Feeling disheartened from my bold detox efforts

I'm beginning to feel disheartened. Three weeks ago I had a goal, a target to lose a couple of pounds a week. Three weeks later I feel like I'm still carrying a tonne of weight around my middle. Still I feel the weight is very slow to come off. I'm being very religious about what I eat. Watching episodes of Diet Doctors has made me very conscious of what I put in my mouth. If I visited any nutrionist, diet doctor now they would be amazed at my food diary. It gleams of good wholesome food, brownie points, gold stars all round and yet there is no physical, visible evidence of what my dogged efforts have amounted to. It's been a laborious recovery, but my sprained ankle is returning to normal so I'm keen to take up some entertaining activity, not the loathesome gym. Perhaps a spot of dancing, pilates, who knows.

Second attempt at the Beach Body Diet

I woke up this morning with raving thoughts about the second instalment of the Sunday Times Beach Body Diet. I made a special effort to get down to the shops to buy the sunday paper partly in eagerness, partly out of guilt because I felt I needed to make up for my half-baked attempt at detoxing last week.

I had started off well with my version of the Beach Body Diet. I don't eat chicken or other meat. Fish I will eat and I suppose there's tofu. But by mid week I was a little deflated. Getting organised, buying organic (as I always do) and keeping it fresh remains a problem.

Normally I'm very active, but with my self-inflicted sprained ankle injury I haven't been able to do as much exercise as I would have liked. I can't even say that I was doing any dramatic somersault or injured myself in a fiercely competitive girls football match. I simply got injured walking along to work one fine morning looking up and admiring the trees.

I am fortunate enough to live opposite a Virgin Active Gym. If that isn't incentive enough to exercise then what is! In truth, I have never kidded myself out of exercising. I wouldn't say I'm a die-hard gym babe, because the results on my physique don't quite show but with a dogged determination I do work out so to speak. My mantra when exercising is this will get me to the slim waif like shape I seem to think I can aspire to.

Thank goodness for the Beach Body Diet

I was quite heartened to read in this week's Sunday Times Style magazine about the Beach Body diet. Normally I would avoid any radical diet, aka the cabbage soup diet like the plague. But this one did generate some interest purely because I wouldn't have to starve myself. Severe hard core diets have never appealed to me. Start on Monday 4th June. Oh, but it's Anete's birthday. Well I will just have to be resolute and determined and stick to fish (grilled or baked preferably) and for dessert no cake, just fruit, I said to myself in a stern teacher-like tone.

So with a mixture of renewed enthusiasm and determination, I embarked on an agreeably managable Beach Body diet. For breakfast, I opted for millet porridge, with a sprinkle of organic nuts and a droplet of honey. Lunch. I couldn't be bothered cooking, the appealing lentil and gingery orange soup, so I opted for a packet of miso soup and munched on a couple of oatcakes topped with small pieces of goats cheese. Yum! Afternoon snack; a handful of sunflower seeds and a small apple - protein and fruit, yee-ay I'm loving it! I spent the afternoon milling around Earls Court at the Pulse craft and trade fair, a source of inspiration and creativity but left me feeling ravenous. I spent the last hour before exhibition closing time, hovering hungrily around the edge of Earls Court near the food stands. Pizza Express (hmmm smell of freshly baked pizza). Crussh bar, healthy stuff. I looked in my purse and realised I only had £1.50 so grumpily I settled for a cup of earl grey tea which left me buzzing because I'm not used to drinking any form of caffine now.

That evening I met the girls and Anete, the birthday girl, at a tapas place on Marylebone High Street. Anete had a nice day. Two of her friends had taken her to Claridges for English tea, lucky girl! So they had eaten their fill of cucumber sandwiches, scones and cakes and wanted to snack. I ordered a tapas which on the menu for me resonated Health Supreme Status. Tofu with strips of pepper marinated in a light sweet and sour ginger dressing oh and feathered in presentation with bounding green watercress. I couldn't go wrong. Protein and veg. I was stunned when the minature square dish was plopped in front of me with its designer presentation of two measly pieces of tofu and five slivers of red pepper delicately flavoured with this sweet and sour ginger dressing. Beautiful to look at, tasted delicious too but I felt hugely cheated by the ant-size portion. I was still hungry after that so when one of Anete's friends suggested eating birthday cake at their pad I thought to myself, oh-oh detox going to pot, I'm going to enjoy this. And you know what - it was well worth it! When this large, perfectly rotund cheesecake graced the coffee table it was sheer elegance. It exuded this wonderful fresh aroma. To look at it truly was the most perfect cheesecake I'd ever seen. Delicately laced with redcurrants on top and surrounded by a daisy chain of raspberries and blueberries, this organic amaretti cheesecake was a delicious sight. It could have passed for a wedding cake. When I sunk into its lush yet light layerings, the cheesecake melting in my mouth like smooth ice-cream I can honestly say for the first time in my life, I had stopped to fully appreciate food.

