Pick up, brush off, start again

You may well believe that as I have stopped blogging about weight-loss, I have stopped losing weight - and indeed, the diet. You would be correct.

I gave it a go - the Juice Plus diet. It didn't work out for me. I was getting so hungry between shakes that I was about going crazy, and my mum asked me to stop doing it. So, I have. Instead, mum, who has been learning about weight loss and healthy eating for years, has written me a plan.

Note: I know a lot of you were sceptical in the extreme of me choosing to do a meal-replacement diet. I want to emphasise that I wanted to try it out before dismissing the idea. I can say I have done so: and it did not work for me.

So, here is the Mummy Plan. We concentrate on the week first.

First thing in the morning I am to have lemon & ginger tea, rooibos tea or fruit juice (definitely not from concentrate)

Mid-morning I can have two oat-cakes with half a tin of tuna or salmon, or reduced fat hummus.

For lunch I will eat a bowl of fresh, wholesome soup and salad: with leaves, beetroot, carrot, mixed seeds, boiled egg.

Mid-afternoon I will snack on a small handful of nuts (but NOT peanuts), and fruits - apple, banana or orange, with no more than three bananas a week.

Dinner will be a piece of meat approximately the size of a pack of cards, with vegetables. Om nom nommy vegetables like sweet potato, butternut, sweetcorn, green beans, peas, roast peppers and eggplant.

Everyday I must drink 2 litres of water and rooibos/herbal teas per day. I can have two glasses of red wine or two gin and tonics (with less of the gin, and slimline tonic).

Breakfast on weekends is generously two eggs with rye toast, bacon and mushrooms (yuck) and on Sunday's I can have a roast dinner!

I am NOT allowed cake, biscuits, beer or cider!

So, that is that. I also have an exercise plan, which I have not actioned yet as I've been recovering from a general anaesthetic and still have a fairly sensitive face (my tooth was taken out in a fairly tricky procedure owing to a badly placed nerve). I haven't felt like walking, let along going to the gym!

I hope this one will be better, and will keep you all updated! I hope to at least do a daily food diary so mum can keep track - although I'm also trying out myfitnesspal, where my username is corrieberry.

That's all for now! Operation Lose Weight: Round Two has begun.

Week Three of Diet Proper

Last week was a Huge Fail for the diet. It was my birthday week and I ate cake, doughnuts, burgers, drank coke, beer, wine, cocktails....

So we are going to leave it at this for today and I will update you later!

Days 10 to 14

Goodness gracious it's getting hard to remember what days I've done where! The diet part of the diet is still going well - I've got myself into a nice rhythm where I'm preparing my shakes in the morning (i.e. gulping one down and then making the next one immediately) and I've got myself a nice pink protein shaker which has become my primary food-giver.

Additionally, I have now had rice milk, and I have to admit defeat to my mother and say that I love the shakes with it. I am going to buy more. It's a bit more expensive, but I don't mind.

I'm not getting hungry between shakes - but I am getting the munchies. It's quite hard not to snack, and I have had a few snacks over the past few days which have ranged from mini eggs, Magnum's, Biscuits, Chicken....this is something that I must work on. I have three days off from tomorrow and I will really watch what I'm doing.

I still have not been going to the gym. Bad, bad Corrie. I had the urge yesterday and was in the middle of making dinner so I could not act on it.

This is all one big excuse. I will go. Promise.

Now the list of bad things I ate last week:

2 Magnum's
2 Do'nuts
Tuna pasta salad (not TERRIBLE, but processed and ready-made from Tesco so not sure what is in it)
Pizza (Toby came round...)
Ice Cream on Sunday evening (date night)
Hot dog buns (the rest of the meal was fine)

I do not have a list of shame for this week yet - I ate slightly too much yesterday but there were no carbs in there and I had four litres of water.....so I feel OK about that.

I'm finding the food part of this much, much easier than I was expecting and the exercise part much harder than I was expecting. Hopefully I can redress the balance this week.

Only two weeks of two shakes a day left, and I'm a bit sad about that! It's very easy to eat two shakes a day, you don't have to plan meals and think about it.

Have I lost weight? God I don't know. I don't feel slimmer or healthier. Mainly I feel tired! But I am enjoying it and I will keep it up till I'm done and see what happens :) I must get the exercise going and the healthy meals regularly on the go.

Watch this space...!

Days Seven, Eight and Nine of Diet Proper

I know you are probably all disappointed that I did not blog on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, but you will no doubt have the strength to move forward and carry on with your lives!

