Day 2: Juice Yourself Slim

Day 2: Started day with a terrible headache, which I'm sure is not hunger-related, simply 'withdrawl'. Overall though, the day is going well so far, I had a 'blood builder' juice for breakfast (carrot, beetroot, apple, avocado) - thanks to the beetroot it looked more like a blood-milkshake, and a 'Hangover-Over' smoothie in Pure for lunch (Blueberries, banana, strawberries, low fat yoghurt, apple juice). Souper-Green soup planned for dinner. Ocado cancelled my delivery planned for this morning - but have promised to redeliver at the same time tomorrow - with a £25 discount by way of apology. Which seems to have cleared up my headache!

Diet #18, Day 1... Success!!!

Breakfast and lunch, look the same but taste completely different (honest!)

Diet #18, Juice Yourself Slim

The Jenny Craig food is being delivered on Monday, and I need a consultation on Tuesday before I can begin - for any normal person, this would be a good excuse to put off dieting for another week. In the meantime, I (not normal person) found a copy of Juice Yourself Slim, by Jason Vale, aka the 'Juice Master', knocking around the office this week, and I've decided to do this whilst I wait for the food to arrive.

This is not a complicated concept - seven days following Jason's 'juicy' plan, drinking only freshly made juices, soups and smoothies, enough to drop half a stone (at least) and kick start a new, healthy attitude to dieting. The juicing itself is a little more complicated, requiring expensive kit, enough fresh fruit and veg to rival spitalfields market, 5 daily-made juices/smoothies/soups, and a series of increasingly complicated recipes.

Jason Vale comes across as more evangelical egomaniac than medical professional - the book is basically a soapbox for his ranting. The cover promises that you can 'lose weight without dieting', although I'm not sure what else you would call a week of juice-only fasting.

This is a long book, very long, and Jason is absolutely insistent that you must read and absorb Every. Single. Word. The problem for me seems to be that he says a lot of things that don't actually seem to make any sense when you think about them - just because he's written them, doesn't make them true. Here's some examples:

He makes lots of references to popular culture - celebrities, films and fad diets. He talks about diets only working the first time, 'Many people try to relight the inspirational fire using the same method that helped them to succeed before', he calls this 'The Sixth Sense Syndrome'.

"The first time that you see the film, the twist at the end is a complete revelation, but you can't possibly get the same revelation the second time round".

But when you think about it, you can't compare the calorie and fat-controlled regime of weightwatchers, or the carb-free atkins - both of which continue to work scientifically regardless of whether you've seen some shit old film with a washed-up Bruce Willis once or ten times. Jason also doesn't like the BMI system - he calls it antiquated - and says that:

"According to the BMI index, Brad Pitt is obese - yes, Brad Pitt, obese!"

Why, exactly does he single out the not-very-muscular Brad Pitt. Rugby players I can understand, but what's he got against Brad? Maybe he fancies Angelina? And this one's my favourite.  In his chapter 'The Juice Revolution', he says how people from all walks of life are seeing the results. 'Even Kate Moss has been at the wheatgrass shots'. Yeah, wheatgrass, I'm sure that's what Kate's been at...

Two common themes emerge with most of the diet books I've read - it seems to be necessary to slag off all other diets, and to either rubbish all the science, or highlight the science that supports your own case, even when it's the most tenuous possible. He says that:

'Over the past 10 years, there have been scientific studies carried out with regards to juices and smoothies'

but then fails to mention any more about any of them. Where were they? What were the results? When he does reference them, it's in the vaguest terms - Apple juice has a powerful effect on memory and 'can help' prevent asthma. "Polyphenols might play an important role in delaying the onset of Alzheimers" Resarchers said that "it was probably due to disease-fighting polyphenols". Can? Might? Probably? That's not science, that's conjecture... Anyway, he then goes on to totally rubbish science, in the chapter "What is science anyway", basically rejecting any findings that don't conform to his thinking with a "well, we once thought that the world was flat" attitude.

The science part: Jason is obsessed with the dangers of trying to medicalise weightloss, what he terms 'Pharmageddon'. The dangers of Phen-Phen, Vioxx, Alli and the like. My favourite line from the book: 'If you're overweight, the cause is not a slimming pill deficiency'. No, it's also not a chips or pies deficiency either!

Jason Vale also relies heavily on the anecdotal evidence that he receives via letters from successful 7-day juicers. My favourite is this one:

"Dear Mr Vale, My husband and I enjoy delicious juices as a result of reading your books. Not only do we have more energy and better health, but our hair is going back to the original colour"

 This worries me on a number of levels. I have no idea what my hairs 'original' colour is, but I pay my lovely colourist a small fortune every few weeks so that I never have to find out. Secondly, a weeks worth of juices (even a years worth of juice) can't possibly make your hair change colour...

Apparently, during the first few days, I may feel a degree of excessive hunger. According to Jason, this is not genuine hunger, but 'feelings of withdrawl'. Yes, withdrawl from FOOD!! He goes on to say that "this withdrawl is a slight, empty feeling identical to normal hunger". Hmmm, no food, a feeling identical to hunger... He then goes on to further clarify "if I didn't know how much food I have had, how hungry would I really be?" Fucking starving, that's how hungry! Apparently, "the principle is the same for many aspects of life. For example, if you didn't know how much sleep you'd had, how tired would you really be?" Seriously?? I have a full time job, and two small children who often wake me in the night for the most random of reasons. I don't know how much sleep I have, but I know that I'm fucking exhausted all the time!!

Anyhow, I bought a £100 top of the range juicer yesterday in Argos (don't say I'm not serious about this...) and have ordered the necessary fruit and veg (Ocado £40, Tesco £15, £1-a-bowl man 5 bowls). Let's just hope this gadget doesn't join the growing pile of 'seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time, waiting-to-be-put-on-ebay' items in the cellar (Vax carpet washer, kenwood blender, roller blades - to name but a few).

Silver Lining: Having convinced me to buy the juicer, Simon's agreed to join me for the week...

Yesterday started so well: fruit for breakfast, chinese stir-fry vegetables with noodles for lunch, and a tuna nicoise salad  for supper. Followed by two large glasses of sauvignon blanc, and an emergency dash to the 24-hour tesco to buy two bags of strangely named but surprisingly delicious "wild and whippy" bars. Followed by a misjudged TOWIE marathon last night and a guilt-ridden hangover this morning: slightly helped by a pain au chocolate and large (and very expensive) coffee in pret for breakfast.

Weight remains a stubborn 10st4lbs, alcohol units a very respectable 7 (ok on day 4, but still...), but at least my cigarette count for the week is at zero!

If Jenny Craig can help me shift those last few pounds, she'll be my new G-d!

Bridget Jones' Diet

Finished off the Minstrels for breakfast. Please don't judge me, it's been a stressful morning at work! In her ideal world, Bridget would be living in the suburbs, driving little Tarquin and Cosmo to school in the Range Rover (only two minutes away, but the poor darlings have terrible hayfever, don't you know), and daydreaming about the dishy gardener.

Seriously, my mini yo-yo dieting is not proving successful, and I haven't actually shifted any weight this whole year, which is a bit embarrassing when you think about it.

So, change of tack, next week, I'm going to try Jenny Craig. Apparently, in order for this to really work, I have to do it a month at least, but I'm not sure my attention span is that long - but I'm going to give it a fortnight to prove that it's doable. Maybe the consistency is what I need to shift this last pesky half stone!

Diet #17, Bridget Jones Diet: Going according to plan, at least!

Yesterday morning: Spent £15 on yummy healthy food in M&S - plums, bananas, grapes, orange juice and muesli. Ate a delish healthy salad from Pure for lunch. Spoiled it all by dinnertime, which mostly consisted of Beer and a bag of popcorn. However, I did spend the night volunteering for a cancer charity, so what I lost in weightwatchers points, I made up for in brownie points.

