No! NO! Not the Great Baked Potato Debate a-Bloody-Gain!

"Jumping Jehosaphat!

A raw potato. Unassuming, spudlike in it's very spud-ness. A simple, humble potato.

It weighs 400 grammes, raw. How many PPs are there in that potato? 8. Right? 50 grammes of spud equals 1 PP, yes?

What happens if you bake that potato? Does it get bigger or smaller? Clue: water evaporates. Ergo, the potato shrinks. How many points does it contain now it is a baked potato? 8.

That's right! Bake the little bludger, and it still contains 8 ProPoints! But it weighs less, thanks to the wonders of physics, or chemistry, or biology, or something. Water evaporates when heated. The potato becomes denser. It doesn't gain fat. It doesn't get heavier, it gets lighter. It still remains an 8 PP potato.

This is why you weigh your potato BEFORE you bake it. On average, a 400 g potato, once baked, will be somewhere from 225 g - 250 g in weight. It is still an 8 PP spud. It was 400 g and 8 PP raw. Once it has been baked and the water evaporated out of it and so shrinking it on the scales, it is still an 8PP spud.

The value in the EOG and plan material for a potato, old, baked, assumes that your potato started out at 400 g or more. So, a 250 g baked potato that contains 8 PP was once a 400 g raw potato.

Is that any clearer?

Jeezo. I remember now why I never come on this board!"

And this, Gentle Reader, is why I never, never, never - okay, hardly ever - am to be found posting on the boards. Especially not the 5+ stone to lose.

'I can't eat all my points!' - what the hell are you doing at WeightWatchers, then? How did you end up with five stone or more of flab and blubber more than you should be carrying around?

'Baked potatoes are evil!' - oh aye, the work of the Divvil Himself!

'I've lost seventy pounds, I know what I'm talking about!' -my arse.

The problem I have with Weight Watchers is that individual leaders seem to tell their members whatever comes into their heads. I wonder whether half of them actually understand the training that they're given, or do they just sit at the back and fall asleep?

Eat less than you burn off. Read about your basal metabolic rate and figure it out for yourself. If you eat healthily and consume sensible portions, and move more, you are guaranteed to lose weight. WeightWatchers just makes it easy for you to eat less, without you needing to worry about counting calories or fat grams. To be honest, you can use a site like Sparkpeople and do just as well; you may even find you eat a more balanced diet as a result.

(I am watching Reservoir Dogs on Channel 5 here, and am pleased that, after fourteen years, I can still recite most of the dialogue verbatim!)