It is getting quite a lot for me to maintain 3 different blogs - not that I am quitting any of them you understand - but I think that having a blog which is a daily listing of what I ate is perhaps not the most interesting!

I'm still on soya milk at the moment - I cannot find rice milk in the shops I have been to recently, and I find the soya milk more palatable and cost-effective (i.e. cheaper) than the almond milk. So that's what I've been having with my shakes.

So: progress?

Monday was a day of great joy in my mouth when my boyfriend made us a stir fry from my "Healthy Book" - a recipe book full of healthy recipes including nutritional breakdown and suggested portion sizes. It was absolutely delicious. The ingredients included pak choi (which neither of us had ever eaten before), chicken, chillis, garlic, soy sauce, a bit of oil and delicious egg noodles.

Although it was healthy....I will admit that I had seconds, so I probably ate a bit too much.

On Tuesday my brother came to stay and we had steaks. Before I move on to this meal, I will confess: I did not take my shake to work. I ran out of soya milk and I didn't have enough time to go buy some before I went out. Instead, I drank a healthy smoothie that I bought from Waitrose, which had many berries in the ingredients list, and was a SUPERFOOD.

So, steaks - the brother cooked the meat with balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt and a bit of pepper, and we ate salad with it. The salad was one of my concoctions, which involved grated carrot, mixed leaves, rocket, feta cheese and cucumber. I also bought a giant couscous pre-made salad which had chilli in it and was absolutely delicious.

I also ate a bit of chocolate. Slapped wrist for that one.

On Wednesday, last night, we had a barbecue. We cooked up some sausages and bacon, I dry-fried some onions, and I roasted butternut squash and potato with chilli salt and pepper in the oven for half an hour. We had the leftovers of the salad, with bonus spinach and strawberries added in. I had tomato ketchup, which I've been trying to avoid, and I also had bread rolls with my sausages....so not 100% great, but not completely poor either. I did eat more chocolate. Sorry for that!

I still haven't been to the gym. The pressure of this is really getting to me, and I hopefully will be able to kick my ass into gear soon. I'm taking a concoction of medication for gastritis (the condition which kicked off the whole "Corrie shall go on a diet" thing in the first place) and it is leaving me quite low in energy. I had a medication review yesterday and the dose was reduced as I am deemed to have made enough progress, so hopefully the side-effect shall go soon.

I know how you feel, polar bear.

I am hoping to go to "Pure Step" tonight at 6 pm. We shall see.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Six and Day Seven of Diet Proper

Day Six - Saturday - went well for me! I had breakfast on the balcony with Piccadilly, which was thoroughly pleasant, if a little loud because the bird is very noisy. We are looking forward to her losing her voice!

Breakfast with Piccadilly.

I had my lunch, and then had a little apple and rhubarb pie because our friend had left a bit over in the fridge from our bbq, and it needed eating - I shared it with my boyfriend, who had the lion share, but I did enjoy it!

Dinner was two lamb chops, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, salad and pine nuts - which cost about £1.20 because there is a super, super cheap butcher down the road which I was very happy to find. I ate it too quickly to take a photo, and after dinner I was very well behaved and declined a glass of wine!

I didn't go to the gym. I know this is bad, and I am ashamed. (Sort of.) I'm not going to into the details here, but it was not a thing that was going to happen because of general health issues.

Sunday - Day Seven - did not go so well. I had my breakfast super late, and forgot to take my medication for acid-reflux before I ate - so I had a slightly uncomfortable stomach which was not cool. I didn't have lunch, but I did eat half a muffin and about ten marshmallows.

After another very difficult day health-wise, my boyfriend took me out to dinner and we each had a burger with fries, I pinched a deep-fried onion ring, and I had a coke. (I also had an orange juice....that's healthy, right?!)

So Sunday was a write-off and we are back to Monday with a plan to stick to it better this week. I have a kettlebells class tonight, and I weighed myself this morning with a weight of 66 kg - it has been decreasing reliably so I think I have lost about four kilos so far, which isn't too bad! This is still on the awful scales we own, so I will ask my doctor if I can use his scales when I see him on Wednesday.

Today has started erm....badly. I had a Magnum at about 11 am, because I had just been to the hospital for about two hours of tests (I have to have a tooth extracted and the root helpfully has a nerve wrapped around it) and my boyfriend said I could! KETTLEBELLS tonight. I chose a bad season to be on a diet...SUMMER. Argh.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Five of Diet Proper

It was another relatively well behaved day for Day Five. My shakes were with soya milk, and I have to say I prefer it to the almond milk. If I can't get hold of rice milk easily, I'm going to stick with the soya (although I might give the almond one more try as my preference may also be getting used to the shakes).

