Minimize Me: 10 Diets to Lose 25 Lbs in 50 Days (4 page)

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Day two and day three have
passed without incident as I would have expected. On the 5:2 diet, the
non-fasting days should be days where you forget about fasting and just get on
with enjoying food. I’ll be honest – I thought that following my first day of fasting
I would want to make up for things over the next couple of days, but I didn’t
really feel that I needed to. I actually ended up feeling energised and found
myself not wanting to undo the good work I had done. It felt counter-intuitive
to starve myself one day and gorge the next. Strangely, I found myself craving
things like nuts and fruits rather than fatty or sugary foods. Rather than
bacon sandwiches and doughnuts, I was surfing the aisles for things like Brazil
nuts and dates.

With less to write about
in the last couple of days, I have found that I’ve had more time on my hands,
so I’ve been doing a little more research on the diet. To my horror, I
discovered that I had got the amount of calories that I can consume wrong! All
of the articles that I had researched made it clear that you should restrict
yourself to 500 calories on the days that you fast but I’ve since found out
that all of the articles that I had researched were aimed at women. The idea of
the 5:2 diet is that you restrict yourself to a quarter of your recommended
daily calorie intake, and for women this is reported to be around 2,000, but
for men it’s 2,500. It means that I could have had up to 625 calories on
Monday. By my maths, I reckon I could have got away with eating both the crusts
and the apple core! Lesson learned.

Day four of the 5:2 diet
and it is my last day of fasting today. When I first conceived the fifty-day
challenge, I always knew it would be difficult. It is why I have always
referred to it as a challenge. It is entirely possible that I won’t succeed.
When I talk about not succeeding, I don’t just mean by not achieving my
weight-loss goal at the end, I mean by becoming lazy and not following the
diets to the letter. I know that I talked candidly earlier in the book about my
intentions to cut corners, but if this were to spiral into flagrant
rule-breaking then what would be the point? I would have failed, and this is
something I am genuinely worried about. Take today for example. It’s my
youngest daughter’s first birthday, and it would have been incredibly easy to
throw in the towel and tuck into that heavenly, moist, rich, indulgent, smooth,
velvety chocolate cake. We had friends, family, neighbours and even a few
strangers popping by to tuck into cake and wish our daughter a happy birthday,
but I was strong and managed to resist. I didn’t completely resist, however,
and I did find myself sitting in the corner while no-one was looking, sniffing
the empty plates while using my daughters bib to catch the dribble.

As hard as Monday’s
fasting was, I found that it worked, so I followed a similar routine throughout
the day today. Nothing but black coffee and water until 2pm, then soup in two
sittings through the afternoon, but instead of having an apple, I decided to
save the 80 or so calories and add those to the extra 125 (courtesy of my
discovery yesterday) and increase my evening meal to two slices of wholemeal
bread (toasted) and a few extra beans. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have ditched
the apple. It would have been my only source of sugar that day, having already
resisted the cake. I found that I was incredibly irritable and tired in the
evening. It’s a strange combination to be both irritable and tired. Normally,
if I find myself getting irritable, I will get up and do something to take my
mind off it but with so little sugar in my system and with so few calories
consumed, all I could do was retire to bed early. I’m sure that for most
people, when they think back to their child’s first birthday, it’s a wonderful
warm and happy memory, whereas mine is a largely forgettable and frankly rather
bleak memory, thanks to the 5:2 diet. Sorry, Sophie, I’ll make up for it on
your second birthday.

Day five was as easy as
days two and three, as I simply ate what I wanted. Here’s the thing though – I
actually found that I didn’t always eat what I wanted. Instead of breaking open
the biscuit barrel in joyous celebration of getting through another awful day
of fasting, I found that I actually wanted to eat far more healthily than I normally
would. The diet very specifically says that you eat normally for five days a
week, but ‘normally’ for me consists of at least five chocolate digestives
before lunch. There was no way I was going to fall back into that kind of bad
behaviour, especially after having put so much effort in, so it leads me to
wonder whether the success of the 5:2 diet is down to the fasting at all.
Perhaps people are simply benefitting from an altogether healthier lifestyle?
I’ve done all I can with the 5:2 diet and, if I’m honest, I’m glad it’s over.
The whole point of this challenge was to see whether changing diets every few
days is more sustainable than sticking to just one, and I already feel that my
theory has some credibility. All that awaits now is the final weigh-in tomorrow
morning. I’ve decided it makes sense to record my weight in the mornings, as it
simultaneously gives me my starting weight for the next diet. I do feel like
I’ve lost some weight, but I don’t know if it’s just blind optimism.