Lesson of the day: Good intentions are soluble in beer!

Today's diet has already gone to pot, turns out our lovely Promotions Director Amy is a 'feeder' - I blame the Minstrels and M&Ms she brought back from her ski trip.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day...

Diet #17, the Bridget Jones Diet

Fuck fuck fuck. This morning, I have woken up feeling like shit. I feel a bit like Bridget Jones, 10 years later, who wakes up one morning, and realises that she's 10 years older and a stone heavier, two children richer, and a mortgage worse off.  That Mr Darcy leaves his pants on the floor every night for her to pick up every  morning, and still resolutely refuses to clear up the toast crumbs every morning. Cigarettes (weekend: 2) have gone up to £6.45 a pack, with another 17p due in the budget. Fuck, Bridget Jones worrying about the budget, for fucks sake.

This week, in her honour, I'm going to make up my own diet, the Bridget-Jones-(and-every-woman-of-a-certain-age-diet) - which involves waking up with the best of intentions, but an innate knowledge that by 10pm and the offer of a glass of wine, it will all go to shit. Ok, 8pm. If I can do it beyond lunchtime I'm onto a winner.

I should mention that I was ill last week, too ill to diet, so Carol Vordermans detox will have to wait for another week. I've also got one I really want to do called the Core Balance, a four-week guide, exploring the emotional as well as physical reasons for weight gain. I love the thought that I can blame my parents and my own sense of self-worth, rather than Mr Cadbury. Unfortunately, the book is too long to actually read, but as soon as I get round to it I'll give it a go...

Diet #16, Carol Vordeman's detox

After a week of birthday parties to celebrate baby Poppy's first birthday, I'm scared to step onto the scales! A friend has loaned me Carol Vordeman's detox, so I'm going to try it for a week. I'm too tired to start today, and haven't even had time to open the book, but I'll get round to it this week for sure...

Not sure why I'm aspiring to Carol. She's a mathematician (I think we established in the last diet that my maths skills leave a lot to be desired), she's 51 (I have an irrational phobia of old people -  but that's a story for another blog), and she's from 'oop north (I get a nosebleed if I have to go outside of the M25) - so not exactly my ideal diet role model, but she's gone from this...

To this...

and if she can do the same for me, I won't complain.

GI Diet #FAIL!!

I had a slight inkling that this wasn't working when I carefully chose low GI food last night - as toppings for my pizza!

This one definitely isn't doing it for me - firstly the GI of food is impossible to measure so you have to carry the book around with you, and secondly because only non-processed food has a low GI, so actually, it's the same as with so many of the diets I've tried - you lose weight because there's no sweets, no chocolate, no crisps, no processed food, not the GI index specifically...

It's Poppy's first birthday this week, so I'm going to enjoy the birthday cake(s), and start another diet on Monday.

N.B. Am sticking with the muesli (because it's bearable, and because I bought a massive bag of it), and taking on board the lessons about blood sugar levels, so not a total failure!

How to calculate the Glycaemic Index of food?

This is basically impossible. The indices are measured experimentally, based on giving 10 subjects 50g of food and measuring their blood responses 2 hours later. So, unless a) I get a science degree to go alongside my non-existant maths degree, and b)I feed the girls on my team my M&S aubergine and lentil salad and then test them, it's unlikely I'll be able to work this out. Mostly because I don't like sharing food, and they think I get quite enough from them already, without actually giving me their blood.

M&S have done very well out of me today. So far, I have bought their 22% fruit muesli for breakfast, aubergine & lentil and tomato & mozzarella salad's for lunch, almonds, bananas, grapes and plums for snacks - and then ruined it all with two-for-one on jaffa cakes... But seeing as it's impossible to measure the GI of foods (plus, they virtually count as fruit anyway), we'll just assume it's all good!

Diet #15, The Glycaemic Index Diet

I am pleased to have survived to the end of Diet #14, Diet Chef. This morning, I was 10st 1lb - so I lost 4lbs in a week - which is pretty impressive. I have to say, whilst I liked the breakfasts, and I tolerated the lunches, I wasn't keen on the dinners - although this might be to do with the fact that I took the vegetarian options, which were always going to be less interesting than the meat variety - and my aversion to microwave food in general.

On the plus side, this is great for teaching portion control, and the food is certainly "better" than slim.fast - in as much as it's actual food - but I'm quite relieved to be coming to the end of this week. Happily, I'm lighter than I started, so on the basis of that making it a successful diet, job done.

I'm moving on to the GI diet (Glycaemic Index). The book is a "need to know" guide, and it does something that I'm beginning to notice is somewhat of a pattern amongst diet books. It starts off by "slagging off" other diets that you might have tried "some diets are restrictive, requiring dieters to eat quantities of one particular food, like cabbage soup {ooh, I forgot about that one}, grapefruit {tick} or pineapple {coincidentally, I did this one a year ago this week, in a desperate attempt to induce labour}. Others, more complicated, have recommended cutting out a whole group of foods, as the original Atkins did with Carbs”. According to this book, the latest news is that Atkins has filed for bankrupcy in the States - there has to be a joke there about losing pounds on Atkins, surely? The book regularly refers to research, to doctors and to nutritionists - but never with names or surveys, which makes it feel like they're trying to hide behind the "science".

Anyhow, how it works is simple enough – at least that's how it appears at the start... When you eat starchy carbohydrate food, like bread, cereal or pasta, your body digests the starch and turns it into glucose, which your body uses as a source of energy. Glucose enters the bloodstream rapidly (think alcohol on an empty stomach) and your glucose level shoots up. The danger is that it then crashes down just as quickly. So the aim is to eat foods that keep your blood sugar steady, avoiding the highs and lows. More recently, "scientists and researchers" began to realise that not all carbs produced blood sugar rushes, because some were broken down more slowly, and they started systematic testing. Foods with a low GI (under 55) break down more slowly, giving a slower rise in blood sugar and insulin levels. There are "good" and "bad" carbohydrates – and you have to eat more good and less bad.

But this is where it gets so complicated, to the point where I wish I'd done a degree in maths rather than history. Basically, according to the book, the limitations of this are that the Glycaemic Index of food is measured in 50g portions - but you'd need just 10 teaspoons of sugar to get 50g of carbs - whereas you'd need 5kg of broccoli to get the same 50g of carbs. So, these clever (but still unnamed) scientists added another facet - the Glycaemic Load (or GL). The GL is calculated by multiplying the GI value of the food concerned by the number of grams of carbohydrates it contains and then dividing the total amount by 100.

The book helpfully simplifies this as follows:

GI value x grams of carb per serving / 100 = GL value

Unfortunately, at this point, my brain, addled by weeks of dieting has exploded! I'll have another read of this book later today, and start this one tomorrow!

Diet #14, Diet Chef- not going exactly according to plan

I don't mind the granola for breakfast, in fact, it's quite delicious, and refreshing to see what an 'actual' portion should look like. What it actually looks like is about four little spoonfuls - this morning, I ate it from a tiny bowl with a teaspoon so it looks like more! Or just made me look like a giant, which is not exactly what you need from a diet. Lunch isn't so bad, thick soups which are quick and easy in the microwave and quite filling.

Here's where it goes wrong: I hate the suppers. Tasteless lumpy aeroplane-style food, served in microwaveable sachets. There's a school of thought (not mine, obviously) that says fat=lazy. For those lazy people, this would work.

In addition, it doesn't even make any sense. Their chickpea tagine that I (didn't) eat tonight has 237 calories, and wasn't even as half as nice as Lisa's from last week. The veggie burgers that I've made for Simon are only 180 calories and taste nicer. This is completely anti-social - I'm eating differently from the rest of my family, and cooking two meals at a time, so the rest of the family don't starve. On top of that, it doesn't teach you anything about food or healthy eating - how much protein/carbs/calories or fat you should eat - so it would be difficult to carry on once you go back to normal life.