I had yet another doctors appointment (I have a lingering cough that just won't budge) and on my way home, I really, really wanted a Magnum. Again, I walked into Tesco, picked up an ice cream and.....put it back again. I bought peanuts and raisins instead - but I only opened them when I got home, and then I only ate one peanut because Piccadilly needed feeding and was quite determined to remind me.

Dinner was leftovers of the chicken pizza that we had the other night. I did eat some crisps that were going bad from the previous night, when we had friends round for a bbq, but a mere handful. I did not go to the gym.

My biggest triumph of the day was drinking four litres of water. I went to the loo a lot, but it felt good to manage to drink so much. I've recently got rather spotty and I don't know why - I am hoping the water is helping!

When I got home, there was a lot of excitement - Molly had her babies yesterday! I spent a lot of time hovering outside the cage listening for squeaks, of which there are many. I'm super excited to meet them in two weeks time when they start venturing out of their nest!!

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Four of Diet Proper

Another mostly successful day! Although sadly without any exercise, I'm afraid...but I'm doing Saturday morning Zumba, so it's fine!

I had my vanilla shake for breakfast and chocolate shake for lunch. I was working from home as I had yet another doctors appointment in the afternoon, so I didn't drink as much as I would have liked to have.

We had some friends round for dinner. John had been marinading chicken for a day, and bought burgers and chipolatas, as well as a salad. I had a handful of nibbles (Doritos...not good), a small glass of wine, and then my dinner was a burger, a chipolata, chicken, salad with no dressing but roasted almonds and pine nuts, peas, sweetcorn and some peppers. The rest of the group had burger buns, sauces and dressings.

This was clearly a barbecue party, and normally I gorge myself on burgers at bbqs - so not too shabby.

I didn't eat the coleslaw on my plate...too fussy and didn't like it!

And a little bit more than one small glass of wine!

Although I cheated somewhat with the crisps and wine, I am super proud of myself for my restraint and good behaviour, and I am looking forward to going onward and upward.

I'm not feeling much slimmer yet, but my mum says the latest video of Piccadilly shows some improvement - hurrah for small victories!

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Three of Diet Proper

Day Three was a Really Good Day. I didn't cheat at all, and had my vanilla shake in the morning, chocolate shake for lunch, and chicken pizza with an excess of vegetables for dinner.

I have changed my shakes to soya milk - for no reason other than I couldn't buy almond milk when I went to Sainsbury's - and I am finding them easier to drink. The almond milk was *very* thick and it felt like drinking a smoothie that didn't have enough liquid in it. You know - tip your head back and wait for it to dribble into your mouth thick. When I run out of the soya milk (it was on 3 litres for £3, so I have a six day supply), I will try rice milk next - my mother recommends this and I have not tried it.

I'm sceptical, but then again, I had never tried almond milk and it went OK.

The chicken pizza was not what you think it was! The 'dough' was the chicken, with some tomato puree, green pesto, goats cheese, peppers, onions and a sprinkling of parmesan, baked in the oven and grilled for a few minutes to get a crispy top.

It was delicious and my boyfriend enjoyed it too - success! The excess of vegetables were peas, sweetcorn, broccoli and green beans, and I deliberately gave myself a lot as I was super hungry. I nearly couldn't finish it...

I was supposed to go to Zumba, but I didn't make it. I went to Kings Cross to pick up a bird cage for Piccadilly and the person I was supposed to be meeting didn't show - and I waited for 45 minutes to be sure. I was late home to feed Picca, I got back with five minutes to go for the class so I would have had to sprint to the gym (a ten minute walk) and get changed - it didn't happen.

I have booked into another Zumba class on Saturday and will go then instead.

I'm finding the exercise part of this really tough - but I knew I would, which is why I went for this diet. I need my motivators, and at the moment I am so unfit that I am finding exercise a real chore - and I also have a persistent cough that just will not shift, and coughing till I throw up in a gym is not cool.

Anyway, exercise woes aside, I am enjoying this diet, even though it is quite hard not to snack. It has made me realise how many biscuits and bits and bobs I used to have throughout the day, and has explained a bit where the weight has come from - it's not all a beer belly, to my surprise!