From here on in I will
only be using imperial weights, because it is going to get confusing if I keep
quoting imperial and metric measurements. So, just to confirm that 1 lb equals
just under half a kilogram (0.453 to be exact) and if you are used to using
kilograms, it may be easier to say that 1 kilogram = approximately 2.2 lbs.
Finally, for those that don’t use stones as a measurement, I can confirm that a
stone is fourteen pounds, so 12 stone for example is 144 lbs. So, in order to
be on track for my overall target of 25 lbs, I needed to have lost at least 2.5
lbs in the last five days. I’m amazed and somewhat bewildered to announce that
I have lost 5 lbs. The sharper ones amongst you will have already worked out
that that works out to a pound a day, and that I lost twice the amount that was
necessary to be on track. One fifth of the way to my target goal having
completed only one tenth of the diets. I feel like I want to go out and
celebrate, but I’ve decided that now is not the time to get complacent. There
is an old saying in football that you are at your most vulnerable when you’ve
just scored, so it’s time for me to adjust my shorts, get back into position
and keep my eye on the ball.

At the end of each chapter
I will provide a short summary, my starting weight, my end weight, my total
weight loss, my weight loss as a percentage of overall body weight (like they
do on the biggest loser), the faffiness (yes, I made that word up) the
difficulty and whether I would do it again or not.

Summary:

All in all I found the 5:2
diet relatively straightforward to follow. There were times when I was
extremely hungry and relatively miserable, but I didn’t feel that I was ever
close to throwing in the towel. Maybe I would feel different after five weeks,
rather than five days. Ultimately I think that because it’s so easy to follow
and because very little preparation is required, it’s a diet I might come back
to in the future should the need arise.

Starting weight: 16 stone
0 lbs

Finishing weight: 15 stone
9 lbs

Weight loss: 5 lbs

% of body weight lost:
2.28 %

Faffiness: 4/10

Difficulty: 4/10

Would I do it again? Yes

Total weight lost: 5 lbs

Saturday 25th October to Wednesday 29th
October

Weight: 15 Stone 9 lbs

The Special K diet, also known as the
‘Special K Challenge’, is designed to achieve rapid weight loss, generally over
a period of around two weeks. Kellogg’s themselves promote the plan and have a
dedicated website boldly declaring that you can "Lose up to 5lb in 2 weeks".

Well, having committed to the plan by
purchasing a kilo of Special K, I can boldly declare that I have already lost
just under seven pounds. While researching the Special K diet, I was surprised
by the amount of support for it, with people writing gushing reviews and
lengthy blogs about how it has changed their lives. It’s hugely popular with
people in the lead up to their summer holidays, and there are message board
forums dedicated to challenges such as "Drop a jean size for summer"
and "Get that bikini body in time for your getaway".

It’s a relatively straightforward diet,
and I have chosen to undertake it in its purest form. I am simply going to
replace two of my three daily meals with a bowl of Special K cereal, and for
the other meal I can have whatever I like (although it is recommended that for
best results, it should be something healthy and nutritious). The Special K
website recommends that you take their ‘Simple 5 plan’, the idea being that
over the course of the day you have two Special K ‘meals’ (consisting of
cereals, sandwiches, protein bars or shakes), two Special K snacks (brownies,
crackers, crisps or snack bars) and then a healthy meal. To me, this just
sounds like marketing nonsense which has been designed more for Kellogg’s
profit margins than for the wellbeing of anyone wishing to take on the
challenge, so I’ll essentially be following the ‘Simple 5 plan’ only with two
Special K products per day rather than four. There’s nothing wrong with an
apple or a banana, for instance, so as far as I’m concerned there’s absolutely
no need to purchase a raft of overpriced and needless snacks.

My initial worry about the Special K
diet is that there seems to be a lot of focus on the Special K element of the
diet and very little guidance on the content or size of the third meal. If it’s
loaded with fat then there’s every chance that the calorie savings from the
rest of the day could be negated, and it stands to reason therefore that you
won’t lose any weight. The positives however are that the Special K diet is
only supposed to be a quick fix and is not a viable long-term weight-loss
programme. This means that it fits perfectly into my 50-day challenge and is
well suited to what I want to achieve. I get the feeling that a lot of people
having succeeded in losing weight using the Special K diet, will proceed to put
the weight back on as there’s a lack of long-term vision (especially for those
who have taken it leading up to a holiday) When I think of those people, I find
myself wondering about my own 50-day challenge and whether I have actually
stumbled upon something that could conceivably be followed by others as a
viable longer-term plan. I suppose the next few chapters will answer that
question for me.