I'm going to carry on with the breakfasts and soups, but I might swap out the dinners. I hope you'll forgive me.

Tonight's Chickpea Tagine that I couldn't quite bring myself to eat

From Lisa Jackson's recipe, last week. Tasted a million times better, and all fresh ingredients:

Diet #14, Diet Chef

Last week, I gained 3lbs. I weighed myself this morning and literally leapt off the scales. 10st 5lbs. I gave them an accusatory look, shook them to check they were working, and then realised that I have only one person to blame. Actually, more than one, a list. Here it is:

Friend A: For having a birthday, and organising a delicious dinner at Aviv. For forcing me to eat three courses, including hoummos and deep fried lamb for starter, lamb kleftico for main course (with chips, not salad), and a chocolate "volcano" for dessert. Delicious, but rubbish volcano, could barely have melted the ice cream on the side, let alone stopped all international flights for a week.

Friend B: For coming over for tea, and only eating one of the delicious cadbury marshmellow biscuits that I so carefully selected for her, leaving me to eat the remaining 15. I couldn't leave them - it would have been too much temptation for this week.

My husband: For not hoovering up all of this food so that I wouln't be tempted.

Diet Guru Lisa Jackson: For making me believe that listening to her cd twice a day and running up a few stairs would automatically make me thin.

I, on the other hand, completely refuse to take any responsibliltiy for this dreadful turn of events. Other than the slight deviations from the diet this week listed above, I have been nothing short of angelic. I have run up hundreds of stairs, and walked for miles. I've eaten salads for lunch, drank americano's rather than latte's, and had virtually no crisps or chocolate.

So with renewed determination, this week's diet is Diet Chef. You may have seen them advertised on television (if not, you can see their ad here). For a little less than £50 a week, they'll supply all your food - breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack. It's carefully calorie controlled, like slimfast, but with actual food - which has the benefits of not feeling so much like you're on a diet, and also not sending out such horribly negative messages to my daughters. The food comes with a diet booklet, reminding you about all the usual things: exercise (do some), water (drink more) alcohol (drink less), eating out (don't), and so on.

 Although they say that all the food is "chef prepared", there's quite a dramatic disconnect between the images on their website, and the food when it arrives.

Their pictures:

 and mine:

However, I reluctantly started this morning with the Granola for breakfast, and it was really good... Maybe this week won't be such a chore after all.

Dinner tonight: Lisa Jackson's Butternut Tagine

Ingredients: 4 tsp olive oil, 2 onions finely chopped, 4 garlic cloves, crushed, 2 tsp ground turmeric, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp cinammon, half tsp cayenne pepper (which luckily I had left over from the maple syrup diet), half tsp black pepper, 1 tbsp honey, 1 large butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into chunks, 800g chickeas, and three ingredients which I didn't have, so didn't include: handful of parsley, 4 tbsp natural yogurt and lemon wedges.

Method: Saute onions and garlic til soft, then add the spices, honey and butternut squash. Pour in just enough water to cover the base of the pan, cover, and cook gently for 15 minutes. Add the chickpeas and a little more water, cover with a lid, and cook gently until the butternut squash is soft.

Didn't quite look like in the book, but tasted delicious!

From the book

Real life version

Diet #13, Adore Yourself Slim by Lisa Jackson

Monday morning. Refused a lift to the station (not such a biggie seeing as it's less than a two minute walk), walked up the escalators, and ran up the (101) stairs at work. Not going to try Lisa's "sneaky workout" suggestion of squats whilst waiting for the kettle to boil - I might be following this diet for one week, but I have to work with these people for longer!

Start weight is a very static 10st 2lbs, so I'm going to focus on Chapter 6, "Get Yourself Over a Plateau" and listen to track 4 of the cd "Hypnotise Yourself Over a Plateau".

The end of the detox, and on to Diet #13, "Adore Yourself Slim" by Lisa Jackson

I was originally planning to do a 3-day detox, but I enjoyed it so much, I did even longer, broken only by the temptation of pizza in Prezzo at the end of day four. My weight yesterday morning was a very healthy 10st, although a bit of a fried food/wine binge last night tipped it back up to 10st2lb this morning. I've had a good day today, so hopefully it's only a temporary glitch, and although it's cheating a little bit, I'll use whatever I weigh tomorrow morning as the start weight for this week.

There are a few strange habits that I've picked up and kept up over the last few weeks - I choose to have eggs for breakfast instead of cereal or bread - scrambling two eggs takes less time than toast, and keeps me full all morning (thank you Dr Atkins). I'd rather have a salad for lunch than bread - it stops that mid-afternoon lull and desperate craving for chocolate that I always seem to get. And finally, I've given up my latte's, and I'll have a regular coffee with a dash of milk instead. Which also means (with a previous two-starbuck-lattes-a-day habit at £4 a day) that I've already saved nearly £150 in the two months I've been back at work. 

Overall, I'm beginning to see that lots of small changes to my lifestyle can make a big difference to the overall picture, which ties in nicely with diet #13. One of the lovely ladies on Prima Baby magazine (who sit just along from me in Natmag Towers) loaned me a brand new book called Adore Yourself Slim by Lisa Jackson. It's a bit of a strange title, which I think is in the vein of "think yourself thin" - that all I have to do is adore myself, and the rest will follow (I know, before you say it, that shouldn't be too hard then...)

Lisa is a clinical hypnotherapist/author/long distance runner and health journalist. Alongside her book, you get a cd with five different hypnotherapy sessions with Lisa.

This is more than just a book; it's a workbook, with spaces to write and add photos. You start off pasting a 'before' picture, with a space for an 'after' shot. You then have to assess your past weight battles, to overcome them and move forwards. There's (a very small) space to write why you've gained weight in the past, how you felt about it, what you were eating before, what your turning point was, how you felt listening to the hypnosis cd, mistakes you've made, strategies you've learned, other people's reactions, and so on...

For me, this is where it all becomes a bit, umm, how can I put this... American. Her recommendations include "taking a daily praise pill", getting "in touch" with your body (I used to work on Cosmo, who urged its readers to do this a lot, but I don't think that's quite what she had in mind), evicting the "wicked witch" (negative thoughts), getting in the gratitude groove, and acting like a girl guide (this is a particularly bad idea for me - those were the years that I mostly smoked too many fags, ate too many crisps, and hung out with more boys than my husband would have approved of). This is followed by an Adore Yourself Slim body map, where you write down why you love each part of yourself. You also have to create a goal group people who will follow your diet and help and encourage you - and there's a page to stick photographs. I realise that I've already got my group - it's you, the reader. Lisa next urges you to set your goals, and reward yourself accordingly.

The biggest chapter by far is on food. Lisa has some quite strict but sensible rules. Every day, you should eat 1 snack, 2 fruit, 3 protein, 3 nutritious carbs, 3 dairy and 3 fat servings.

This book is big on lists. There's lists of what's included in each of the above categories, lists of "sanity savers" (eat soup, olives, exotic fruit for sweetness/variety/fullness etc), a list of slimming foods (green tea, chilli, beans, eggs, salad), a list of slimming commandments (the oddly named although sensible enough "thou shalt not order sushi if thou doesn't like fish", "thou shalt never eat anything bigger than your head" and "if you fail to plan you plan to fail"...).  There are some really good recipes which I'm going to try this week, including a chickpea and butternut squash tagine, and roasted veg with halloumi.

