twisted smile worn only by people on complicated diets. ‘Now, watch this.’ He put a side plate on the Salter scales and pressed a button which set the reading to zero. Then he levered his entire steak on to the contraption and started agonising over the reading, which was flickering. ‘Six point three…no, two…no, six point three…or is that six point six?’

‘Six point three!’ I screamed. ‘It’s six point three, please believe me…’

‘Well, I can only have six ounces. So I need to cut a bit off…Now, let’s weigh it again…six point…what is that?…Six point…?

I tried to eat my own meal but it was futile. I was now only motivated by how much he was cutting off his steak and how long it would take him to weigh it again and get it back on the plate before another table full of diners noticed. When he was done, he said, ‘There, that wasn’t too bad, was it?’ Then he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a set of plastic measuring cups.

‘What the…?’ I yelped.

‘I’ve got to measure the vegetables now. Let’s see…one large cup of broccoli…’ And he started clattering about with the colour-coded measuring cups which were tied together on a little rope like a baby’s rattle.

‘That’s it. I’m out of here,’ I said. ‘If you so much as put one carrot slice into that thing I’m going to leave and let you pay the bill.’ Mercifully, he relented. But I had lost my appetite. His diet is certainly working for me.

Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.