Week 4

That is another week over and done with, I promise I will try and post more often than once a week but had a few technical difficulties this week.

This week I have lost another 2.25lb, so that is a total loss of 1st 3.25lb, not too shabby for 4 weeks effort and I have just bought a new pair of size 18 jeans because I find that if my clothes feel baggy I'm more inclined to eat more as I feel really slim.  Clothes that fit or feel a little bit too tight make me much more motivated to carry on.

I've faced a few difficulties this week, firstly the family gathering.  That went really well, managed to avoid all the bad stuff but had a couple of whole milk decaf cappucinos, so didn't feel too deprived.  I'm not sure when a cappucino became a treat, just goes to show how your mindset can change in such a short space of time.  We also went out for a meal on Sunday but we had a carvery and I avoided the yorkshire pudding, potatoes and condiments, so felt really proud and gave my halo a bit of a polish.

I'm back to work since I've been off ill and that is a whole new set of challenges.  Serving cakes and sandwiches all day can be difficult but to be honest it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.  I actually look forward to my salads that I take.  The problem I do have is I only get a 10 minute break so I find eating a reasonable amount of salad very difficult in that time plus sometimes it is really early and I don't want carrots and celery.  I'm starting to use The Harcombe Diet Forum and although I don't pay so that I can post, I do have access to read it all and there are some very interesting ideas and recipes on there, so going to do a bit of research when I get chance to look at my lunch options.

I'm trying one of those recipes today, going to have a cottage pie with a cauliflower mash instead of potato.  If it tastes as good as it looks then I will post the recipe and a photo tomorrow.

Week 4 stats

Start weight 15 st 12 lb
Current weight 14 st 8.75lb
Week 4 loss 2.25lb
Total loss 1 st 3.25lb

Week 3

Got weighed yesterday morning and I've lost 1lb this week. I'm happy with that after the chip and pie incident. I now weigh 14st 11lb and I've dropped a dress size.

We have a few challenges this weekend, tomorrow we are on a daytrip to visit my northern relatives.  Normally this involves a very nice picnic made by my mother but this time I am making us a seafood salad to take and some natural yoghurt.  How will we cope watching everybody else tucking into sandwiches and quiche? Only time will tell I guess.  Sunday we are going to an exhibition and we wont be able to take anything with us to eat, I'm hoping there will be a jacket potato van but just incase I am going to take a small bar of dark chocolate to tide us over until we can get to food.  Now that might sound like a strange thing to do but having read the Harcombe Diet book it is better to have good quality dark chocolate than a sandwich, definitely my kind of diet.  But if I can lose a pound a week I will be happy.

Foodwise, this week has been a bit more adventurous. We have had cheesy veg a couple of times this week, which has really livened the meals up and today I made a parsley sauce to go with some fish.  I made it using cornflour instead of normal flour as according to Zoe Harcombe the amount of carbs in the cornflour is so slight compared to the quantity of sauce eaten.  Don't get me wrong, there are still times when I would love to be able to just grab something quick to eat but overall it does seem to be getting easier.

Week 3 stats

Start weight - 15st 12lb
Current weight - 14st 11lb
Total weight loss - 1st 1lb

Ah oh!

Not blogged for a bit because not really been much to say and I'm still not 100%.  The diet is supposed to make you feel really great and full of vitality, so I would like the cold to go away now so that I could see some evidence of that.

We've had cheese! How fantastic is that, I don't think I have ever been on a diet where you could have cheese, well not enough worth bothering about anyway.  It is just because it is a fat you can't have it with the usual stuff like pasta, jacket potatoes or bread but it does not stop it making vegetables gorgeous.

We had it as a cheese sauce poured over vegetables.  Now because cornflour can be used in tiny amounts for thickening sauces but recommended you don't until further into the diet, the sauce was made with just milk, egg and cheese.  I was putting the sauce over broccoli, cauliflower and leek so I doubled up the recipe but the outcome was still very runny, think I need to tweek it a bit until it becomes thicker, however it tasted good, like a proper cheese sauce and we are going to have it again tonight.

Cheese sauce

240ml milk boiled and left to cool for 2 minutes
Whisk one egg and stir it into the cooled milk
Grate cheese and add to milk and egg until thickened
Pour over veg, fish or meat and bake in oven for 30 minutes
(Harcombe diet recipe book)

That was on Saturday and on Sunday we had a total blow out.  None of us felt well, all of us was exhausted and we wanted chips.  Not just chips though, I ended up with chips, pie, beans and gravy, a glass of coke and a kitkat. If I was doing it, I was doing it good.  I did not enjoy it.  None of it tasted nice and everything tasted different to how I remember it tasting.  I'm not sure if the chips just weren't nice or if my taste buds have changed but either way we threw away more than was eaten and I'm not really wanting to repeat it.  So straight back on the diet I went.  I'm probably supposed to repeat phase 1 again but I'm not going to unless I sruggle getting back into the diet.