There's also a whole section on exercise. Sarah Maxwell, a personal trainer has devised something she's called a "sneaky workout". The idea is that no one is too busy to exercise (even me, with a full time job, two small children and a house to 'run'???). For exercise, Lisa suggests finding the time to train in "dead" time slots - whilst you're commuting, sitting at a desk, waiting for a kettle to boil and running a bath (ha, like I have time for a bath. Just to clarify, I do wash - I shower, but I'm so time-poor, I even have a 4-minute timer in the bathroom to make sure I don't stay too long). Some are good ideas - running up the stairs at work rather than taking the lift (I'm on the fifth floor), walking to the next station rather than the nearest (which is genius, she must know the horror that is Oxford Circus at rush hour) and some are less so. My least favourite: "Got a few minutes beforoe you go out? Put on your favourite cd and dance, burning calories and increasing bone density". Seriously, I have a job, two children and two left feet. I often don't even have time to put on lipstick and do a wee before I go out.

Pro's

• The cumulative effects of the smaller changes that Lisa suggests (like walking up stairs), are easy to adopt and make a bigger difference to the overall picture
• Lisa looks at the big picture - as well as considering the reasons for weight gain and strategies for weight loss, there's a whole chapter on dressing better - wearing heels and make-up , clothes and make-up. As far as I'm concerned, a little bit of blusher and mascara isn't just good for the person who's wearing it, it makes the world nicer for the rest of us who have to look at you too! 
• The nicest recipes of any of the diet books that I've read so far.
• Good, solid, practical nutrition advice.

Cons

• The hypnotherapy is a bit wishy-washy for me. Lisa's calm South African accent urging you to "breeeathhhe innnn throughhhhhh your nose", and "imagine sand trickling throughhhhhh your bodyyyyyyy" just makes me want to roll my eyes.
• I only have time to listen to the relaxation techniques on the tube, which is exactly the opposite of relaxation. And even worse, I've lost my headphones, so I've had to borrow Sadie's pink hello kitty ones.
• I'm not really into workbooks, and I can't write in this book anyway, because I've got to give it back.
• Some of the techniques are a bit "american" (sorry, again) for me.

For me, the style of book isn't really the sort of thing I'm into. I don't want sensible, practical advice for every day, I want crazy, faddie, hard-to-follow diets that feel like punishment. I'm still a firm believer in the whole "no pain, no gain" school of thought. Her sensible, no-nonsense approach means that this probably isn't going to be a bestseller, but for the women who buy it, her good, solid, practical advice will not only make them thin, it will make them happier and probably extend their lives.

For this week, I'll live by Lisa's rules. I'll find time to exercise wherever possible, I'll eat according to her guidelines, and I'll make an effort to dress well and look nice. I'll listen to her cd every day, I'll eat only food that I like, I'll eat slowly, I'll plan and I'll relax. And I'll give myself a 1-minute daily pep talk. If I have time.

Diet #12, Detox diet (also elimination diet, gluten-free, paleolithic, possibly macrobiotic and definitely very low calorie diet)

Fruit for breakfast, fruit for a snack, salad for lunch, more fruit for a snack, some cashew nuts (unsalted, natch) and salad for dinner. Start weight 10st 3lb. End weight... well, eating like this, I might just fade away...

I 'heart' Weightwatchers...

I LOVE weightwatchers. I'm a bit of a control freak at heart (this will not be a surprise to those who know me) and this diet feeds into my obsessive tendancies. I measure and write down everything I eat. I constantly analyse my choices - should I swap a salad for a sandwich? Can I 'afford' a chocolate bar? I have stuck to this religiously for 5 days, and on the sixth day I took a teensy-weensy break, and bam, no weight loss. Probably, because according to most religions, you're not supposed to rest until the seventh day. I'll try to remember that for next time.

Despite this, I still feel better. I feel healthier, my tummy feels a bit flatter, and I feel like I've remembered how to make good choices, and so I still maintain that I love weightwatchers.

I was going to try a second week of 'new' weightwatchers (diet 11'b'), but I haven't had time to go to a meeting (I guess this is one of the downsides of weightwatchers - time), but I'm actually excited about coming back to it another week. Sad, I know, but that's the way I roll.

Separately, I've continued to get some really nice feedback on my blog. According to the stats page, I have a reader in Iran - 'Ahalan' (that's 'hello' in Iranian, not the name of the person in Iran who's reading my blog, for those of you who aren't fluent in Arabic). Another friend, who has a very good job with a very good TV production company, texts me to ask if she might tentatively mention my blog in a production meeting. To describe this as an embryonic development in the life of my blog would be to overstate the case, yet in my head, I'm choosing the dress for my Oscar award speech, and worrying about how fat I'm going to look in front of the cameras. Which means that I'm now panicing about what diet I'm going to do next, in readiness.

After a small delay, thanks to the vagaries of email, the lovely people at Diet Chef have finally arranged to send me enough food to try their diet for a week (you might have seen this advertised on tv - they send you all your meals and snacks, a similar principle to slim.fast, but with real food). As it hasn't arrived yet, I'm going to do something else first, and then start that from next Sunday. So, for the next few days, I'm going to try a detox diet. This ticks a few boxes on my list - a vegan diet, the elimination diet, raw foodism (to an extent) and the caveman diet. It's also gluten-free, probably macrobiotic, and certainly very low calorie.

So diet #12 is a detox diet - nothing processed, raw where possible, no alcohol, no coffee (hmm, maybe a little bit of coffee), and lots of healthy fruit and veg. Start weight is STILL an annoying 10st 2lb.

ps, just in case you're wondering, Claire Goose would play me. I hear people are constantly telling her how much we look alike...

Me

Claire Goose

Weightwatchers, the 'before' and 'after' shots...

Before Weightwatchers

My 21st birthday party (January 1998)

After Weightwatchers (and a trip to the hairdressers) 

January 2005

Diet #11(a), Weightwatchers

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, a teenage girl ate her bodyweight in chocolate. And Macdonalds, potato waffles, french fries (which I just mis-typed as french friends, which says a lot...), milkshakes, cakes, Kitkats, crisps, and wine. Breakfast was Poptarts (or Coco Pops for variety), cheesy chips, with mayo on the side for lunch every day! This (by now) twenty-something girl decided, as the scales reached 15 stone, to head to weightwatchers. Just in case you hadn't guessed, that girl was me, and this is where my obsession with dieting began. Photo to follow.

I LOVED weightwatchers. I measured EVERYTHING, and wrote everything down, every day, for six whole months. I never skipped a meeting, and I lost over three stone in that time.

Most importantly, weightwatchers taught me important lessons about healthy eating - making healthy choices, portion control, eating vegetables and drinking enough water, There are no fads - no soups or shakes, no mad detoxes. It fits in brilliantly with life and work, because you can still eat out - you just have to count whatever you eat.

A brief explanation for those who've never done it - it's very straightforward. Everything has a 'points' value, based on calories and saturated fat. The 'weightwatcher' is allocated a daily point allowance (based on their sex and start weight). So a slice of bread has 1 point, a small glass of wine is two points, a bowl of cereal has around 4 points, and a pret sandwich can have up to 18!! You can earn points back, based on exercise. Although I started originally on 24 points a day, and the more you lose, the fewer points you eat, so for this week, starting at around 10 stone, I'll be on 18 points a day.

Over the years, Weightwatchers has made small tweaks to the diet - first there was 'Switch'- comprising two plans - the 'core' plan, where you can eat as much as you want from a set list of 'core' foods, with a weekly points allowance for treats, plus the origianl points plan, and you could 'switch' between the two. Now, most recently, there is Pro-points - which takes out the blatant anomaly with weightwatchers. You could eat chocolate and drink wine all day, as long as you stick within the allocated points allowance. More realistically, say for 4 points, you could have a kit kat or a salmon fillet. It's obvious which one is better for you, and the new plan reflects that, with the points altered to reflect healthier choices.

I haven't had a chance to go to a meeting this week, so I'm going to do a two-parter - week one (this week) on the old plan, and then week two on the new plan - to see if there's any difference.

Diet Fail: Who would have guessed?

