The end of diet 1, and the start of diet 2, the 100-mile diet.

So, on the final day of my first diet, it's time to review. And my verdict: don't try this at home! Actually, you could try this at home - or at work - or anywhere where it's easy to have a clear structure and total control and planning! I've got a cupboard full of spare "meals", which I never found time to eat (although hopefully they'll come in useful at some point futher down the list). My initial 6-meals-a-day quickly moved to five, then four, and finally three-meals-a-day - or just 'regular eating' as it's also called. The theory behind this is ok, in theory. Eat a restricted calorie diet and you're bound to lose weight, no matter how and when you eat those calories. And whilst eating six times, or 'little and often', is great if you have the time to plan, in reality, it's quite difficult to find the time to prepare and eat something healthy and low cal, and I was often constantly hungry, and fixated on what I could eat, and when I'd be able to eat it next.

But, the good news is that there is a possibility that this actually works - I've lost 3lbs! Actually, on reflection, that's not such good news, some of them have to not work, because otherwise the theory behind this is slightly flawed! 

Anyway, onto diet #2, the 100-mile diet.

This diet is based on a book written by two Canadians, Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon who decided to spend a year eating only food with ingredients that they knew were from within 100 miles of their residence. In reality, I'll be doing the 100-miles LITE diet - the writers of this went without staples such as oil, sugar and rice, and they preserved their own food for times when their local food wasn't available - which might be a step to far for me.

Luckily, as I live in East London, there's quite a lot within 100 miles, a circle which stretches to (roughly) Nottingham, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, Norfolk, and even a tiny bit of France. The supermarkets are good about labelling the provenence of the food, which will help. But I'm going to have to say a temporary goodbye to some of my staples - bananas and grapefruits, smoked salmon, Israeli pickles and dutch leerdammer are all out for the next week.

Yesterday (feeling like a bit of a twat), I called my local butcher to ask where the meat I buy comes from. Actually, although I feel like a fool, I do have the right to know (although, take note, lady in butcher, "The Khoom", which I believe roughly translates from Yiddish as "the middle of nowhere" is not sufficient information, thanks!). Anyway, it turns out that the lamb and beef is from a farm near Oldham, but that the chicken is from just outside Luton, which, luckily is less than 100 miles from my house. Tomorrow morning, weather-permitting, we'll go to Walthamstow farmers market, and I might also check out the farmers market at Queen Mary's University, on Thursday.

Although this one's not strictly a diet in the weight-loss sense of the word, there's a good chance I might lose weight anyway, due to lack of supplies.

Anyway, if you want to know more about where your meat comes from, you can ask Brian at Norman Goldberg in Clayhall. And here are the links to Walthamstow Farmers Market and QMW farmers market, which luckily both appear to sell wine. So I may spend this week in a food-less drunken fug. Oh well.