Starting a new, short term diet

Thank you for the well wishes, we are both feeling much better now.  

I bought a new winter coat for a very good price online, however, when it arrived and I tried it on, I was disappointed to find I can't do it up.  I knew I'd put on weight over the past few weeks (and my weigh in along with the diabetes review confirmed it), but not being able to do up a coat in the size that fitted me before really brought it home to me.  With my new determined attitude though, I'm viewing it positively - I really like the coat (husband does too) so am keeping it....I'll just have to slim into it won't I?!

Since my diabetes review with the head nurse (I won't call her Nurse Huffy anymore as she really wasn't), I've been thinking about how to lose the extra weight, but without actually doing anything about it.  Well, once again Sue of A Challenging Year blog has come up trumps - she and her Lovely Hubby have just started a 7 day diet.  It's 7 days only because it's very drastic - it's a diet that was originally developed to enable people who need an operation to lose a lot of weight very quickly before the op, it's not meant to be followed indefinitely.  It's called The Chemical Diet - apparently it works by producing a chemical reaction between certain foods which enables the body to drop a lot of weight very quickly - I don't pretend to understand (or even believe!) that, but it's obvious that if you stick to the diet you WILL lose a fair bit of weight, simply because it's clearly quite low in calories and cuts out most carbs and fats.  

Husband and I (he wants to lose about another stone) are keen to give it a go - the idea of doing a diet, even a drastic one, for just one week at a time is very appealing....if we lose even as much as half a stone (the diet claims to result in a loss of a whole stone, 14 pounds) that'll be a huge incentive and boost.  We can't do the diet as given, though, mainly because it contains a lot of grapefruit which neither of us can eat - husband isn't allowed it because of the statins he's on, I have a citrus allergy.  So, using the general idea of the diet, I sat and planned a week's diet, personalised for us.  We'll still only do it for 7 days, it wouldn't be sustainable for longer - we'd get bored, we'd start craving foods we weren't allowed, and as it cuts down drastically on certain food groups (dairy for one), it wouldn't deliver all essential nutrients for good health for a sustained period of time.

(Going off on a tangent for a moment, on the subject of dairy, how do vegetarians/vegans get enough calcium in their diet if they don't eat dairy?  Having never looked into it before, I really don't know, perhaps one of you can enlighten me).

So we're starting today.  We're allowing ourselves tea and coffee, preferably black, but with just a splash of skimmed milk if we really can't face black - better that than either refusing to drink it and having no hot drink option, or giving up at the first hurdle.  Lots of water (which I drink anyhow, although husband doesn't).  Absolutely no oil or spread or sauces of any kind, food to be flavoured with herbs and spices and moistened with a little vegetable stock if necessary.  No eating between meals (not that we do much of that).  

So here's what we're having today:-

Breakfast - 1 slice dry toast topped with grilled fresh tomatoes for husband, tinned toms for me (I don't like grilled fresh ones).  I'll keep the juice to use later.

Lunch - Tinned salmon on a bed of salad - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, sliced red pepper, sliced gherkins, watercress.  Dressed with a squirt of lemon juice and/or vinegar, mixed with the juices from the salmon tin.  I can take a tiny bit of citrus juice without it affecting me too much, I couldn't eat a whole fruit though or drink a glass of juice.

Dinner - Roast chicken leg with roasted cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli.  I'll mix the saved tomato juice with a splash of the green veg cooking water and use that as a sort of gravy, I'll add some herbs/spices and boil to thicken and concentrate it (no gravy granules or cornflour allowed to thicken it).

I'll make sure husband has plenty of veggies at lunch and dinner, he's a big eater and likes a good plateful.

I did wake up in the early hours and lie there wondering if we could do this....but it's only for 7 days and I do have the lovely new coat as motivation!  If it works out alright, we're thinking we'll do a 5 day version of it every 2 or 3 weeks.  Also, it'll be lovely to go back to the diabetes nurse for my review in 3 months time and show her I'm a stone or two lighter.