On day 1 I managed until 10.30 (am) before eating - and on day 2 I lasted until a much more impressive half past 12. I remember the exact moment. It was when someone offered me a cupcake. And, even worse, I swear that once I went back to eating, this actually made me more hungry, and craving more sugar. I met someone this week who did this for a whole month - drinking only this and eating fruit. It was when I was visting an asylum, but still...

Another setback today - I met the PR from Lighter Life, and my BMI isn't high enough to do their programme. Considering putting stones in my pockets and heading there anyway.

Breakfast...

Monday

 Tuesday (less smiling...)

The Maple Syrup diet...

...is not going well. I gave up by lunchtime (ok, by 10.30, please don't hate me). It actually tasted ok, but all the pepper sank to the bottom and burned my throat. Am going to try again tomorrow, but without the pepper.

Diet #10 The Maple Syrup diet

This was made famous when Beyonce used this to lose 1.5stones for her role in Dreamgirls. Who wouldn't want to look like this?

Recipe: Mix 2 tablespoons of maple syrup (around 20ml) with 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper or ginger and half a pint of hot or cold water. 6-9 glasses per day.

You can do this as a full detox (just the drink for 10 days) or a 'relaxed' version (substituting one or two meals with 2-3 glasses of drink - and still no red meat, sweets, fried food, dairy etc). I'm going to do the full detox for as many days as I can and then switch to the relaxed version... Start weight for today, 10st 2lb.

In some ways, the most exciting thing about this diet is that it comes with a bag, and I LOVE a bag!!

Trying to find a new diet...

Week 4 back at work: trying to juggle working full time with two small children is difficult!! Eating less is not a problem per se, but trying to find something that fits with my lifestyle is tricky. Here's an example - I don't have time to prepare and consume breakfast (scarsdale diet: half a grapefruit, protein bread - whatever that is), when I'm tearing round like a headless chicken trying to make sure that two small children are awake/washed/dressed in appropriate clothing/fed/bags packed/out the house on time, at the same time as making sure that I remember to look smart, hair clean, make-up on, handbag packed, wear matching shoes (after the one time I went out in odd boots, which were different shapes and different heel heights AND I didn't even notice until lunchtime, I'm extra careful).

But after a terrible week last week (one ill baby, plus let's just say not the best 'time of the month' to be dieting) I'm desperate to lose weight this week. My weight is hovering around the 10st2lb mark, and as prophesised in my original post, I'm still trying to lose that half stone that just won't budge.

So I'm skipping up and down the list trying to find something that suits me at the moment. I looked at the Dukan diet - this is their three day diet plan generously supplied for free by handbag.com. BREAKFAST every day: Coffee with sweetener, 1 or 2 small fat-free yoghurts OR 225g of fat-free cottage cheese, one slice of turkey, chicken or low-fat ham OR one egg OR one Dukan oat bran galette, LUNCH  eggs OR crabsticks and a chicken leg OR airdryed beef and swordfish, DINNER prawns with mayonnaise and ham souffle OR moules marinere and baked salmon OR sautee shrimps and sautee chicken escalopes. Apart from the fact that buying and preparing this food is massively impractical, Dr Pierre Dukan doesn't work all that well with my kosher diet.

Then I look at the Scarsdale Diet (again, hugely prescriptive, check it out here) and gave up when I read this:

"The majority of eating plans available on the market today recommend no in between meal snacking what so ever, the Scarsdale diet menu however is different. It allows for carrots, celery and low sodium veggie soups snacking".

Carrots and Celery? Wow! Revolutionary!!

I am quickly learning that any diets that I do either have to be easy to follow, with a wide range of food to try from, ie stuff that's already in my fridge - eggs/cereal/meat etc (think Atkins, WeightWatchers), or have to supply the food to me so that I don't have to think about it (Slim.Fast, Dietchef).

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to whittle down the list to a few that don't seem to difficult to follow, and that I want to do. Weightwatchers, Jenny Craig, DietChef, Gluten-free diet, Shangri-la diet (because an American cousin swears by it), Detox diet, the Sonoma diet (because there's a picture of a glass of wine next to the plan) and possibly the South Beach diet.

I'd also like this blog to become interactive. If you've got a diet that you've liked (or hated, but stuck to), please email me and I might give it a go for you.

In the meantime, I've just this second decided that I'm going to do something crazy and extreme to kickstart this week. I'm going to do the maple syrup diet for three days (or less, if I die after day 1). Starting just as soon as I look up the recipe and buy the ingredients...

Diet #9, The cereal diet

I'm not finding this diet as difficult as I thought I would - but I think that this is because the giant bowls of cereal I've been eating are the equivalent of two normal bowls. Most of the other diets I've done I've hated for the first three days and then got into, but this one's been quite easy from the start, probably because eating cereal for breakfast is not a huge departure from the norm. Although you're allowed to snack normally on this diet, I've been tring to be a bit sensible, to boost the weightloss. Hopefully, I might still lose a pound or two. I should add that it was my wedding anniversary at the weekend, and after a big curry at Beit Hamadras in Hendon, my start weight was more like 10st 2lb.

Bored Bored Bored (and on to diet #9...)

Diet #8 was the grapefruit diet (quick recap: 800 calories a day and half a grapefruit before each meal). The 800 calories part seemed like a bit too much work, so I figured if grapefruits are really that wondrous, surely they should work even if I eat normally. Apparently not so much! Although I have enjoyed overdosing on citrus fruit this week (averaging 2 per day), I might even have avoided a winter bug or two thanks to the vitamin c boost, but I've only lost a pound, which I think is more luck than design!

On to diet #9. Sitting watching television tonight, I saw an ad for the Special K diet. This is only my list somewhere, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's easy to get started. You put some basic information into the website myspecialk and it designs a tailor-made diet plan for you. Note to the folks at Kelloggs  - there are a few fairly obvious flaws with this. Firstly, Sunday's menu doesn't include any cereal - not the best marketing campaign ever. Secondly, the diet is massively detailed. I'd have to spend my whole months salary at Ocado to be able to buy the ingredients needed for the week's menu. Here's a sample:

• Saturday:
• Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and tomatoes (gross), pineapple juice (yuck).
• Lunch: Rice cakes and crispbread, assorted toppings. Pear.
• Dinner: Tomato spagetti with crab (bleurgh) and mixed salad.
• Sunday
• Cereal, fresh strawberries, orange juice.
• Pork roast, meringue nest with mixed berries.
• [starter] French onion soup, [dessert] bananas and dates. errr, main course??
• Monday
• Low fat breakfast cereal with banana and orange juice.
• Boiled egg and watercress sandwich, yoghurt (eurgh).
• Spagetti bolognese, side salad, watermelon.
• Tuesday
• Porridge and raisins, orange juice.
• Chicken, houmous and beansprout pitta.
•  Fishfingers, peas, sweetcorn, mixed salad (which is coincidentally my daughters favourite dinner - she'd like this diet, then).

There's another 10 days of this two-week plan, but honestly, I'm bored too bored to even see what's on the menu for Wednesday, let alone the rest of the fortnight. I wonder whether a single person has ever stuck to this diet?

Instead, I'm going to do the original Kelloggs diet - a bowl of cereal for breakfast, one for lunch, and a healthy dinner. Tomorrow's my wedding anniversary, so I'll start on Monday and do it for six days. Start weight, 10 stone exactly.

Diet #8, the Grapefruit Diet

I can't believe I haven't blogged (or dieted) since the 19th December. The blood type diet was useless - in the last few weeks, I've learned that I need structured diets. Clear do's and don't's, and the easier the better.

Please forgive my absence, but I've had a busy few weeks. I've had a weeks holiday in Eilat (not that I'm complaining, but a week of unlimited buffet has not been kind to my waistline), had a new au pair start (French, teeny-tiny but with a huge appetite), settled both kids into new nurseries and gone back to work (where they seem to have saved all the sweets/cakes/chocolate from the year for my return).