And I don't think that will be a problem.  Went to a coffee shop and ikea yesterday and stuck to the diet to the best of my ability. While the others tucked into meatballs and chips, I had smoked salmon and lettuce with water to drink and I surprisingly found I enjoyed it and it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

I'm not expecting much of a loss this week for obvious reasons but if I can not gain too much I will be happy.

Love is .........

I've lost afurther 3.25lbs in the last 4 days meaning I have lost a total of a stone in 2 weeks!

That is great but not sure how I really feel about it. I've always considered losing more than a 2lb a week as wrong and not safe yet I know that during the past 2 weeks I have eaten well, lots of vegetables and meat, limited carbs and for the past few days milk. It is what I consider to be well balanced.  The one thing missing is sugar and during the first 10 days there weren't even natural sugars.  Maybe that says a lot about the quantity of sugar in our normal diet.  I knowingly ate a lot of sugar, I loved sweets, cake, chocolate, but the amount of sugar we are all eating without knowing is frightening. Just look through your shopping trolley at things you would least expect, crisps, cereal, bread and check the ingredients, I bet you find sugar!  No wonder I craved sweet things all the time, my groceries conditioned me to.

Saying that I've treated myself for valentines and had 2 squares of 90% dark chocolate - doesn't sound much but I really enjoyed it. The good thing was I could have gone without it, which is a good sign I guess, means I'm not craving it.  Does mean that I'm expecting a slight gain or at least stay the same but you need a little pleasure or you would go insane.

Made a soup for lunch, it was lovely and so easy to make. Definite favourite.  It is from The Harcombe diet recipe book.

Red pepper and tomato soup

Fry 2 onions, 3 red peppers and 2 garlic cloves in some olive oil (I used garlic infused oil instead of fresh cloves).
When soft add a tin of tomatoes, 700ml of vegetable stock, 2 tbsps tomato puree, 2 tbsps parsley, 1/4 tsp basil and 1/4 tsp oregano and season to taste.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
Blend with an handblender until smooth and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt

This can be used in stage 1 and 2 but for stage 1 you would need to use wheat free stock cubes and the yoghurt should always be live all the way through the diet.

Enjoy if you try it!

Not more broccoli

Well I am 2 weeks into the diet. In some ways it is still hard but in others it isnt causing me a problem. I have difficulties on days like today where I've felt a bit nauseous again and don't want to eat veg but not a lot of other choice at the moment but on days where I'm feeling okay and I manage the meals fine then it is easy. Not really physically craving anything but would love to do a nice valentines meal tomorrow with some wine and chocolate, just not possible.

I'm enjoying the real food part but the losing weight part is very restrictive.  Long term I would like to lose my weight and then go to just using real food so that I can bake etc but the food is made properly. I follow an interesting blog called 100 days of real food on facebook.  It is American but it is a mum who stopped feeding her family additives. It is very interesting reading and somewhere that I aim to be.

I don't appear to have had problems with milk this week and I will get weighed in the morning at the 2 week mark and if things look good will introduce cheese at the weekend.  As much as I thought it was frustrating to introduce things so slowly it does help to get your head around the combining aspect, so makes it easier to work out where foods fit one at a time.  It was really strange starting to have milk again, felt almost wrong but so nice to have porridge made with milk for breakfast. I don't even miss having anything in it.  I was planning on adding fruit once I had introduced it but to be honest I don't think I will bother.  Maybe the diet is working in changing my tastes after all.

Fingers crossed for my 2 week weight!

Bye bye phase 1

Total weight loss for 10 days of phase 1 is 11.75lb. My new weight is 15st 0.5lb.  I'm impressed but the 2nd 5 days I found really hard but I was ill so hard to know whether I would have found the diet easier if I had been up and about.

I've had chocolate today! Was not the plan but was in a big hole of despair about the diet. I'm still not well and now my daughter is ill so stuck in the house. It got to lunch time and I could not face anymore salad so I didnt have lunch. Probably not the best idea but the thought of more salad just seemed .... sad.  I spent an agonising hour craving for a packet of milk chocolate digestive biscuits that are in the cupboard.  I don't mean just one biscuit, I wanted the packet. I read more about the diet but I just felt so down about it.  In the end I ate a small sample bar of Green & Black's 85% dark chocolate. It is the chocolate you are allowed further down the road in the diet but I decided that it was better for me to have that than to blow it altogether on the biscuits.  I have to admit I enjoyed it but I can't say that all those biscuits have stopped calling me. I just need to be strong.

