Day 59 – The Disgusting Soup Diet

I’ve chopped up cabbages, diced onions and cut up tomatoes more times than I can count over the last few days, but I’m not entirely sure why as this diet is disgusting. I’ve tried blending up all of the ingredients and I’ve tried lots of different seasonings, but it makes little difference because the soup is still as unappetising.

I can honestly think of nothing I’d rather eat less than bland, watery cabbage broth and yet this is pretty much all I’ve eaten for the past three days. There are a few small exceptions on this diet, when I’m allowed a piece of fruit here or a baked potato there, but basically this tasteless cabbage swill makes up the majority of my meals.

I’m beginning to think that I’d rather be fat than carry on with this diet. The soup is not only foul tasting, but it makes my stomach bloat and it doesn’t stop me feeling hungry. I think I will really struggle to make it through the next few days, especially with the weekend just around the corner. For now, though, I will persevere with the cabbage soup plan, but I very much doubt Iwill make it to Sunday without breaking this diet!

Day 58 – Quick Fix Fat Loss

Anyone who’s read my blog will know I’m always looking for a quick fix to get thin. Whether it be a variety of tea or a type of vitamin supplement; if it promises fast weight loss I’ll probably buy it. I know I can’t be alone in my quest for quick fix fat loss either, as there are now so many diet pills and weight loss products available. Long gone are the days when you were limited to tape worm tablets if you wanted to lose weight, because these days you can buy appetite suppressants online and have lipo in your lunch hour.

So yesterday I read about a brand of diet pills that’s supposed to stop your body absorbing fat and I was desperate to know more. I soon learnt that for just over thirty pounds I could get a month’s supply of these little blue pills, but I thought I’d do a little more research before buying them. So I read a few online reviews and was absolutely disgusted by what was said, as one of the more common side effects from this taking this medication is anal leakage!

Apparently if too much fat is consumed while taking these diet pills, then you can expect orangey-brown oil to seep into your underwear. How hideous is that? What is perhaps just as worrying is that these tablets are only supposed to be prescribed to obese patients and yet anybody can purchase them online. After the reviews on the net I decided it was far safer for me to stick to a healthy diet in order to lose weight, but I wonder how many people don’t come to that decision and how many people are taking weight loss medication without the supervision of a doctor. I suppose in writing this blog I am just trying to persuade others not to resort to diet pills, if only to save their nice white undies!

Day 57 – The Week Eight Weigh-In

This week I have become completely disheartened with dieting. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy trying out vegan food for seven days; it’s just that I seem to be making such slow progress with my weight loss. This week I lost another pound, which I know I should be pleased with but it just seems like such an insignificant amount of lard to lose!

When I look in the mirror I also realise I still have a long way to go, and I’ve taken to holding my stomach in every time I look at myself. I guess I
just wish there was a really quick way for me to reach my target weight, as all this dieting and different ways of eating seems like such hard work. I suppose I just have to keep thinking of that size ten dress that I really want to squeeze in to and then hopefully that will keep me on track. Besides, I only have fourteen days left on this diet plan now, so I guess I‘ll just have to do without cookie dough ice cream and chocolate fudge brownies for a few more days!

Day 56 – Thinspiration?

One of my guilty pleasures is reading trashy magazines. I love to flick through the glossy pages filled with pictures of the rich and famous, only so I can imagine what I would look like if I lost thirty pounds. Last week was no exception, when I bought a magazine which speculated about celebrities and how much they ‘really weigh.’ Some of these stars had a healthy body shape with curves in all the right places, which is why I thought about tearing out their pictures and sticking them on my fridge to encourage me to stick to my diet. Yet, several looked emaciated with their only curves coming from their surgically enhanced breasts, which made me wonder whether anybody would find this body type aspirational.

The target market of these magazines is no doubt young and incredibly impressionable women, so are we really supposed to believe that a half-starved frame with silicone stuffed boobs is the ‘ideal’ body type? Personally, I’d rather see photos of celebrities who haven’t been nipped, tucked and botoxed to within an inch of their lives, because the way these plastic surgery poster girls look is neither natural nor maintainable. I only hope that in the future a healthier body type will be in vogue, so that women, like myself, do not feel that they have to strive to reach a Barbie doll level of ‘perfection’ that only surgery can achieve.