Amazingly, I didn't actually gain as much weight as I thought I would have - 10st 1lb this morning (that's how much I weigh, not what I've gained). Looking back, this is what I weighed after I regained the weight I lost on Atkins!

Working through the list alphabetically, I've skipped a few. Dietchef promised me a week's food, but haven't delivered quite yet. The cabbage soup diet looks hideous (cabbage soup daily, plus on day one unlimited fruit, no bananas; day two, unlimited veg, one baked potato; day three unlimited fruit and veg, no potato; day four, eight bananas, skimmed milk; day five unlimited soup, beef and tomatoes; day six, beef and vegetables; day seven unlimited rice, fruit and vegetables). Dukan is new and followers rave about it, and the F-plan diet looks interesting (but too complicated for this week), so I think I'll come back to them later.

Instead, this week, I'll be following the Grapefruit Diet. A simple concept, 800 calories a day, and half a grapefruit before each meal. Apparently grapefruits contain fat-burning enzymes, although I suspect it's the severe calorie restriction that has the most impact. Grapefruits are ordered from Ocado, so watch this space

Diet #7, The Blood Type Diet

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I was delighted to get an A+ in my blood test results. In all honesty, I thought that there was only blood type 'O', and that all the other types were made up for dramatic effect by writers of soap operas (you know the one, when the child needs a kidney, and it turns out they're an 'O' and their parents are A, and they must have been switched at birth...)

Here's a brief description of the groups (with thanks to Wikipedia...)

"Blood group O is believed by D'Adamo to be the hunter, the earliest human blood group. The diet recommends that this blood group eat a higher protein diet. D'Adamo bases this on the belief that O blood type was the first blood type, originating 30,000 years ago. Blood group A is called the cultivator by D'Adamo, who believes it to be a more recently evolved blood type, dating back from the dawn of agriculture, 20,000 years ago. The diet recommends that individuals of blood group A eat a diet emphasizing vegetables and free of red meat, a more vegetarian food intake. Blood group B is, according to D'Adamo, the nomad, associated with a strong immune system and a flexible digestive system. The blood type diet claims that people of blood type B are the only ones who can thrive on dairy products and estimates blood type B arrived 10,000 years ago. Blood group AB, according to D'Adamo, the enigma, the most recently evolved type, arriving less than 1,000 years ago. In terms of dietary needs, his blood type diet treats this group as an intermediate between blood types A and B"

Reading up on the different types, Type A's are described as "sensitive to the needs of others, good listeners, detail oriented, analytical, creative and inventive". As none of these words describe me, I think that there's a good chance that the lady at the hospital might have just chosen the lazy option, and picked the first choice on the list. She obviously wasn't a "detail-oriented" 'A' either. Type 'A's are supposed to limit their exposure to:

• Crowds of people, and loud noise
• Negative emotions
• Smoking
• Strong smells or perfumes
• Too much sugar and starch
• Overwork
• Violent TV and movies
• Lack of sleep
• Extreme weather conditions 

I am also supposed to choose calming exercise, like Tai  Chi and Hatha Yoga.

The thing that really makes me laugh about these diets are that their proponents are all 'Doctors'. Dr D'Adamo is the main advocate of this diet, and Dr Lam's website lists the foods that I should choose and avoid. Closer inspection reveals that Dr D'Adamo is a 'Naturopathic' Doctor, and Dr Lam is a trademark. You can even call 1-800-DRLAM-88. All of their websites refer to "scientific studies", but none are ever credited or detailed.

As an 'A', I need to avoid all meats, and many fish, including anchovy, beluga (as if), eel, frog, haddock, herring, lobster, lox (I've got a shedload in the freezer, which is where it will stay for another week), octopus, shrimp, tilefish and turtle (a real delicacy in east London). Most dairy products are not digestible for type A's, and I can eat peanuts and pumpkin seeds, but not cashews and pistachios (which would be fine for every single week except this one - christmas week!). Beans are out, but lentils and black-eyed peas are in (I have no idea what these are, but I think I can download them from itunes), wheat is out, as are peppers, olives, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms. Garlic, onions, broccoli, artichoke, romaine, carrots and spinach are in. Berries good, melons bad, orange bad, grapefruits and pineapples good.

I still think that I'm more of an 'O' – leadership, extroversion, energy and focus are among the best traits. Type O’s can be powerful and productive, however, when stressed Type O’s response can be one of anger, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, but I'll try this dairy & wheat-free week, and see what happens...

Cyndy Crawford: A New Dimension & Shape Your Body

A New Dimension is designed for new mums, and as I've had a baby this year, this should be right up my street. Cyndy says that having a baby changes you. I think that she means in a more spiritual sense, but all I am is fatter and poorer.

Cyndy says that you can use this tape however you want, but "here's what she did"... The first week after the birth, she didn't exercise at all - "she wasn't thinking about working out" apparently (she was probably still wondering how that possibly came out of that, and when all the swelling was going to go down). Starting one week after her son was born, she was ready to start. I think that this might be why she's a supermodel, and I'm still writing a diet blog.

All through the video, there are split screen images of her working out, and her rolling around on the floor with her baby. This would all be well and good if it wasn't juxtaposed with my reality: my baby was also rolling around on the floor under my feet, screaming to be fed and have her nose wiped.

Moving on to the next Cyndy, Shape Your Body. This was the first fitness (and only) fitness video I have ever owned, and so downloading this one hardly feels like theft! This is a much younger Cyndy, who before the birth of her children was prepared to work much harder to look good. It's a good workout, and my thighs are KILLING me, but I suspect that they'll be more toned before the week is out.

Diet #6, 'The Power of Three'

Annoyingly, I appear to have regained three of the five lost pounds from last weeks' Atkins - but I'm still two pounds lighter than before my carb-fast - and half a stone lighter than when I started five weeks ago - so new start weight for this week, 10st 1lb.

This week is all about the exercise, and so I'm going to see if I can get thin without leaving my front room. Before I start, I should say that exercise and me are not good friends. We've flirted on occasion, but I've never been fully committed. Over the years, I have been with at least seven gyms. I'm reminded of Joan Rivers, who said "I don't exercise. If G-d had wanted me to bend over, he'd have put diamonds on the floor".

This morning, after a few glasses of wine last night, and a little lie-in, I started with Davina's Power of Three workout. On the whole, I don't like celebrity fitness video's. They mostly look like they're made on a limited budget, and the sleb is usually just a spokesmodel for the non-celebrity personal trainer. I once did Geri-yoga, and couldn't move my neck for a month, which put me off forever.

This DVD starts off ominously with a series of warnings - do not exercise if you're feeling unwell, have recently eaten a heavy meal, been drinking, are injured, on painkillers, pregant... That's it - I'm put off. Put down the remote control and go back to the pies. Actually, I think they've missed a few. Do not do this if you have a low tolerance for chirpy celebrities, if your neighbours can see in, if you're not wearing an exercise bra.

This starts off with some 'useful' hints from Davina - remember to breath (damn, keep forgetting), drink lots (wine?), go at your own pace, "enjoy it, I had a great time making it". Really? I'm sure you got paid a fortune. Of course you did! And why does Davina keep shouting "choon" to the 90's techno soundtrack??

At times, this feels more like Debra Stephenson 'doing' Davina than Davina herself, but to be fair, she looks great, and annoying as she is, she's really doing this. The workout itself feels relatively tough (if you haven't exercised for six months - not sure how hard you'd find it if you were already fit), and I was really feeling it. My three year old provided some amusing moments trying to show me her 'dances' to copy, she obviously thought they were better than the ones I was watching.