Louis, my nutritionist, has warned that
Special K products lack essential vitamins, minerals and fibre, so there’s an
obvious reason why it’s only recommended people do it for a maximum of two
weeks. He’s warned me that I will be hungry, mainly due to the high
carbohydrate content and the lack of fat, protein and fibre. I was okay with
that in truth. There’s nothing wrong with feeling hungry from time to time and,
if anything, it makes you appreciate the food more when it does come along. It
also makes it tastier too. I remember my wife telling me about the time that
she completed a field day with the Combined Cadet Force (a Ministry of
Defence-sponsored youth organisation) at school and, having hiked tens of
miles, they finally settled down to eat the poor excuse for food that was
waiting for them in their ration packs. She said that she was blown away by how
good they tasted and so got her mum to order some when she got home. Needless
to say, when they arrived they were awful and only tasted the way they did
because she was so tired and hungry. Have you seen the way the celebrities act
when they win their challenges on
I’m a Celebrity Get Me of Here
? It’s
like they’ve just experienced a gastronomical feast from the kitchen of a
Michelin-starred chef, whereas they have in fact just eaten half a digestive
biscuit.

The only problem with feeling hungry is
that it reduces concentration, something which is an absolute necessity for
writing a book. I struggle to concentrate at the best of times, so the last
thing I need is a diet which is going to exacerbate this, because when I
struggle to concentrate I end up Googling things like ‘The top ten moustaches
of all time’.

Louis advised that the benefits of the
Special K diet are that it’s very simple to follow, it’s higher in protein than
most other cereals, and that it takes all of the guesswork out of
calorie-counting (although he does like to point out that calorie-counting is
not something we should be doing anyway).

The last thing that Louis warns me about
is the very real possibility that I will be constipated. In his exact words, he
said that "Constipation may (will!) be an issue". If this is the case
then how come so many people have ended up losing so much weight? If everybody
is holding onto everything and unable to get rid of anything, then surely we should
all be getting heavier on the Special K diet. As much as I want to give you my
full experience of each diet, I’ll do my very best to limit the toilet-talk.

It’s day 6 of the challenge and day one
of the Special K diet, and the main thing I’ve struggled with today is the fact
that it’s a Saturday. Everyone knows the rules – new diets always start on a
Monday. It’s one of only two good things that Monday has to offer, the other
one being bank holidays. No one in their right mind chooses to start a diet on
a Saturday because Saturday is the day you’ve been looking forward to for the
previous five days and the last thing you want to be doing is getting used to a
new set of rules and restricting yourself. Saturday is about getting rid of the
weekday baggage, but today I’ve felt like I’ve spent the whole day acquiring
more.

On a conventional diet, while it’s not
always written into the plan, there is usually some leeway. Some people choose
weigh-in day as the perfect opportunity to have a cheeky takeaway or chocolate
bar, knowing they have a full week to make up for it, and of course some people
choose a Saturday or Sunday to just kick back and relax for a day or two. The
problem I have is that by changing diet every five days, there is absolutely no
room for manoeuvre. With a weigh-in every five days and with me having chosen
to document the results of each individual diet, I have made it much harder on
myself. Maybe it’s a stroke of genius on my part. Maybe the fact that it’s easy
to cheat on other diets is the reason that I’ve struggled to succeed. Who
knows? All I know right now is that I’m writing this on a Saturday afternoon
and, having chosen to have my normal meal at lunchtime, all I have to look
forward to tonight is a bowl of Special K and an early night thanks to the TV
schedulers insisting on screening nothing but singing and dancing shows.

