With every women’s magazine under the sun boasting the best diets around I have decided to put some to the test.
I am going to road test some well-known fad diets and in addition I will also be comparing them to some eating plans that genuinely work.
This experiment is interesting for several reasons; firstly, I hope that it will make for a pretty good read as I will be honest about how difficult each of the diets are to stick to, put up with and whether they actually make any difference to the figures on the scales.
I hope that this will enable anyone wanting to follow a healthy weight-loss plan to pick one that actually works; for those of you that don’t want (or need) to lose weight then you can just laugh at me instead while I try to resist the Haribo.
Secondly, I want to reveal if any of these so-called diets actually work; quite often you find that you lose 5 pounds straight away but then put it all back on equally quickly. However, overall I am hoping to find an eating plan that is easy to stick to and that will decrease my weight - which has rocketed over the Xmas binge.
This is the first week and I am starting off sensibly. I have picked the Slimming World plan to ease me into this new food routine. I am aware that this new plan will unfortunately not mimic that of the last few weeks which has consisted of roughly 3 bags of crisps, 4 chocolate bars and inumerable mince pies each day.
I am aware of this because I have actually followed the Slimming World plan before and it works. Fact. Unfortunately, it did not work when I found myself writing down “apple” several times a week in my food diary. This was almost definieldue to the fact that that “apple” was code word for “mars bar”.
Hence why I am starting again, as I do every New Year. But this time when I write “apple”, I mean “apple”.
With this in mind, I set off to my first group of 2010. The principle of the plan is, broadly speaking, only eating certain foods on the same day and other foods on another day; as they call it “food optimising”.
Slimming World have also brought out a new plan recently which is slightly different, however, I am going to stick with the traditional red day/green day system for this week.
Joining Slimming World involved paying a joining fee and then £4.95 a week which, especially as the pennies are tight for students, really is an incentive to lose weight. Your £4.95 buys you your weigh in, a class and invaluable support from your leader.
The class is nothing like I have seen on sketch shows and Dawn, the leader, is fantastic. As well as attending the class the next most important thing that I need to do is plan all my meals for the week. As I am feeling overly keen, I have done that this evening so I know which day (red or green) I am on and therefore which free foods I can eat.
That is the beauty of Slimming World. The free food. Yes, it’s fruit and vegetables but it is also (depending on red or green days) bacon, beef, pasta and potatoes. In unlimited amounts – yes unlimited. Things that I have been told before, on different diets, to avoid.
After writing this first entry I am feeling hghly motivated and I am determined to stick to the plan this week. I’ll update shortly to admit if I have fallen off the wagon yet…
By Hannah O’Connell