I'm looking forward to not fad dieting this week, although it's going to be a struggle to find time to exercise every day... Not sure I'm going to lose weight, but if I feel better, I don't think I'll mind.

A new diet trend?

I managed nearly four days of Atkins, and this morning's weight: 9st12lb. I lost 5lbs in four days!!!

Atkins describes what they call "the metabolic advantage" - the more protein you eat, the less hungry you become, so you eat less and lose more. Sounds like bullshit, right? Terrifyingly, I think it's true. After scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast yesterday, I realised at 2pm that I still hadn't eaten, and wasn't even hungry.

Against all my best intentions, I was beginning to like Atkins - I have this weird thing about "beige" food - and Atkins is all about colours. Red meat, yellow eggs, green veg... I'm not sure how much of this weighloss is about lack of carbs, per se, or just the fact that I had four days of no crisps, no chocolate, no bread, no pasta - but whatever it is, it works, and I can see why people who do it rave about it.

By a strange coincidence, Poppy was nine months yesterday - and this morning I'm pretty much back to my pre-pregancy weight - so I guess it's true what they say about nine months on nine months off. On the theme of coincidences, I've found someone online doing the same thing as me (what are the chances, right?). You can check out his blog at 52diets52weeks.net, we even started at pretty much the same time. He's very detailed, very funny, and I wish him the best of luck

On a separate note, I seem to have started a trend. One of the lovely mummies from baby group wants to do the Dukan diet together, and another friend wants to do another week with me. I've managed to re-gift the rest of the slim.fast to a third friend.

It is with a huge sigh of relief that I'll be taking Atkins back to the library. I feel like slipping little notes into the pages with things like 'don't do it' and 'are you mad??' for the benefit of the next borrower. The next diet on the list is the Best Bet diet - but as this is for the treatment of MS, thankfully, I'll be giving this one a miss. I quite fancy the Blood Type Diet, where you eat depending on your blood type, but I'm going to skip over a few, and try something different - exercise! On the list I've called it 'Davina, Power of Three', but I've begged, borrowed and stolen (well, kind of, if you consider illegal downloading to be theft), seven different dvd's, and I'll do one a day - to see if exercise can make a difference, to my weight, and also my shape. There's another reason for this too - I've got a couple of xmas parties next week, and I want to eat and drink what I like.

Day 4 of Atkins

Fell off the wagon. It's too cold for salad, and I'm craving 'easy' food. That's my excuse for why I had (six) chips with my salmon for supper. No excuse for the three biscuits, two chocolates and pack of toffee poppets. I'll weigh in tomorrow, and see if four days of Atkins can make any difference.

Day 3 of Atkins

My breath smells and I feel sick and dizzy. I'm not sure that this is what they call the "Atkins Edge". The recipes I made yesterday ranged from mediocre (courgette loaf) to terrible (rye bread) to inedible (peanut cookies - straight in the bin). And I'm still not loving cheese as a snack. C'mon Dr Atkins. This is not food!

On the plus side, I am beginning to learn that you need to stick with something for at least three days before it becomes bearable - as with slim.fast, I'm definitely getting the hang of it, and with Atkins, I'm beginning to think more about what I eat with every meal. Plus, I think that I've created a new diet - which I'm calling "diet-combining" - I'm using the last of the 100-mile diet butter and onions to cook with, and the small cheeses from the six-meals-a-day diet as a snack.

One of the things that I'm finding most difficult is breakfast -toast and cereal are quick and easy, making eggs every day isn't. In the chapter "what's for breakfast", in New Atkins, New You, they suggest some other 'tasty' ideas to try. This must be some other definition of the word tasty I haven't previously come across. Ideas include On the Run roll-ups: wrapping slices of cheese and ham around cucumber and a dab of mustard and mayo; Chocolate coconut shake (almond milk, whey protein, cocoa powder, sucralose, ice cubes); Stuffed peppers "stuff with pork sausage and microwave"; Corned beef hash (using turnips rather than potato); and hash browns made with cauliflower and turnip rather than the 'evil' potato. It's at this point that it really hits home with what's wrong with this diet. Surely a bowl of wholewheat cereal, or a couple of slices of good quality bread is much better than all of this crap??

The diet book says that by day two or three your body goes into ketosis, where you switch from burning glycogen to fat. I am reliably informed by the recipe book that "ketosis is the happiest condition that a dieter can be in". My body does not feel very happy. But I'm going to stick with it for another couple of days at least, to see what happens.

Diet #5, New Atkins, New You

I'm sorry to say that I didn't really stick to the Alkaline diet. It didn't inspire me, probably because there were no obvious and immediate advantages - which is probably why you don't hear of many people doing it. I've been eating pretty much normally this week: on the plus side, one of the things that people kept telling me about slim.fast was that "as soon as you start eating normally you'll put it all back on again". I'm happy to say that I only put on a pound in the last week, so the start weight for Atkins is 10st3lb.

Atkins is the diet that I have been dreading most so far. Although it sounds so easy to say "no carbs", when I think about what I eat every day - breakfast cereal, bread, pasta, crackers and crisps, I'm overwhelmed by an impending sense of doom. What am I going to eat?? Eating cheese as a snack is so counter-intuitive it makes me want to cry.

Friends who've done this diet rave about it. Someone tells me they lost a stone in two weeks before a big holiday, someone else told me that her husband did it and it worked brilliantly, another friends parents are doing it, apparently. Anyone who hasn't done it thinks that I'm mad. They're probably closer to the mark.

I've borrowed "New Atkins, New You" from the library, and a friend has loaned me the Dr Atkins New Diet Cookbook, and I'm all set. For those of you who don't work in offices where every diet has been tried and tested, discussed and disected around the watercooler in minute detail, the principle of Atkins sounds straightforward. When you eat, your body produces blood sugar (glucose). When you eat carbs, your glucose level goes up rapidly. Insulin is released to lower it - the insulin enables some of the glucose to be used for energy, and the rest is stored as fat. When you restrict your carb intake, less glucose is produced, and your body turns to the next source of energy, fat - which is where the weightloss comes in. You literally consume yourself!

Although the book makes it clear that this diet sets no limit on the amount of food you can eat, the lists of food that you can eat is hugely restrictive. The induction diet is the strictest of all. The list of "free" food includes meat, fish, chicken, eggs and cheese. Fortunately, the "new" Atkins also includes lots of vegetables, and caffeine, neither of which were available on the old diet. However, there are many more foods that are strictly forbidden - fruit, foods made with flour and/or sugar (including bread, pasta, biscuits, crisps, cakes and sweets), alcohol, nuts and seeds, grains, pulses, vegetables not on the acceptable list (parsnips, potatoes, carrots, squash), dairy products (other than cheese, cream and butter), diet products, junk food and chewing gum. Atkins recommends starting with the induction diet for a two-week period, followed by an ongoing weight loss stage (called OWL - reminds me of Harry Potter), then premaintenance, and finally maintenance.

I should point out that the book is clearly written for an American audience. Although it's been "translated" into English, replacing ounces with grams and dollars with pounds, the chapters are peppered with phrases like "are you ready to be happy?", which makes me cringe, and want to leap, Tom Cruise-style, onto my sofa in equal parts. Throughout the book, they're keen to point out their scientific credentials: studies have shown that eating one or more eggs each day does no harm, although I wonder what they mean by one 'or more' and how many you would have to eat before you did do yourself some harm? I also read that this is based on an old-fashioned diet, when refined flour and sugar wasn't available. Which sounds good until you realise that lots of the restricted things on the list were available before, like rice, potatoes and fruit. Atkins also advocates adding salt to your diet - like half a teaspoon a day. And it recognises that the lack of fruit means that you miss out on vital nutrients, so they recommend you supplement with vitamins.

