Diet #25, living Gluten-free

But first, the end of the Kick Start/Cabbage Soup diet: The problem with faddy diets is that they're so goddam hard to stick to. This diet worked well for the first three days (soup and fruit/soup and veg/soup and fruit AND veg), but it all fell apart on day 4. I had a most lovely lunch with Russell Blackburn (of Blackburn Bridal Couture) at the shiny new Pollen Street Social, with delicious food from Gordon Ramsey's protege Jason Atherton. Our waiter was so charmingly amenable, I'm sure that if I had explained that all I could eat was soup and banana's, they would have rustled me up something delicious, but it seemed churlish to resist the carefully crafted, cool modern menu.

Here's a picture of my starter: The description (light cured Shetland salmon, avocado, smoked herring roe cream) doesn't really do it justice...

I'm conviced that, crazy as this diet sounded, had I stuck to it, there's no doubt that I would have lost weight, and so I might come back to it later, to give it another go...

Some more excitement this week, my blog is going national!! I did a shoot for a national newspaper (strike that - HUGE national newspaper...) this week. Here's a sneak peek...

Enough about me, and on to diet #25, living gluten free. My BFF doesn't eat gluten (for medical reasons), and is somewhat of an expert on all things wheat-free. I'm expecting her to furnish me with baskets of home-made bread, and a list of Soho's finest eateries for lunchtimes...

The lowdown: Gluten is a protein which is found in wheat, but also in spelt, barley, rye and oats. It's often used as a thickener in food (under the label 'dextrin'). Luckily for me, potatoes, rice, corn and quinoa are gluten-free, and so on the menu for this week.

According to dummies.com, "between 50% and 70% of the population are sensitive to Gluten". This seems a little dramatic to me - on a macro level, that's 3 people just in my house!! Wouldn't it be ironic if the one person who wasn't gluten intolerant was me!!

Although this is usually a medical diet, there are lots of reasons for everyone to try to live gluten-free:

• Wheat is hard to digest - undigested wheat ferments, forming 'gas'.
• Wheat is quickly converted to sugar, leading to a spike in insulin.
• Apparently, wheat can cause 'leaky gut syndrome', allowing toxins to leak into your bloodstream.
• Refined wheat has very little nutritional value.

Two scrambled eggs and cheese for breakfast (again!!), and any suggestions for gluten-free pizza for dinner tonight would be most welcome.