I’ve forgotten my hairdryer! I was destined for a pot-noodle head only once this week on the July list – now it’s going to be ALL WEEK! Long gone are visions of wafting along the beech at sunset wearing hues, carrying my sandals, staring wistfully into the distance whilst the breeze catches my perfectly blow dried hair. Not that it would have looked like that, but I could have least of given it a go. I was hoping to remind poor husband that it was a good Idea to turn up to our wedding two years ago. Instead he’s stuck with a vey bad effigy of Helena Bonham Carter in one of her more grubby roles for the rest of the week.
I hold my hands up – so far I am a failure at this on a few levels, more so than others being the diet. It kind of makes the whole colonic thing all the more traumatising now I realise it may have been in vein. Even last night, I crumbled at Husband’s sad puppy eyes and sticky-out bottom lip. I was protesting about sitting outside on the grass, in the sunshine, with a cheese board and some red wine. I couldn’t disappoint him, it would have been mean!
I’ve been complaining that I haven’t lost a pound so far yesterday, even after eating 5 meals a day before 7 and introducing exercise and internal hosing out to my weight management. It looks like I haven’t been as strict with this (or *cough* properly read the article *cough*) as I should have been. So I can’t really blame Marie Claire, it’s the whole reason I’m doing this experiment. If you don’t do everything to the letter within your health and budget, how do you know if it works or not? But one thing I am finding out all too quickly is that it’s not designed to fit in with real life as I know it. If I am going to be Marie Claire perfect, It won’t just take self discipline, it will also require pissing off a few people around me and repeatedly looking like a bit of a lunatic.
The advice from the article to follow is:
1. Take a food intolerance test (Done – resulting in cutting out sardines in brine?!?, none organic wheat and developing a unhealthy phobia of Kinesiologists) but it also says “Cutting out wheat and dairy can also give sluggish digestion a boost, which will help weight loss.” Now maybe I ignored this subconsciously, as this cuts out 2 whole food groups, dairy and CAKE (the most important food group for mental wellbeing). It also doesn’t tell me for how long – so I am assuming I have to do this for the rest of the month.
2. Eat 5 meals a day. Ok, so I have been doing this.. but I may have been cheating (only a little bit) when I included cake, Ice cream and chocolate as one or more of these 5 meals a day. So what I actually have to do is eat a meal at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm, none of which can contain dairy or wheat and all of which need to include some form of dairy free lean protein.
3. Colonic Irrigation. So I did this, and I did follow it with 3 days of veg soup and stir frys but also erm, crisps, bread, cake, chocolate. One thing it certainly does not say is “After one has been violated with a hose, hot foot it down to Mac Donald’s to eat a Fillet of Fish, fries, a chocolate milkshake and discuss hosing loudly with a Scouser in front of the youth of Chorley.” So, because I didn’t do it right… I’m going to do it again.
4. Skip the salt. Marie Claire gives a number of ways to do this from reducing it in your diet (I don’t add salt to stuff so no worries there), drinking Dr Stuart’s Liver Detox tea (Sounds vile, I don’t like tea, but when prefixed with the word liver it becomes a million times less appealing) . Wearing body Detox Foot Patches for 5 nights, these cost £18.99 and something in my toxic water tells me they may just be a fad. Eating celery or parsley - well I have been eating celery, nearly every day, which for the record is one big massive point to Marie Claire. It has succeeded to introduce something to my diet where my own mother failed. There is also one last suggestion of body brushing, then taking a bath in some extremely expensive detox bath salts (two choices, £45 for the more affluent of us and £32.50 for the errr more affluent of us.)
5. Take Spirulina. I have been doing this, but not quite managing 3 times a day as the pills are so honking and want to come straight back up again. Something tells me that Marie Claire does not mean chase them down with a gin and tonic in the pub, but at least I remembered to take it! So maybe I need to be strict and take one at 7am one at 1pm and one at 7pm.
6. Drink 2 litres of water a day + 1 more for every hour of exercise . I’ve been keeping up with this. Woo hoo! One thing I’ve managed! My skin is no better though disappointingly.
7. Do interval training: I’ve managed this twice so far, but I did notice the article doesn’t give you any indication of how many times a week, or month…So I could just do this once and technically fulfil what the article is asking. It also says lift “light weights”. Again, no indication of how light, how many reps for how long. So I used 2 tins of chopped tomatoes today and did 15 reps of each exercise – beef cake! I doubt my guns will be anywhere near Madonna’s unless Marie Claire is a little more specific about this.
8. Think Positive. “Tune out the negative inner voice telling you that you can’t lose weight” My negative voice is screaming “What, no f*cking cake?!” right now. “Lie down quietly for 5 minutes. As you breath out, imagine letting go of self doubt” – I’m going to go and do this, but fear the image will take the form of me letting go of a big slice of victoria sponge rather than self doubt. I also can’t do this at work, if I suddenly lie down on the office floor whiles exhaling heavily my colleagues will think I’ve lost it. I can’t use the loo either, as twice now, someone with a strange fetish has pood on the cubicle floor. I don’t care how many times the floors are bleached, just knowing this information alone will not a relaxing 5 minutes make.
So – I start again today. I’m going to devise some meal plans and stick to them for the rest of the month. If I’ve still not lost a pound, I will be having my next colonic in the IPC canteen, squealing manically “Do you feel like eating five bloody meals a day now??!!” Whilst lobbing tins of Sardines in Brine at any poor unsuspecting Marie Claire Journalists that happen to be there.