Tempted to eat cake

I opened my eyes this morning with renewed enthusiasm, gulped down my herbal detox concoction and a dribble of Innocent blueberry smoothie which is very yummy I must say, no sugar, just a total pleasurable fruit experience. I walked into work however thinking, croissant, mushroom fuillet, managed to steer myself from the fattening cafe and purposefully strode into the tea bar where there is more of selection of healthier brekkie delights, namely muller yoghurts and a cooked breakfast. I settled for a wholemeal scone and matchstick size square of butter (not margerine as recommended by one of the top nutritionists I had seen about six months ago). Apparently going reduced fat or low sugar does no good because products are often loaded with sweeteners or other stimulants. Better to eat the real thing but smaller amounts of it. Off to a fairly good start. Lunch was a healthy quinoa and cashew nut salad from the crush bar and another mini salad of chickpeas and beetroot. Come afternoon teatime, someone in the office had brought in a selection of Tescos cakes; choco-loco (surprisingly didn't go down a treat), a sweet delicious lemon cake and a coffee/caramel cake. I was encouraged to eat a slice or two. I politely ate one lemon slice. Bang goes my detox again.

Cravings for all food naughty and nice

I checked my profile in the glass work lift and thought to myself okay stomach not looking like a muffin top. Not quite a duck profile yet so there's hope for me. This morning I gulped down a murky mud brown liquid conconction of milk thistle, Organic Pharmacy's liver and kidney complex and a natural liv complex. Whether I should have all in one I don't know but I thought to myself at the end of the day it's all herbal and there aren't any nasty pesticides or anything artificial. When I arrived at work, the thoughts that plagued my brain were of buttery, crunchy French croissants. I ended up wandering towards the cafe and was greeted with a sight of croissants; filled cheese and tomato croissants, ham and mushroom croissants, mushroom fuillets. I opted for the lowest fat 'detox' option, convincing myself that hey, a plain croissant is not that bad. It's not as if I eat them every day! What a mistake. I bit into it and my tastebuds collapsed with disappointment with the dry (probably a day old) croissant. I compensated for the rest of the morning by drinking 20 odd polystyrene cups of hot water. Lunchtime with a couple of colleagues, the subject of chocolate reared its ugly head while I munched wistfully on my wheat-free/buckwheat pasta salad. My willpower waned and on my way back to my desk I passed the cafe and ordered a rich choco-loco cake, laced with a dark chocolate icing. Yum I was going to enjoy this. And boy I did. I loved it. As I polished off the triangular cake slab I was in heaven! Once again I had good intentions, started off well but descended into food chaos.

Starting off with good intentions

I thought detoxing on a budget would be easy. That eau natural attempt we all aim for should be simple. Truth is detoxing when you have over time become accustomed to eating the odd slab of cake, chocolate bar has made my intentions to detox even harder. I used to have the will of an ox; chewing fornlorly on nuts and seeds between meals and eating healthily. My DIY detox started officially today, treating my body to small helpings of almonds. Yee-ay. I'm probably alright in visible proportions but at 9 stone and a petite frame at 5 foot 2 I'm beginning to feel like an elephant. Hence, the detox. I wake up forcing myself to say the mantra 'love yourself and you shall stay slim' but when a plumpy figure stares back at me in the mirror I end up scolding myself for getting plumpy in the first place. I'm one of those gals who's tried virtually everything from personal trainers to gulping down concoctions of vile herbal infusions that claim to cleanse your liver and kidneys. It worked in the past...I ate meagre proportions. Now I just want to enjoy food.