Still just introduced milk to our diet so far but just being able to have tea and coffee with milk is quite liberating and I'm going to have porridge with milk again in the morning. What the diet does teach you is how to appreciate food. I never thought I could have got so excited over a bit of milk.  Think if things are fine on the milk then cheese will be the next thing to introduce as that will allow for quite a taste explosion in our meals.

Today's food

Bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast (fat meal)
Skipped lunch
85% dark chocolate
Roast chicken dinner and various veg, followed by full fat natural yoghurt (fat meal)

Just working on the meal plans for the next few days. Planning a vegetable chilli one night, might even push the boat out and serve it with a jacket potato!

Cake, cake and cola

Had to face a challenge today - a children's birthday party! I went without even a thought that it could be a problem, only to discover that the first thing that happened was the offer of a glass of coke or orange squash to drink and I so wanted to say yes.  Then I was faced with a plate of crisps leftover by my child and I picked one up without thinking, it never touched my lips I promise. The final thing was special made cupcakes for the adults, which I sadly turned down.  It was a testing 90 minutes but does show some of the challenges. 

I'm feeling very bloated today and I'm hoping it isnt the milk. I've had 3 cups of decaf coffee today with a little bit in each time, so not a lot but the diet does say that bloating is one of the signs of intolerance.  I will moniter it and see. Might try not having any tomorrow and see if the bloating improves.

Today's food

Bacon and fried eggs for breakfast
Ham salad for lunch
Homemade korma curry and chicken followed by natural yoghurt for dinner

I'm finding that I cannot eat much at each mealtime but I'm also not getting hungry between meals, which I suppose is a good thing but it just seems weird. I've never eaten large meals but would have eaten a large amount of chocolate and cake inbetween.

Weigh day tomorrow.

On to phase 2

Sorry about no blog yesterday but as I started to feel a bit better the rest of the household decided to go down with it, so an early night was called for.

I have to be honest, I really struggled with the diet yesterday. I still felt quite nauseous and I really wanted something sugary, the chocolates and cakes in Tescos were just shouting at me to buy them....all of them.  And I was very tempted.  I was strong but could have cried at the thought of what to eat at the next meal.  I asked the forum for the diet for some advice and it sounds like I could have been experiencing candida die off. This is where I would have had a serious overgrowth of candida (which is possible when I look at the symptoms) and suddenly starving it by following the diet starts to kill it off and it creates a lot of the symptoms I felt for the last couple days.  This could also explain the sugar craving as the candida was trying to get something to feed on.  Or it could just be that I had a virus and being ill made me feel like that.  Either way I made the decision to start stage 2 a bit early.

I've started by introducing milk.  I had porridge made with milk for breakfast, I can't say it was scrummy but much nicer than made with water and I've had a decaf coffee with a bit of milk in this afternoon. Having read about phase 2, it is more complex to get your head round. The main rule is not mixing fats and carbs at the same meal. This is because of the way your body breaks them down and stores them.  Once I get my head around it it will be fine but at the moment it seems very strange.

As for the greater variety of food on phase 2, it is advised to introduce them slowly over time so you can see if any of them give you symptoms or stops weight loss. This would indicate an intolerance and you leave them a few weeks before trying them again.

My weight loss will slow and as some of it came off while I was ill I am expecting I might gain a little or plateau during the first couple of weeks.  But as much as I want and need to lose weight,  it is also important to me that we eat real food, so we don't inadvertently eat horsemeat or worse!

Today's food

Porridge with milk for breakfast
Tin of tuna and cucumber for lunch
Salmon, crudites and homemade zatziki for dinner

I'm going to cook a curry tomorrow from the recipe book, see if we can make anything exciting.  We can't have chicken and rice with it as that would be mixing, it is one or the other. Fingers crossed that it is tasty

Phase one total weight loss......

..............is 8lb!!!!  Cannot believe it, seemed so easy.

Sorry I didnt blog yesterday but I've been really ill for the last 24 hours with a cold/flu type thing. Still not great but well enough to do a quick update.

I've asked on the diet forum about whether the illness could be linked to the diet but looks unlikely and that I've just been unlucky in getting ill while starting it.  As always trying to follow a diet while ill is difficult, I've been off my food but trying to eat as much as I can at each meal. The thing that has surprised me is usually if I'm ill I live on junk and yet I have chocolate biscuits in the house and never entertained eating them.  I've not gone off the diet at all other than not being able to eat much.

The recipe book arrived yesterday so if I feel better tomorrow I am hoping to be able start planning phase 2. We should be starting it on Sunday and I am looking forward to introducing a variation to the food.

So to recap my start weight was 15st 12lb and in the first 5 days on phase 1 I lost 8lb so my current weight is 15st 4lb.  I will next weigh on Sunday morning at the end of the 2nd round of phase 1.

How much can I lose in 10 days?

