Diet #34, Diet pills (aka cheating)

Those of you who follow my blog regularly can probably already predict how this might go. I spent two whole days following the diet religiously, ploughing my way through home-made cookie after cookie, taking little tupperwares to birthday parties, the park, even to work. I ate around 20 of the little buggers before I wanted to die of boredom. And then came half term. Three days off work, playdates with Sadie's friends, and the healthy cookies turned into chocolate chip cookies.

 Then Iced Fingers

Then Millionaires Shortbread

Luckily, I've gone back to work, and the cakefest has come to an end.

As I've been blogging, I've had lots of lovely supportive emails from family and friends, even strangers who've read about what I've been doing and offered help and advice. The most surprising of all came from a cousin (a Doctor, with an amazing Phd in Clincal Psychology), who emailed to tell me her 'secret', how she'd lost all of her baby weight after having an impressive FOUR children.

She emailed to tell me that she'd used "a combination coctail called T-Burn and Fat Attack.  The T-Burn is a stimulant that increases metabolism and cuts hunger, and the Fat Attack sucks out the fat molecules from the food and also has something in to deal with hunger... When I was taking them, I would eat a small breakfast, get a venti latte at Starbucks (more stimulant!) wasn't hungry at lunch, and would eat a healthy dinner. No snacking - I just wasn't hungry! It's manufactured here (in the US) by Klik Nutrition. And yes it's sort of cheating, but not really, cos I'm goal oreinted...I had a goal and this worked!!!"

I'm a terrible chicken, and the thought of buying drugs over the internet from the US terrified me. Not to mention the fact that I can imagine that I would immediately get addicted, and my next blog will be some sort of plea to raise enough money to fund my drug habit. In the same way that some people ask "What Would Jesus Do?" my general mantra for life is "How would I be judged if it ended up in the Daily Mail?". This was not looking good.

So, a compromise. I popped into the very respectable Holland & Barratt, to find out what I could buy over the counter here in the UK. The woman behind the counter looked at me very strangely, before assessing my requirements. Her: Do you do any exercise? Me: No. Her: Do you eat sweets? Me: Yes. Ever so politely, she didn't tell me to get off my fat arse and move more - instead, she recommended two different products - one hideously expensive, and one cheap. So guess which one I went for? And so now I'm taking two "Fat Metaboliser" tablets a day. At only £6.45 for two weeks supply, it's cheaper than most of the things I've tried.

The ingredients include B6 (to metabolise fat), Chromium (decreases fat, increases muscle mass), Cayenne Pepper (from the maple syrup diet), Green Tea (more fat burning), L-Carnitine Tartrate (speeds up metabolism), Kola Nut (more caffeine than coffee - makes me a little crazy), and Uva Ursi (aka Bearberry, a diuretic). Two tablets a day, with one very specific instruction DO NOT TAKE NEAR BEDTIME.

Starting weight is 10st 1lb - slowly creeping down. Can this help? Or will you come back in one week to find a gibbering wreck who hasn't slept for a week?