Day Five - 14 in 7

Breakfast - yep same photo  ... there's no real way to make a slice of dry toast and a cup of black coffee look different, so I didn't even try. 

Lunch - the same smoothie.  Banana,  apple and spinach.

Today seems a boringly repetitive day.

I was so looking forward to my tea.

Two salmon fillets, cooked in the microwave to save gas, and a salad of lettuce, celery, cucumber and ... naughty naughty ... some red onion.  Not on the diet plan at all, but I had run out of tomatoes and didn't have the energy nor the inclination to go and get any.

Another hard day, every time I felt a bit hungry my brain played the same soundtrack.   'Why are you doing this, you don't have to do this you know, there's food in the cupboards, go to the shops buy a chocolate bar, there's crisps in the cupboard.'  

Over and over again!

All your comments and encouragement are a great help, thank you.  They are totally helping drown out the pathetic whiney voice in my head.  So I  can honestly say I totally ignored that bloody stupid voice and stayed strong.  I did drink rather a lot of coffee and sparkling water though, no wonder I was up in the night and very early in the morning.

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Day Four - 14 in 7

Breakfast - one slice of dry toast and coffee.

I was dreading this, but using this nice multigrain bread from Tesco and eating it while it was still nice and warm made it pretty tasty.

It wasn't very filling though and an hour later I was starving ... cue far too many drinks, I felt like I was 'liquid woman' ... slosh, slosh, slosh.

Alan caved in and had some butter on his, just a light smear but definitely butter, naughty boy!

Lunch - a fruit smoothie.

Banana

Apple

and Spinach. 

Again the spinach is a naughty addition, but it is a food on the diet plan and it makes my fruity drink much more palatable. 

Tea - once again an Egg Salad.

It's the same photo as last time, but then it looked like exactly the same meal as last time so forgetting to take a photo was not the end of the world 😊

Guess what was for supper ... yep no prizes, it was another grapefruit. 

Today was the hardest day up to now, perhaps it was being here on my own, or not having so much to do, I don't really know ... but I almost caved in.  There is a big bag of vegan cheese and onion crisps in the cupboard that seemed to be calling out my name.

But I stayed strong and with a final cup of coffee took myself off to bed for a read and an early night.

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Day Three - 14 in 7

Breakfast - Grapefruit 

Something weird is happening to my taste buds they really do seem to be acclimatising to this sour fruit of the devil.

Again the grapefruit was followed by a hardboiled egg and a couple of mugs of black coffee.  Without all the coffee I would be hanging up my diet sheet right now.

As I was on the move I took an apple and a banana to keep me going over lunchtime.

Tea was the 'meatiest' vegan burgers I could find.

  It's as close to a steak as I could get, the texture was too similar for me though and although the taste wasn't bad I won't be eating them again.   Alan loved his lamb chops and salad though.

Guess what was for supper ...

... yep, it was a grapefruit.

Starting and ending the day with this just seems weird.

Up to now although I've been feeling okay I'm really starting to miss being able to pick at things when I'm peckish, but maybe the main idea behind this is to change your eating habits enough so you lose that grazing habit.

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Day Two - 14 in 7

Breakfast was a two course feast.

Firstly a grapefruit each, we picked up on the tip on our diet sheets and went for ripe pink/red grapefruits as they are supposed to be a little bit sweeter.

Who on earth thought that ... well not me for one!!

Next we had a WHOLE hardboiled egg each. 

It was just nice to have something to take away the taste of the grapefruit!!

Copious cups of coffee were drunk over the course of the morning, but almost immediately Alan buckled and fell  at one the first hurdles ... he went back to a splash of milk in his coffees and teas.

I suppose better that than giving up on day two.

I forgot to photograph our lunch, so if you imagine this our breakfast from day one but with two Quorn fillets under my tomatoes and two chicken breasts under Alan's.

It was filling and tasty.

Tea was lovely.   Salmon and salad for me, and a grilled steak and salad for Alan.

The salads are much more basic than Alan is used to as you are only allowed Lettuce, 

Cucumber, Tomatoes and Celery, but they suit me down to the ground ... although a little bit of onion would have been nice.

No grapefruit tonight - phew!

Today has been a good day with enough food not to leave us hungry as long as we drunk plenty of hot drinks when we felt the nibbles coming on between our meals.  But I have a strong suspicion that this is lulling us into a false sense of security ... tomorrows' menu is sparse and then the next days even more so ☹

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Day One - 14 in 7

Day One - Meal One

Tinned tomatoes on toast, weirdly something I've never had before.  

 Verdict - delicious.

Lunch, if you can call it that, was supposed to be lots of fresh fruit.  I don't like fruit that much, so I whizzed it up in the Nutribullet.