I am finding not being able to have a beer quite tough, which is strange because I actually don't drink that much anymore; but knowing I can't is putting the desire into me. I will get over that one.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Two of Diet Proper

I completely failed with the diet today. I drank my shakes fine, which I was mixing with almond milk. They go down much easier with a protein shaker, and I quite enjoyed the whole thing.

I was at work, and I knew I had three chocolate digestives in my cupboard...I was so-o-o-o hungry and I decided that one simply Must finish the digestives. They didn't even touch the sides as they went down.

I also snacked on raisins. I'm not supposed to snack on anything - but at least these were healthy!

I know you're sitting there thinking "this doesn't sound so bad, what is she talking about" but I'm not even halfway through the sins of the day. The plan was to go out to a pizza place with a dear friend who was celebrating a birthday - I intended to have dinner at home, then maybe a dessert at the pizza place. Step One went well - two pieces of grilled chicken found their way into my stomach.

Then, my boyfriend and I decided to have a glass of wine. Just -one- glass mind, and a glass a day can be a little healthy...right...about three glasses later, we left.

Arriving at the pizza place, we noted that there was carbonara pizza on the menu. I mean, I couldn't say no. It was carbonara pizza. Rather than tell my boyfriend I would like to share my pizza with him, I ordered one for me and I ate it all myself, thank you very much. Oh, and we each had a bellini, and a tipple of limoncello with the birthday boy. I did not have any more wine, nor did I order a beer.

Birthday Pizza Party - birthday boy second from the left in the green shirt.

It doesn't end yet. The dessert menu came, and on it was lemon sorbet with a skin, and a pizza dough nutella ricotta pudding. I tried to tell the boyfriend that I did not need dessert - he said he was ordering both anyway, and I was welcome to have as much or as little as I liked.

I had half of the dessert. It was so tasty.

Then I decided to leave before I could get persuaded to go have a third dinner and a pint, and made my way home.

Needless to say, I've been feeling super guilty today. On the plus side, I haven't cheated even once, and I have Zumba tonight! I also may or may not have booked another Zumba session this weekend. It will be super hard, but I think I owe it to my poor carbs-overloaded body.

Until tomorrow!

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day One of Diet Proper

Day One of Diet Proper went *really* well! I was working from home in the morning because I had a meeting in the afternoon and it didn't make sense for me to go to work beforehand, so I had my vanilla at home, mixing it in a cup with a fork.

It was disgusting. I cried a little bit about the fact that I would have to drink this for the next four months! Argh.

Then, I went out to my meeting. I wasn't at all hungry, and I went to Argos on my way to my meeting and bought a protein shaker which is usually used for MaxiMuscle. It's pink.

I got home at 3 pm, did some work, and at 4 pm I had my chocolate shake. Much, much, MUCH better! It was tasty and went down in seconds.

For dinner, I had a pasty and some salad. I didn't go to the gym - instead I went to bed, exhausted from a day of a lot of travelling, then dealing with a pregnant hamster (yes, Molly is pregnant), a hungry baby bird (yes, I have adopted a baby bird...that story is here...) and having an absentee boyfriend again (he had a band practice).

So day one was perfect, it was very easy and I wasn't hungry and I enjoyed it!

Off-Diet Weekend

I had an off-diet weekend because it was my cousin's wedding.

I went CRAZY. For lunch on Saturday I had pasties and sausage rolls - for dinner I had a relatively healthy(ish) meal of pate, lamb shaks and Eton Mess, and to party I had....far too much wine! Terrible. I didn't eat any cake, though!

I like to think I burned off most of the calories doing mad crazy Corrie dancing with my family - and I drank a lot of water the next day, although I don't think hangover water counts! That's going to be the last time I eat like that, and drink any real alcohol, for a long time.

On Sunday I had a pasty for breakfast, nothing for lunch but a muffin for tea in the afternoon and barbecue chicken with my darling boy. This dinner was healthy - we had the remainders of the mash, salad comprised of mixed leaves, grated carrots, strawberries and feta, some barbecued red peppers and the chicken.

This was all rather tasty! We did eat in bed which is slapped-wrist bad, while we were watching Game of Thrones.

I'm going to take it as a warning, though - I can see how easy it could be to go completely nuts when the diet is over, so I'm going to bear that in mind as I go forward.

Anyway. The diet proper starts today - we have almond milk and I haven't decided what I will have for dinner tonight. The next few weeks are going to be rather exciting - I have one accidentally pregnant hamster and I rescued a baby bird yesterday, so hopefully that is going to distract me from any hunger I may experience.