Day 5 - nearly the end

The weight this morning was 15st 5.75lb, which is a loss of 6.25lb in 4 days. I'm pretty impressed especially as it hasn't been that hard to do.  Tomorrow morning will be the last weigh in to find out the total weight loss for phase 1 but I have concerns about tomorrow's weigh in. I'm made up with a stinking cold and I've hardly eaten today because of it. I have tried to eat something at every meal but don't know if it will be enough to have a weight loss.

As it has been easy we have decided to do phase 1 for another 5 days until I have read and understood phase 2. Quite a few differences in phase 2 and a bigger selection of food.

Sorry for a short and sweet blog tonight but feeling pretty rubbish.

Fingers crossed that I've not done too much damage today.

Day 4 and T.M.I (sorry)

This morning I had put 0.25lb on, I was a bit disgruntled until I remembered that .....here it comes......I hadn't poo'd for a couple of days (told you it was t.m.i) and there we had the challenge of the day. How do I solve this?

I have continued with the diet as planned but started doing a bit of research.  It turns out that this problem isnt uncommom during phase 1 because of how the diet is adjusted. We are mainly eating meat, vegetables and eggs.  We can have the dreaded porridge or 50g brown rice which didn't much appeal but both of these could have helped with my problem.  The other cure which is recommended by Zoe Harcombe is vitamin c.  Now I have never heard of this as a cure for constipation but found loads of information on the web about it. Turns out that because it is water soluble your body takes what it needs then dispels what it doesn't need along with whatever else is there.  Tah-dah, I've learnt something today.

Another t.m.i moment now, but this morning I disovered that I had been suffering my p.m.t days for the last few days and I hadn't noticed! No cravings, no 'I need chocolate NOW', nothing. Normally I eat non stop during this last week and yet I've still survived. I'm feeling more and more confident that this diet is better for my body and is the way to go.

Feeling much less fuzzyheaded than I have done for a few days but I have started with a cold so feel rubbish from that but otherwise I think I'm starting to feel brighter.

We tried the brown rice tonight.  I was worried it was going to be bland but I boiled it and then fried it in chilli olive oil with some celery, spring onions and peas and it was very tasty. Will definitely be using brown rice again.

Now, fingers crossed that there is a little bit less of me in the morning.

Day 3 - still going strong

I now weigh 15st 6.75lb, which means I have lost 5.25lb in just 2 days and yet I've never been hungry and eaten real food the whole time. The diet seems to be what it says on the tin so to speak.

Today is a Saturday and usually that is where any diet we do goes to pot but we had planned this weekend carefully knowing that we wouldn't feel good but also because we didnt want to put temptation in our way. And guess what.....we survived it!  And that includes an unscheduled visit to McDonalds, aren't we doing well? Already watching people eating burgers and drinking fizzy drinks were stomach turning, reading Zoe Harcombe's book Stop Counting Calories and Start Losing Weight explains what processed foods do to your body and it really makes you think.  I found it hard to even buy the food for my 4 year old daughter but as much as we would like to have her eat the healthy food, I think it best to do it a bit at a time. I would like her to eventually choose healthier options for herself.

We have to be very careful when we talk about diets as our daughter often talks about what she can and can't eat and I worry that she is too young to be focussed on food. So we try to talk about healthy eating rather than diet and hope she learns by example.

Today's food

Scrambled egg and bacon
Ham salad with olive oil and herb dressing
Roast chicken with roast parsnips and mixed veg
Natural full fat yoghurt for desserts (yummy, I'm serious I love it)

No cravings at all and don't even feel hungry, just need to break the habit of eating whenever I feel like it.  Still feeling tired but hard to tell if that is a cold, or poorly child or diet.

What will tomorrow's weight be? I'm stupidly excited about getting weighed in the morning.....think I need more of a life!

Day 2

After finding yesterday relatively easy, it was a pleasant surprise this morning to discover that I had lost 1.5lb already. Now weighing in at 15 st 10.5lb. Could not believe it, in previous diets that could be a full weeks weight loss. I'm not naive enough to think that that size of weight loss will continue but as a start I am loving it. I was hoping for a 1lb a day during phase 1, so running ahead at the minute.

Spent a couple of hours at the hospital with my poorly daughter during last night, so was feeling pretty rubbish this morning. In the past I would have used this as an excuse to spend the day drinking coffee and eating biscuits and cakes but I was determined I wasn't going to do that this time. I've stuck to it again and finding that I don't need such big portions even though I'm not hungry between meals. I had 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast at about 9am and had 1.30 had lunch because I thought I should.

It is still hard not to just put things into your mouth, a couple times today I nearly had a crisp or a bit of biscuit. It was done without any thought and I just stopped at the last minute. It will be a hard habit to break.

I've had headache today but not sure if that was down to lack of sleep or withdrawal symptoms but either way it has gone now and day 2 is completed without any problems.

Here is to day 3 - bring it on