The Lose 14lbs in 7 Days Diet - End of Challenge Round Up

Breakfast the first day after the Challenge was a simple black coffee and slice of toast ... with homemade lemon marmalade.  The first thing I've eaten in a week with non naturally occurring sugar.

I had nothing else as I just wasn't hungry.

The all important weigh in, and I think that the thought of this was the only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow for the last seven days.

The final stats -

 I've lost 7.5 lbs

Half an inch off my bust and hips,  and an inch off my waist. 

Over half a stone and two inches gone ... I'm really pleased with this.

Especially as it's with virtually no exercise, as I hurt my left foot one day into the Challenge and couldn't get any footwear on except my wellies.  So my only exercise during the whole Challenge was slow doggy walks. 

So what did I find hard -

Not being able to pick at what I fancied.

Grapefruit without sugar was very hard for the first couple of days. 

There seemed to be food everywhere I looked, it's the run up to Christmas and tasty treaty foods seemed to be on every advert on television, every poster outside shops and in every book or magazine that I read.

Going to the supermarket for my tomatoes was very difficult ... SO MUCH FOOD!!


What did I find easy -

Having a definite menu plan and  knowing exactly what I was to have for each meal.

Grapefruit suddenly being tasty on it's own, both the fruit itself and the juice.

Travelling with my foods, one cool bag was all I needed.

Having someone else doing this with me.  Although we were apart for the majority of the Challenge being able to swap moans and accomplishments with each other really helped.

By the way Alan lost 3lbs over the course of the week, not too shabby when you consider he had extra toast with butter on a couple of times and milk in all his drinks.

Would I do it again - NO.
Even though I lost so much in a week it didn't suit me at all.

I treated myself to some crisps while I was out shopping, I know of no shops near us in Wales that sell these big family packs of totally dairy free cheese and onion flavoured crisps, so it will be nice to take some home with me.  But where as at the start of the week the bag of these that I already had in the cupboard was calling to me ... now I have absolutely no cravings for them

Perhaps that is what this diet does, switches off cravings and makes your stomach smaller.  It's now over four hours since my single slice of toast ... and I'm not even slightly hungry!!

But, and it should be a big BUT neither of us lost the 'guaranteed' one stone during the diet.  I wonder who I go to to get my money back 😆😃🤣

👫

Day Seven - 14 in 7

Breakfast - Tinned Tomatoes and Scrambled Eggs.

It needed  a slice of toast to soak up the tomatoey juices ... Alan had one with his!!

Naughty boy.

Ironically just as we started this totally restricted diet my new cookbook arrived.  I brought it away with me to have a read ...

 ... so much temptation.

She's missed the prices off the weekly shopping lists this time, which I actually thought was one of the best bits of her other book ☹

I know prices vary very quickly these days, but having them in the book gives a timeline to the 'story' if  you know what I mean.  I love some of my old books from the 80's and 90's 'Feed Your Family for £4 A Day' springs to mind (which is now republished at £5 a day).   It's the prices that are the interesting bit ... well to me anyway.

It's still a very good book though ... even if the photographs, especially the pastry ones, did make me drool a bit.

Lunch - Two hard boiled eggs and spinach.  

I don't really like poached eggs anymore, so this was my compromise.  What normal person eats four eggs in one day ... not me ever again.  I really struggled with this it was much too filling.

Tea - Salmon fillets and salad.

I'd been out shopping and got myself some tomatoes ... but I still finished off the little bit of red onion that was in the fridge.

Naughty but nice 😊

I celebrated the last meal of this Challenge with a nice walk in the dark with Suky.  It was bitterly cold hence her jacket.  She hates being 'dressed' in anything but her collar.  For some reason coats make her walk like a little wooden table, ramrod straight legs and a refusal to go up or down steps ... even those that are only an inch high 😆😃😆

That's it I've done it ... and I'm still alive!!

Back tomorrow with the weigh in and my thoughts on this diet.

👫

Day Six - 14 in 7

A different day, a different breakfast ... yay!!

A glass of grapefruit juice, well two actually as I went back for more, wow who would have thought that I could drink straight grapefruit juice ... and not a pulled face in sight. It was lovely.

I took Suky for a long doggy walk across the river and through the fields, on the way back we stopped at Suky's favourite garden centre and coffee shop ... no really it is ... every time we pass there she wants to go in and pulls for the entrance.  I think it's partly that she's in love with Pip the garden centre's free roaming terrier and partly because she knows there's coffee, biscuits and cakes to be had.

So I had a very allowable black filter coffee and Suky got to eat all of the little complimentary shortbread biscuit that comes with all hot drinks instead of her usual little corner.  Pip came over to say hello when he spotted Suky sniffing his bed in the corner by the ceramic planters,  double whammy so now she'll pull even harder next time we pass ☺

An hour later it was time for lunch.

My final green smoothie of this week, using an apple and the last of my bananas and spinach.

But I  had one apple left so I ate it as it was after drinking my smoothie.

I wasn't looking forward to my tea.  Two Quorn fillets and boiled carrots,  but it was surprisingly tasty.   And now because of doing this diet I've discovered that these fillets taste one hundred times better when they are zapped in the microwave for two minutes each.

Who knew ... not me.

Final meal of the day was supper and yet more grapefruit.  

This time I cheated and it came out of a tin.  So much easier and no grapefruit juice in my eye, stinging fingers or loads of mess AND I actually think it works out cheaper as a tin cost me 75p and the grapefruits were 60p each in Tesco.  There is definitely more grapefruit in my bowl than the segments from two fruits.

So this is it, my penultimate day done and dusted.

Not quite as tough as the last couple of days and the best bit is that the end is in sight.

👫

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.

👫

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.

👫

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.

👫

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 ☹

👫

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!!

👫

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.

👫