This is my rescued baby pigeon, Piccadilly! She eats peas.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Five of the Diet ~ Detox

This was the last 'on-detox' day that I had last week and I found it OK, actually. Breakfast was again a slice of dry toast, and I ate it while preparing lunch, which was again fruit salad.

The fruit salad was comprised of a banana, plums, clementine, strawberries, raspberries, an apple and a splash of apple juice. I was so excited when it came to lunchtime that I forgot to take a photo of it, haha! I was particularly hungry.

I had *another* doctors appointment on Friday evening and I wanted to treat myself after it as we had some difficult discussions and I was feeling a bit down when I came out. I went into the shop, picked up a magnum (ice cream)........and put it down again. When I got home, I picked up a chocolate flavoured breakfast bard..........and put it down again.

My snack was instead eight almonds, and I bought myself a knitting book as my treat. I was SO proud of myself.

Dinner was a salad, and was also meant to be fresh fish. I didn't have any, and we had a bit of spare grilled chicken going, so I had grilled chicken instead of the fish - I *did* have some mashed potato because it had now been in the fridge for a bit too long. So...the week was successfully completed *and* I finished a knitting and a spinning project. Successful day.

Day Four of Diet ~ Detox

Yesterday was Day Four, and the best one so far! This was partly because I didn't focus on food all day, with doctor and vet visits, a nice little nap, the England game and quartet rehearsal...busy day. I'll get straight into it:

Breakfast was a slice of toast. Dry toast. Luckily, I bought some really delicious seeded bread that was gorgeous and has some really tasty wholegrain bits in it. Tasty.

I got to work and struggled with not being able to have my tea (although not as much as I am struggling today, Day Five...). It was fine, though - I had to leave work early to get to a doctors appointment, which I did - got home and had my lunch which was a huuuuge bowl of fruit:

- banana
- raspberries
- strawberries
- grapes
- apple
- apple juice and a drop of lemon juice to stop browning

It was so tasty - too much info, but I am salivating just thinking about it. Mmmm.

Tasty tasty fruit salad with lots of berries.

Dinner was again salad, two boiled eggs and a grapefruit. My salad was the last of the spinach and rocket, and some mixed leaves with dry-fried pine-nuts, cucumber and feta cheese. I used the grapefruit as a salad dressing, and it was good. I ate *a lot* of salad so I was nice and full by the time I was done, and went to bed happy.

Dinner! Eggs are an underrated food.

My failure of the day was not drinking enough water. I had five of my required eight glasses, and I have a headache today to prove it. I also nibbled on a biscuit while I was in a meeting without thinking about it...only to realise *oops* not allowed that. However, it was the day where I've stuck to the detox most loyally, and been happiest with things.

I do not feel thinner yet - the scales are reading 66 kg, but 4 kg in four days? Don't believe it - still need those new scales. Mainly, I feel tired and weak, although I think this is more to do with the fact that I'm doing a lot more exercise than usual. This is why I had a nap yesterday after taking Pippin to the vet - instead of going to the gym.

I did walk 4 km on my daily trips across London, which is 1 hour of walking, so I feel like it's OK. If I had gone to the gym, I think I would have expired.

Anyway, the good news is - my juice has arrived! So I am all set to start on Monday. I suspect it is going to be a long four months.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day Three of Diet ~ Detox

When I posted yesterday, I started with saying how hard I was finding it. I am going to start this post by saying that yesterday was the hardest day so far. The novelty of The Diet has worn off. The pain from the gym on Tuesday was making itself known, and then I went to Zumba and nearly cried with the pain of that. I was full of the knowledge that this is a Long Diet and I am in it for the Long Haul.

The day started quite well - I was still extremely grumpy but I made myself a boiled egg and two halves of a grapefruit (I am going to finish the ones I bought before stopping that particular little part of the diet...) and nommed them down. Great, ready to go.

Now, my day at work splits into two halves. The first half starts at 7:45 am when I get to work, and ends at 12 pm which is exactly halfway through my day. The second half finishes around 4 pm when I get off work. I used to time my day in terms of cups of tea: the first fifteen minutes of the day was getting a big bowl of delicious grainy cereal with milk, and a cuppa. When my colleagues arrived, the second cuppa came out, then roughly every hour or two, another cup of either tea or water, and sometimes if I was really tired, coffee.

