Diet #36, Rosemary Conley

This week, Rosemary Conley. I had assumed that she was she guru of all things 80's, and had no idea that her brand is alive and kicking and going strong all over the UK. Although I suspect from a quick google search that every photo of her was either taken in, or at least styled in, the eighties!

This diet has two core pillars - a low fat, low GI diet, with food that you can buy online, and weekly weigh-ins, with an exercise class.

The diet plan starts of with a very low cal, 1200 calorie/day diet, for two weeks, to kick start the process, followed by a still gruelling but more forgiving 1400 calories a day after that, which allows for alcohol and treats. As I'm only doing this for one week, I'm stuck on 1200 calories - but this is actually a blessing, as we're entering the christmas party season, and that bodycon dress that I'm dying to wear still doesn't match up in the mirror to how it should look in my head...

The class included a very mixed group of women, of various ages, shapes and sizes. They all had one thing in common - that they were MUCH, much more co-ordinated than me. In my defence, they'd all been before and this was my first class, but it may also have something to do with the fact that I have two left feet, and my arms seem to work totally independently from my legs, which in turn do not seem to be controlled by my brain. I have been known to dance, but usually only when there's alcohol involved, and a whole bottle of wine (the minimum amount required for dancing) seemed inappropriate as a) I was driving, and b) the bottle of wine would have contained 500 calories, which would have completely defeated the purpose of going in the first place.

After a brief pep-talk ('sweat is just your fat crying'), we got down to business. The 45-minute aerobics session was good exercise and good fun - well, fun for the women behind me who had to watch me box stepping forwards and salsa'ing back, jumping to the left and right, toe-stepping down, and generally making a right tit of myself. It has made me realise that I should make an effort to do something, although it's not going to be this.

I've ordered the box of Rosemary Conley food - cereal for breakfast, soup for lunch, and various (vegetarian) options for dinner - 200, 300 and 400 calories respectively, supplemented with milk and various 'power-snacks' during the day. My weight hovers around an incredibly annoying 10st2lbs. My goal is definitely to get down to 9st-anything by the end of the year - and to stop sabotaging my efforts with curry and chocolate!