Banana

Apple

Blackberries 

&

Spinach 

(Not strictly right but I needed something to get rid of the sweet edge.)

Tea - Salad with Hardboiled Eggs

Tasty and surprisingly filling.

Followed for supper by a grapefruit. 

  I can honestly say I have never before managed to eat a grapefruit without a thick layer of crunchy sugar on top ... but somehow I did it.  With a lot of face pulling of course!

So the first day wasn't too bad, lots of cups of coffee were drunk and quite a few glasses of water ... why did predictive bring up wine when I put 'lots of glasses of ...' 😅

Anyway I survived and I wasn't too hungry at bedtime, and because we were doing this Challenge together we both knew how the other was feeling ... hungry mainly!!

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The New Challenge - Lose 14lbs in 7 Days Diet

Our new Challenge, and yes this time it is a joint effort as it was Alan's idea to do this, is the 'Lose 14lbs in 7 Day's diet, sometimes known as 'The Chemical Diet'.

It is a diet that I've learned through extensive internet research,  that is sometimes given to patients to do at home if they need to improve their health or reduce weight quickly before an operation.  With this in mind Alan checked it out with his Diabetes Nurse when he went to get the results of his last fasting blood test.  She was impressed with his new figures  and said this would be good to keep him on the right track reducing all his numbers.

So with a medical nod that it was okay to do, we set off.

The shopping was easy, the menu you see above is it ... The Diet.
 You do not deviate from what is allowed and you follow the instructions to the letter.

Unless you're me and you don't eat meat!!

So I found things as close to the original plan as I could possibly get and decided that I would eat fish, which is a pretty on and off thing for me at the moment, for the duration of the diet.

The mainstay of this diet seems to be grapefruit and eggs, I guess this is why it's called the chemical diet.  All that protein and citrus in your system must have some effect.

The healthy aspect of it I think, is that you are most definitely getting more than your five a day, every single day which can't be a bad thing.  There's no snacking between meals and there are lots of fluids.  I'm lucky that I already drink my coffee black ... Alan likes milk in both coffee and tea, so he's not looking forward to that aspect of the diet

Well time to get cracking then, first stop the bathroom scales.

Gulp!!

I'll be back each day with our foods and thoughts.

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Eating and Shopping for £1 A Day for 28 Days OR £28 for 28 Days

So this is it the end of this particular Challenge and for the record it's time to show exactly what I have left.

In the fridge:

One tub of leftover pasta in sauce.

1/3 Jar of Marmalade

3/4 Bottle Tomato Ketchup

Virtually all of the Mayonnaise

A sprinkle of Violife cheese.

In the fridge drawer:

Most of a bunch of Celery

A handful of Homegrown Spinach Leaves

A packet of Beetroot

One and a half carrots.

In the freezer:

Two tubs of Homemade Soup

One crust of bread.

I still have a good proportion of my Basic Store cupboard items.

And when I add them to:

 half bag of SRFlour, 

 150g Red Lentils

Jar of Red Pesto Sauce

Approx. 450g Porridge Oats

900g Brown Rice

and

2/3 tub of Gravy Mix

I have a good basic larder to form the beginnings of another Challenge ... so that is exactly what they will become in a few weeks from now.

I also have the grand sum of 76p leftover.

I'm wondering what I should have spent it on?

Now the shelves and the drawers in the fridge have been cleared ready to be restocked, the food in cupboards is virtually all out of bounds and we are both at the start of a fresh new Challenge.

I'll post about it soon I promise.

But for now, what have I learnt from this Challenge?

That you can survive for 28 days on a budget of just one pound per day if:

You have a basic store cupboard of food.

A fridge.

A freezer.

A mindset that nothing gets thrown away or wasted.

A willingness to try basic label foods.

You notice paying with cash makes you less likely to want to part with your money.

and

You can spare a little bit of extra time to both shop around, and if necessary to prepare everything from scratch.

 I have also learnt that I'm pretty bloody rubbish at eating my five a day ... even when I do have the fruit and vegetables available.

It's been an interesting Challenge, we've discovered that we both like the Tesco Stockwell 20p gravy mix and the 38p Smartprice tomato ketchup, although we didn't like the mayonnaise at all.  Universal Seasoning from the World Foods aisle in Asda is a very good alternative to stock-cubes or the more expensive bouillons.  We've discovered a new to us Multigrain Loaf that we both love and that is 70p cheaper than our usual Warburtons regular purchase, and from now on this will be our new favourite.

A great BIG thank you to those of you who have read along, left comments, asked questions and been there to keep me on the straight and narrow, your interest has been really appreciated.