Now, I get to work and....nothing. I've eaten at home and I don't want to make a cup of tea. I sit up at my desk with a big glass of water in front of me, and savour the smells of the other people's breakfast floating up the stairs...toasting bread, bacon sometimes, brewing coffee...My colleagues arrive about half an hour after me and they get their mugs of tea before sitting at their desks. Unsweetened rooibos is fine...but it's just not the same as a cup of good ole builder's tea (although I have not had sugar in my tea for months, I am suddenly craving a big mug of sugary tea). I have not figured out how to measure my day out. To put this into perspective, yesterday in eight hours at work, I drank 6 pints of water. I might drown before the end of this.

I managed to last until precisely 12:00 before I opened my fruit salad. Yesterday it was an apple, a handful of grapes, a banana, an orange and a clementine. I made it the previous night - hence the funny colours. It went down super quick, and did not leave me as full as the previous fruit salad did, even though it had the same amount of fruit in it.

I then had the afternoon to contemplate. We listen to Heart Radio at work, and at one point an advert for some chocolate bar came on. Then another about grilled chicken. This happened throughout the afternoon. I was concentrating on trying to work, but I really, really needed a chocolate. Or maybe pieces of grilled chicken smothered in chocolate sauce? Or maybe a stinking pile of Nando's buffalo wings.

To distract myself, I took a mid-afternoon break and had a look at the gym schedule for the evening ahead. They had a Zumba class on - I needed to go for an hour, and the class was an hour long. On impulse, I booked it.

Now, I had never done Zumba before. I didn't even really know what it was. I sent another plea on Twitter (by the way, Twitter people you are fantastic) and was told what to wear by the wonderful @FrediSmith. Off I went.

I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of the class, but boy was it hard. I struggled, and by the end my feet were not really leaving the ground...more shuffling. It didn't help that all the people in the class had been before and knew all the moves (apparently Zumba is basically mad crazy dancing) and the instructor was this gorgeous curvaceous black girl who had hips that entranced me. I do not think my hips will ever move like that.

I stumbled out after an hour and check the calories burned off. Six hundred!! If I weren't so exhausted, I would have been pleased. I was also worried about how many calories of salad I would have to eat to make sure I wasn't net a negative number of calories when I was done...as much as I want to lose weight, I do not want to starve myself...

I made myself dinner as soon as I got home (it was lamb chops night...oh my God I love lamb chops) and I added a small amount of mashed potato which was the boys dinner because I was so worried about the calories...it was only 50 g, and made me feel slightly better about it all. So the total dinner was two lamb chops, a mountain of rocket, spinach, mixed leaves, grapes, cucumber, and the small amount of mashed potato.

Dinner - before I decided to add the mash.

I finished dinner, washed up...and was still nearly starving. So I had a slice of plain bread with peanut butter on it. I don't feel guilty...I am definitely *not* going to kill myself here.

I then basically went straight to bed. It was already late and I had had a long day.

I woke up hungry...and breakfast was a single slice of toast. I'm back to the doctor today and hopefully that will break up the day enough to make me feel a bit better about things.

Much love,

Corrie xx

PS Juice hasn't arrived yet...eek.

Day Two of Diet ~ Detox

I'm writing this on Day Three and boy am I finding things tough today. It wasn't helped by this appearing on my Facebook wall this morning:

Totally delicious looking cake one of my friends made and posted on Facebook to TAUNT me.

That's just great, you know, showing off the cake to the girl who loves cake and can't eat any at the moment. (And these people are proper skinny too. How is it fair?!)

Before I go on to Day Two of the Detox, I have two things to say:

1. My Juice will be arriving today. Or at least, I hope so - I got an email from Juice Plus in any case saying it was on its way. This means I will be all ready to start the diet proper on Monday, although depending on the postman it may be slightly later than that if they try deliver while I'm out and I can't collect the box from the depot until a day when it is open at an appropriate time for me to collect after work.

2. I'm going to a wedding this weekend. It is my cousins wedding. There will be food, there will be champagne and there will be wedding cake. And I will enjoy them. So don't be surprised if I post a photo of myself on Sunday looking like I overindulged on carbs after a week of avoiding them. Chances are, I did.

OK, so Day Two of the Detox.

Breakfast was meant to be a grapefruit and a boiled egg - I swapped out the grapefruit for an orange after the no-grapefruit-on-medication revelation, and I ate my boiled egg without toast for the first time in my life. It was a bit of a challenge, but fine.