Days 55 – Holidays are the Hardest

I don’t think I’ve ever really mentioned what I do for a living, but basically I work in a school and I’ve just broken up for a six week summer holiday. It means I have lots of time to relax, read some good books and have my friends over, but it also means I’m never more than a few feet from the fridge! When I was at work I was at least distracted by some inane admin type tasks for most of the day, but now I’m on holiday I keep finding excuses to go to the kitchen so I pick at whatever leftovers are there. ..

So, I’m wondering what I can do to stop myself snacking and ultimately sabotaging my diet. I’ve tried drinking plenty of water and herbal teas, and I’ve tried snacking healthy food like fruit and crudités, but really I think I need to find something to keep my mind and my hands active so food is no longer the priority. Does anybody have any ideas as to how I can distract myself? Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Days 53 – 54 – What I Learnt this Veg-end

As a junk food addicted fatty, I am pretty much prepared to mindlessly follow any diet if I think it will help me to lose a couple of pounds, yet in following a vegan diet I was trying to do a little more. I can’t pretend I was thrilled at the thoughts of living off pulses, rice and beans, but I did hope it would help me understand why some people sacrifice meat and dairy products to try and make our planet a better place.

So this weekend, between my bean salad and my veggie burger, I tried to learn a little more about veganism. I already knew that factory farmed animals were reared in extremely overcrowded conditions and I knew about the inhumane killing methods used in some slaughterhouses, but what really surprised was the cruelty that is so often involved with dairy farming. I won’t try and persuade you of this by paraphrasing the information I found here, but all I will say is that I will think twice before pouring a little milk in my coffee or putting a few slices of cheese on my sandwiches in future.

Now, I’m not trying to say that I will never have a steak, an omelette or a chunk of cheddar again, but from now on I will try and make more informed choices about the food I eat. I don’t think it would really bother me to switch to dairy-free milk and I think I could easily have few meat-free meals a week, so even though I’m not ready to commit to a vegan lifestyle just yet, I hope a few small changes to my diet will make at least a little difference.

Day 52 – The Bitches who Banned the Bacon Butty

In their book ‘Skinny Bitch,’ Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin suggest that the ‘dead, rotting, decomposing flesh diet’ is what is makes most people fat. So for the last few days I have been following the vegan diet they recommend in the hope of beating the ‘bloated fat-pig syndrome’ that most meat eaters, like myself, experience.

I’ve found breakfast times incredibly easy to adjust to, as I just pour a little soy milk over my cereal instead of the dairy stuff. I suppose I have had to put a little more thought in to my lunches, but I have found some delicious recipes on other blogs for salads, rice and pasta dishes which have helped me out no end. So the only time I have really missed meat is with my evening meal, when I’ve made the mistake of substituting animal proteins with tofu or TVP. Frankly, I think both of these meat-free products are pretty tasteless, so over the coming days I am going to try and make meals based on fresh fruits and veggies instead.

Now I know this will mean that I’ll miss out on burgers and bacon butties a while, but I really hope that this diet will help me understand a completely different way of eating. So for now I’m going to suck it up and do as the bitches say, because in a few weeks I want to ‘strut my skinny ass down the street!’

Day 51 – My Less than Little Life (Part 5)

Me after losing thirty pounds (Size 10)

I’ve put off writing this post for some time, as I knew it would drag up some painful memories for me, but I do need to acknowledge the fact that I didn’t get to the weight I am now without a lot of comfort eating and a bit of excessive drinking.

I was really unhappy with my size after I returned home from four years at uni, so I decided to join a slimming club and I lost over thirty pounds. My confidence soared, but I didn’t maintain my weight loss once I started living with my boyfriend at the time. I soon swapped healthy home cooked meals for man-sized portions of take-away foods, while I traded in my regular gym visits for comfy nights in front of the TV. Yet, this ‘honeymoon period’ was relatively short-lived and although the relationship began to break down we continued to live together. Looking back now I know that being in such an unstable relationship made me very insecure, which is why on most days I’d barely eat during the day and then I’d drink heavily in the evenings. This is not something I’m proud of and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to write this post, but I think it begins to explain why I started drinking on a daily basis.

The relationship I was in inevitably came to an end a year or so later, but then I ‘dealt’ with my feelings of loneliness and self-doubt by drinking even more and then binging on any food I could get my hands on. In fact it wasn’t until I started seeing a counsellor a year later that I began to deal with some of these issues and only then did I start to feel a little better about myself…