My trip to the supermarket today included a load of ingredients that I've never bought before - rye flour, ricotta and marscapone, cream of tartare, as well as a shedload of eggs and three different types of fish. I'm going to make the courgette loaf and the rye bread from the Atkins cookbook, as well as the peanut butter cookies, so that I have some food for breakfast and snacks. Luckily, we stayed in a hotel last night, so I had a huge plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, plus a home-made chicken salad for lunch, and chicken sausages for supper. Two cheese snacks and a plate of asparagus later, and my pee'll stink as badly as my breath!

My pH level

The pH testing strips arrived today, and I discovered that my pH level is already a very neutral 7.5. Job done!! I wonder if I can get it down any further this week?

Goodbye slim.fast and hello diet #4, 'The Alkaline Diet'

*Drumroll* At the end of week 3, I have lost a fairly marvellous 7lbs. New weight: 10st 2lbs.

Although I started the week starving all the time, by the end of the week, the hunger doesn't seem to bother me as much (although I should apologise to anyone who's come near me this week - lack of sensible meals means my mouth tastes vile all the time, but full marks to my friends, who are clearly too polite to mention my minging breath). So, for the litmus test, would I do this again? Or recommend it to a friend? Damn right I would!! Will I be invited on another playdate with my minging breath? Probably not!!

Diet #4 is the Alkaline diet. Although this isn't technically a weight loss diet, the idea is to avoid acid-forming foods (grains, fish, meat, poultry, cheese, milk), and eat more alkalising foods (fruits and vegetables). It's so restrictive that I'm likely to lose weight anyway. According to the website the aim of this diet is to reduce the body's acidity and restore it's pH level to a 'more optimal' 7.35-7.45. Almost all foods that we eat release either an acid or an alkaline base into the blood, and a higher acidity can lead to stress and low energy, and make you prone to more illnesses. Being more alkaline will make me healthier and more relaxed. Excellent.

Alkalising foods include:
Asparagus, broccoli, courgette, dandelion (?), beans, spinach, tomatoes, kelp, sweet potato, cauliflower, aubergine, cucumber, lettuce, grapefruit, almonds, pumpkin seeds, gluten free bread, quinoa, spelt, soy and olive oil.

Acid forming foods include
Meat, dairy and eggs, fruits including apple, apricot, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, alcohol (which may be an issue for the two big parties I have this week), mushrooms, rice, noodles, pizza, biscuits, sweets, nuts and sauces. Ouch.

I need to aim for an 80:20 ratio - 80% alkalising foods to 20% acid-forming. I have ordered some pH testing strips, and my aim over the course of the week will be to increase my pH levels to a more alkaline level. As a control, I'll be using my husband, Simon. What is it with men? Ever since I got pregnant for the first time, he's been desperate to pee on a stick, and so he's willingly voluteered to act as a control.

Current pH level will be posted (and the diet will start) once ebay deliver my litmus paper.

Half way through diet #3, slimfast week

At lunchtime today, a friend's three year old daughter pointed at my slim.fast chocolate crunch bar (aka "lunch") and asked me what it was. I told her it was a "nutriotionally balanced meal replacement bar designed to help me lose weight", and she looked at me like I was mad. In essence, it took her seconds to assess what it's taken me days to realise.

So now I'm sitting on the couch watching Friends and munching my way through my third chocolate bar (slim.fast "snack") of the day, reflecting on this diet.

Slim.fast goes against everything I believe about dieting - making good choices, understanding healthy eating, portion control, willpower and exercise. I also hate the thought of Sadie watching me munch my way through this disfunctional diet, and believing that this is good or healthy. By evening, I feel like my teeth are ready to fall out, and I'm craving fresh fruit and water.

I'm sure that someone was paid a small fortune to come up with names for the flavours of shakes - things like rich chocolate, blissful banana, summer strawberry, rasberry crush and simply vanilla, and all of them are unbelievably sweet. The meal replacement bars are big and filling, but again, so sweet - raisin and cinammon flapjacks, chocolate peanut, summer berry and chocolate crunch. The chocolate snacks (nutty nougat, heavenly chocolate delight) are sweeter still. Even the main flavourings on the savory bbq tortilla snacks are sugar and then honey. Plus, the packaging is unappealing to me - it looks more clinical than edible - although I guess that's what they were going for. It's also relatively expensive - the shakes are £1.30 each, and the bars are £4.99 for four. Although, to be fair, I would have spent £5 on a sandwich and a packet of crisps at lunch today, so it's still saved me money. 


But (believe it or not), I can see that this also has plus sides:

• It's really easy to stick to. If you were slimming for a specific occasion (let's say, to drop half a stone before a wedding at the weekend), it would be relatively straightforward to follow.
• There's no need to avoid sweet foods - in fact, with slim.fast, that's almost all you can eat.
• The snacks are actually really good .
• It completely takes the pressure off of food. When you're dieting, it's easy to get obsessed with what you can eat - with the 3.2.1 plan, you don't have to think about food at all, no cooking, no preparation - just pop a bar in your bag and eat wherever you are.
• I'm hungry all the time - but when you get used to being hungry, you understand when to eat, so you're not just eating out of habit.

It's fairly obvious that you could just eat two light meals for breakfast and lunch each day, and a couple of healthy snacks inbetween, and lose weight just as easily at a fraction of the cost. But, by providing you with a very specific menu, which is carefully calorie controlled, it's much easier to stay on the wagon for longer.

This is definitely not for the long-term, but in the short term, the proof is going to be in the pudding. Check back on Sunday to see how much weight I've lost...

My food for this week...

Two weeks worth of Slim.Fast

The (slightly premature) end of diet #2

In many ways, I've loved the 100-mile diet, and so I'm sad to be ending it early, but it's proving tough to stick to for any length of time, at least in part because I've run out of food. This is really a lifestyle choice, and not one that I can completely embrace - it's hugely impractical to eat only things that come from with 100-mile radius of your house. However, there are some things that I'll take from this week and try and stick with.

For example, I really enjoyed shopping at the farmers market, and I'll definitely try and shop there on a more regular basis. It seems ridiculous to buy food from abroad when it's available virtually on your doorstep. Wouldn't Australians find it crazy to buy British honey which has been flown half way around the world when they have their own perfectly good honey on their doorstep. So why do I choose the eucalyptus honey over a local variety? And wouldn't it seem strange to go into a supermarket in Portugal and see British butternut squash when they're grown locally - but I'm happy to buy Portugese squash in Tesco, despite the fact that butternut squash is also grown less than 100 miles down the road - and the local one probably tastes fresher and better too.

Also, I have learned that the people who sell, cook, and serve you your food also don't seem to know (or care) where it came from. I'm not sure why they should, but I just feel like maybe it would be great if they did. If we all paid a little more attention to where things came from, we could make a big difference.

There are a few things that I've done this week that I've never done before:

1. Visited a farmers market, for a reason other than to stroll around and pretend I live in an area nicer than I do
2. Described everything as "locally sourced" (even if it wasn't) - for example, "would you like a square of my locally sourced dairy milk..."
3. Eaten a pie
4. Made cauliflower cheese

Unfortunately, the latter two points (combined with eating all the cheese and butter I bought) means that I've managed to gain all the weight that I lost last week.

So, start weight for next diet: 10st 8lb. Again.

Diet #3 is going to be a deviation from my alphabetical list, partly because my blog has come to the attention of the lovely folks at Slim.Fast, who have sent me a huge bag of "food", and partly because it's heading into christmas party season, and I do need to lose some weight, and quickly.

I'm a bit terrified of this one. It's called the 3.2.1 plan. Three snacks, two slimfast "meals", and one healthy meal each day, plus lots of water and a little bit of exercise. I've put the word "meals" in inverted commas because if you actually served them to someone as a meal, I think they would demand their money back.

It's called Slim.Fast - but I'm not sure whether they mean fast in the speedy sense, or in the absolutely starving sense. But I'm about to find out...