It’s day 7 overall and day two of the
Special K diet today, and it’s been even harder than yesterday due to the fact
that we were booked in for lunch at our local pub. We had arranged the
gathering weeks in advance in honour of our daughter’s first birthday and it
hadn’t really sunk in that it would clash with my 50-day challenge. It made me
think about all of the other potential clashes that are set to occur over the coming
weeks and exactly how I’m going to overcome them. I know for sure that we’ve
booked a dinner and dance in aid of the local school, but I haven’t a clue when
it is. If it falls during the cabbage soup diet, I’d better hope they have
cabbage soup on the menu, as that’s all I’m allowed to eat for the entire five
days. Today I managed to overcome the problem by once again choosing to count
my pub lunch as my normal meal option and shifting the second bowl of Special K
to the evening. I find eating out extremely pleasurable but there are a few
occasions when it can turn into a miserable experience, such as being on a
diet, on a budget or on a date with Jenny Harris.

I put myself through the misery of
reading through every item on the menu as well as going through everything on
the specials board in minute detail. I watched like a hawk as plates were
getting delivered to the tables around us, and I listened intently as each of
our party ordered something I wanted but couldn’t have. I opted for the pork
roast and compromised by cutting off the fat and forgoing any apple sauce or
gravy. After refusing dessert, it was then back home for further torment in the
form of having to refuse biscuits and cake approximately every three-and-a-half
minutes.

"It’s okay, Nan, I don’t want to
spoil my dinner," I’d say sarcastically. Of course, being a Nan, she kept on and on at me, telling me I should have one. Why is it that the older
generations are so keen for you to eat? When I go around to my Nan’s house, food seems to arrive in front of me every few minutes. Strangely though, it
can arrive in any order. It can be sweet, followed by savoury followed by sweet
and finished off with spicy. I’ve since worked out that the order in which it
gets served is simply the order that it was stored in the larder. My Nan is a relatively svelte lady and, as she lives on her own, she could easily get by on a
very small weekly shop, but her larder and fridge are stocked to the brim. It’s
obvious that she gets pleasure from fattening up the family and it’s made me
sad to think that if I want to succeed in my challenge, I may have to avoid
popping round.

Days 8 and 9 were much easier for me as
I was back at work, which helped to take my mind off the hunger. It was an easy
enough routine. Black coffee on the way to work to help keep me alert enough to
get these words onto the page, then my first bowl of Special K around 10am.
Water and black coffee helped me through until around 2pm when I would have my
second bowl of Special K. More water saw me through to home time, and a black
coffee on the train home with a healthy snack got me through until the evening,
where I decided on pasta on the Monday and a ham salad on the Tuesday.

Day 10, and it’s fair to say that
Special K doesn’t seem very special anymore. In fact, what is it that makes it
so special in the first place? There is no toy in the box, no competition to
win, and it’s twice the price of some other cereals. The thought of having to
go two weeks on the Special K diet is a truly terrifying one, and not just
because of the monotony of it – I actually feel as if I’m lacking certain
vitamins and nutrients. While I wouldn’t say that I feel ill, I definitely feel
a little under the weather. My eyes seem to have lost their spark and they look
dull and unresponsive, my body aches, and rather strangely my gums have started
to hurt. Perhaps it’s all unrelated but my gut feeling is that my body is
craving a more varied diet to get the vitamins and nutrients it needs. I’m so
pleased that the diet following this one is the balanced diet, on which I can
eat a more healthy and varied set of foods. Another thing I struggled with
today was my concentration, and to prove that point I can tell you that Teddy
Roosevelt, Freddie Mercury, Charlie Chaplin, Yosemite Sam and Tom Selleck all
made the top ten moustache list. Also, as much as I didn’t want to do the whole
‘toilet-talk’ thing, it is worth mentioning that Louis was spot on with his
constipation warning. I’m just hoping that things loosen up before tomorrow
morning as I could do without carrying the extra baggage for my weigh-in…

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve lost
another 5lb on the Special K diet, keeping up my record of losing 1 lb a day.

Summary:

The positives of the Special K diet lie
in its simplicity. There are no calories to count, and once armed with the red
and white box you can rest safe in the knowledge that the diet is taken care
of. The flip side of the simplicity is the boredom. Eating the same meal for
ten out of the last fifteen meals has been hard. I absolutely love sausage and
mash, but I wouldn’t want it twice a day, every day. I think it is a good diet
for those who are either looking for a quick fix or can’t be bothered to
calorie count, but I won’t be re-visiting the diet in the future.

Starting Weight: 15 stone 9 lbs

Finishing Weight: 15 stone 4 lbs

Weight loss: 5 lbs

% of body weight lost: 2.33 %

Faffiness: 2/10

Difficulty: 3/10

Would I do it again? No

Total weight lost: 10 lbs