Lunch was the grilled chicken breast I'd done the night before with a ton of salad and a piece of dry toast. It was supposed to be tomato, but I decided that salad would do. It was really, really tasty good, and I had less of a problem with the dry toast than I thought I would.

Between lunch and dinner, I went to the gym. I did 20 minutes of cardio, then worked on the weights machines for a while (which is very intimidating when you have all the buff men there lifting about 50 kg and you can barely manage 9 ... but I stuck it out). When I got home, I was again shaking and feeling rather weak - so I had a chocolate digestive and a banana. I probably should have left out the chocolate digestive, but I wanted instant sugar. And some chocolate.

After that we had a three hour long quartet rehearsal. Playing viola with arms that have just been dragged through the weights section at a gym for the first time in several months? Not enjoyable.

The boys preparing to start rehearsing.

Dinner was steak! I bought two packs of steak at the beginning of the week for £4 (sirloin steak...I thought I was a genius) but we had to open up both of them because we had friends round....so I will have to find cheap steak for the next steak night, which is Sunday. I made a salad of rocket, mixed leaves, cucumber, grapes, and I had an apple in mine as well. The boys had parmesan instead of the apple, and they each had a bit of pork pie and a bun.

I didn't take any photos, so you'll have to imagine it. I managed to get rid of all the pork pies in the fridge, so they are no longer a temptation!

I drank ten glasses of water, two mugs of unsweetened, unmilky rooibos tea, and apart from the digestive, I'm pretty pleased with my progress.

So, apart from the fact that I'm as grumpy as a bear that just woke up after hibernation, and really not in the mood for dieting today, it's going well.

Oh, and I did weigh myself last night. The scales said 68 kg, which would appear to indicate a 4 kg loss in two days. I don't buy it...and should probably buy new scales. I might have to start weighing myself at the gym.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Day One of Diet ~ Detox

The Juice Plus diet (which I will talk about at some point in the future when I know more about it...) takes a few days to arrive, and the first week is a detox diet in which they send a seven day plan and tell you to follow it.

One of my friends sent me this. I am this otter.

The diet is quite simple, and just sets out a number of food items you have to eat. The strict rules are 'no substitutions or swapping' and you are also supposed to do an exercise programme. I have a number of issues with this, but we can examine Day One before I address them.

Breakfast - dry toast with tomato/tinned tomatoes
Lunch - any amount of fruit
Dinner - two hard boiled eggs, salad and a grapefruit

I did cheat, I am sad to admit. I got to about elevenses and I was so hungry that I was shaking and could barely walk. My boyfriend had stashed away some pork pies in the fridge, and it was in my belly before I even realised I had taken it off the shelf. I'm not sorry...I'm not trying to kill myself here!

Issue the First, breakfast: I don't do tomatoes. There is no way on this green earth that you are going to get me to eat any amount of tomato on toast...I can manage it hidden in cooked food, but as the only topping to toast? Forget it. I had ham.

Issue the Second, lunch: I am actually intolerant to a large number of fruit and vegetables (or the protein in the skin, or the pesticides on the skin or something) and I have to skin 'em before I eat 'em. I don't know how long this will last...but I did manage to snarf a big bowl full of banana, orange, clementine, plum and grapes. It was tasty and left me feeling full.

Issue the Third, dinner: I thought I would hate grapefruit. I got sugar ready to sweeten it - I mean, I had already had a pork pie, what else could I really do? Before I slathered it in sugar, I tried a bit...and it was really, really delicious. I loved it. I gobbled it down and rubbed my happily, healthily full stomach; then posted on Facebook:

I was kind and left a spoiler for you. The lovely Janet told me I shouldn't eat grapefruit for the type of medication I'm on, I researched it and bang! I'm not allowed to eat grapefruit. I was gutted. It's not often I try a new food and really love it - I did buy three of the damn things so I could be sure I gave it a good and proper go (I was convinced I would hate it)...and now I'm not allowed to eat it.

I'm going to eat the remaining two anyway. Only, I'll spread them out, and I've amended the diet sheet so it no longer contains grapefruit or grapefruit juice. I've substituted blood orange juice for the day when my breakfast is a glass of grapefruit juice (does it count if I drink a pint or does it have to be a wimpy 330ml glass?) and hope that will suit.

Did I mention dinner was tasty? I only half hard-boiled the eggs so they were slightly gooey and not fluffy and grim, and I used a mixture of spinach, rocket and mixed leaves for the green bits. I added cucumber and some dry-fried pine-nuts, and my boyfriend got a grilled chicken breast and some cheese (which was not on my menu). He made himself a salad dressing, I ate mine dry.