Now I have to go and eat a grapefruit ....

😎

Day Twenty Eight - Meals

Final day

 Breakfast - my last egg scrambled, the last of my dairy free spread on both slices of toast  ... and of course coffee.

A drink of orange juice each mid-morning.  (1)

Time to make some fish cakes.

I kept it simple, really simple.  Just the tin of Sardines in tomato sauce and a potato.  I zapped the washed and pricked potato in the microwave and peeled it after cooking.  They were then mashed together with a little bit of salt and pepper and then shaped into two good sized fish cakes.

I had them with the last of my penne pasta and the tub of tomato and onion pasta sauce from the freezer.  It was delicious and VERY filling. (2)

A very good final meal for the end of my 28 day Challenge.

I'll be back tomorrow with a round up of what I have left and my thoughts about this Challenge.

😎

Day Twenty Seven - Meals

Breakfast - a green smoothie.

Banana, apple and spinach whizzed in the Nutribullet and served in two glasses as my glasses here aren't big enough and I don't like drinking out of the plastic Nutribullet cup.  (3)

Is it really day twenty seven already?

Even with my two absences this Challenge seems to have gone really quickly, I've still got food left so there's absolutely no chance of me starving ... even if I have to see out my last day on brown rice and porridge  😁

Picture from Google Images

We took the dogs for a lovely walk on The Stone Jetty, the prom and the beach at Morecambe, so of course we did what is compulsory when you're at the seaside and got a chip barmcake.

I love being back home in Lancashire ... where we know what to call our breadrolls!!

After a carb heavy lunch we really didn't need much for our tea, so we each had one of my two remaining little quiche bases.  Using some of my red onion, a good sprinkle of my dairy free cheese in mine and some grated Cheddar in Alan's and two eggs, one from my supplies and one from the egg box that we brought with us from home.

Small but tasty.

After a small tea, we had an equally small pudding, sharing my last remaining Apple Crumble.  Again small, but tasty ... and perfectly formed.  (1)

4 of my 5 a day managed.


😎

Day Twenty Six -Meals

Breakfast - a delicious and full plateful. 

 Using the last of my beans and two of my remaining eggs for me and two eggs from the fridge for Alan we enjoyed a leisurely cooked breakfast that kept us both full for hours.  (1)

Dinner was a salad sandwich.  

Using a third of a carrot ... grated, a lot of lettuce and some of my red onion.  I 'buttered' the bread with two of my 'free' sachets of mayonnaise to try and eke out my last bit of remaining dairy free spread, and served my sandwich with a glass of orange juice.  (3) 

Tea - my two little vegetable leftovers pies, served with the 20p Gravy.  It was very tasty and very filling.  (1)

Yay - 5 a day sorted.

😎

Day Twenty Five - Meals

Breakfast - a slice of toast with spread and marmalade ...

...closely followed by another slice ☺

Dinner - a bowl of 'Bits and Bob's soup with a couple more slices of toast.  (2)

That's all my second loaf used up now, I have just the one I bought yesterday to keep me going until the end of the Challenge, which should be fine ... although I have noticed I've been eating this tastier, slightly more expensive loaf a lot faster than the cheap, brown boring value bread.

We're away now ... but this time the food that I have left has travelled with us!!  So you'll see different backgrounds and slightly different crockery ... and I'm sharing some of my foods to keep the cooking simple.   (2)

So last night's tea was the last tub of my pasta sauce made during the first week of the Challenge, it partially thawed on the journey so didn't take long to cook, a sprinkle of my cheese on my portion, and Alan used his own but did have 100g of my spaghetti ... so once again he owes me 😊

This bartering of pasta is confusing ... lol 😆

4 of my 5 a day accomplished 

😎

Day Twenty Four - Meals

I was hungry this morning, happily I had the small smoothie I made yesterday to see me through ...

... while a slice of toast was toasting in the toaster.

So a two part breakfast of smoothie and toast with spread and marmalade.  (1)

I ate out for lunch as I was in Manchester visiting my Mum, so no photo.  I had fish, chips and peas in the Wyevale restaurant, and very nice it was too.  It made a very pleasant change for someone else to do both the cooking and the washing up.  (1)

For my tea I had my leftovers from the other night, so brown rice and dahl and a little dahl pasty made with my leftover pastry circle that I remembered to take out of the freezer before I left this morning.

  

Dahl in a pasty works VERY well.  (1)

Later for supper, when Alan was back from work we had a little Mandarin Orange Tart each, made from the little pastry cases I pre-cooked the other day and splitting the tin of Mandarin pieces equally between them.  Again very tasty.  (1)

4 of my 5 a day managed.

😎