My man's meal

It was truly delicious. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I have had a huge number of thoughts on how this diet is going to help me, which are not limited to reduced calories. I have traditionally not been a particularly 'salady' person - but man, if I get to eat salads that are like the above, I'm in. You'll notice I avoided a variety of things that often go in salad - carrot, peppers, celery, tomato (don't even go there) - these are all things that cause reactions when I eat them, and I couldn't be bothered to do any peeling last night. I'm also less hot on really crunchy things (yes, I am a fussy eater). 

Anyway, that's the first revelation: om nom, more salad om. The second revelation is that it takes very little time to make a healthy, simple meal, provided you have the stuff in the fridge. With the diet sheet in front of me, I went to the shop on Monday morning after a doctor's appointment, and bought everything I need for this week. As long as our sneaky housemates don't take a nibble or three of anything, I won't have to go shopping again. The man got home at about 8 pm, and we sat down to eat at 8:30 pm. The limiting factor was actually how long it took to boil the eggs! 

Too often we end up having takeaway, or pizza or something 'quick' that is full of carbs (and therefore TOTALLY DELICIOUS) and expensive...so I enjoyed figuring out a quick meal like this.

The third revelation was how easy it is to prepare food for lunch. I normally eat a sandwich I've bought from the famous Sandwich Shop on Gloucester Road - full of tasty tasty good chicken, mayonnaise, sweetcorn; and let's not forget the fact that it's a baguette and therefore includes many delicious carbs. Today (I'm writing this on Day Two of the diet), I had to have grilled chicken as part of my lunch, so I simply grilled the chicken while the eggs were boiling for dinner (and gave the second breast to the boy). A few handfuls of leaves chucked in and voila! I had my super easy lunch for work, it cost less than the usual £2.50 and it was healthy too.

So, Day One of Detox went well. Except....

Did I do any exercise? Errrr...my excuse is that I had a stinking headache. I actually went to bed as soon as I finished with my lunch (I had had a doctor appointment in the morning and therefore was not at work) and I didn't get up until the boyfriend got back...and the damn headache was still there. So, my exercise days are off sync and I didn't manage it yesterday.

The origin of the headache is likely to be because the last time I had a cup of tea was Friday morning, and I have a serious caffeine addiction, so it's probably withdrawal. It could also be dehydration, as despite being supposed to drink eight cups of water, I managed only four...oops. This is very low for me, I usually drink about five pints of water a day because of my good friend Water Dispenser at work...

That's all from me for now, I do have to get on with other things...I'm still feeling enthusiastic about this, and tonight is steak night! So that's pleasing my little taste-buds no end, they are very excited. Too bad my legs are dreading the gym so much...

Much love,

Corrie xx

Hello weight-loss...good-bye muffins!

I've decided to do something I thought I would never, ever do. I'm going to start blogging about my weight.

Mainly because I really, really like blogging. I also really, really like food, and with various medical conditions I tend to overeat...which has now caused other medical conditions because I am overweight.

My doctor told me I had to lose some pounds (I mean, really, I knew I had to anyway), I sent out an appeal to Twitter and the lovely Faye recommended the Juice Plus diet to me. Before I knew it, I had committed the cash, bought the first set of juice and received my welcome pack!

So, what are the numbers we are talking about here?

Height: 161 cm
Weight: 72 kg

This gives me a BMI of 28, which is two points below obese. I nearly fell over when it first got calculated...I mean, I know my doctor said I had to lose weight but REALLY.

Waist: 32"
Hips: 40"
Arms: 11"

I would do thighs, but nobody needs to know that particular measurement!

Now comes the super embarrassing...and hopefully super motivating...bit. Here are the before the diet photos, taken this morning by my super lovely boyfriend.

From the back...

Left side of body

Right side of body

Front of body again

So there, what I believe we all know as a 'beer belly', is bared for the world to see. Literally. The baggy trousers are to hide the gigantour thighs, which will not be making an appearance on this blog until significant progress has been made - so if you ever see any skin-tight-trouser photos (or, gasp, bikini shots) you can congratulate me please.

I'll try keep a 'daily diary' (which is something I'm meant to do on Juice Plus anyway), and I'm also on MyFitnessPal (username is corrieberry).

Wish me luck!

Corrie xx

My boyfriend told me I was taking this too light-heartedly, so I tried to look sad. It was proper embarrassing taking these photos.