The 24 Hour Diet - Part 1

If you've only even had but a mere glimpse at my blog you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that I am not a fan of dieting. Chocolate and cake do a happy Egg make and I think it's important to prioritise happiness, nobody likes a grump.

The idea of restricting yourself things you want is not healthy in my opinion and dieting will only take you so far before you give up and end up putting back on the weight you lost. The Atkins for instance, who would want to give up carbs, the very essence of energy?! Bonkers. Don't get me started on Gillian McKeith either, the food she recommends is barely bordering on real food at all.. Aduki Bean Stew with Millet Mash?! To cook it you need to locate about twenty ingredients from far-flung indigenous tribes scattered about the globe. So forgive me Gillian but I want to shop in Tesco and get my double points!

I understand completely the idea of everything in moderation and that's the concept I've been trying to work with (if we could ignore the one-offs like 16 ice creams in a day etc etc). However my own personal nutritional philosophy is that you should eat what you need in order to be healthy and you should eat what you want in order to be happy. If that ends up with you eating a bit too much (which it inevitably does when you want to be as happy as me) then you get rid of the excess with exercise - simple.

So far, that has been working pretty well for me. I have even managed to find happiness in healthier, more nutritious foodstuff. However, if you read my previous post you'll know I've had the lurgy. When you're sat at home wallowing in your own germs, every day is a "happy eating" day. The mind takes over and tells you all this food will help. In retrospect, chocolate probably isn't less calories if you break it into smaller pieces and therefore use more energy lifting it into your mouth.

Alas, I knew something needed to be done. Google dished up the answer: The 24 Hour Diet. On first glance it looks like something a desperate bride-to-be might resort to after binge drinking and scoffing drunken kebabs just days before she has to don her very fitted dress. But on closer inspection it doesn't look too unreasonable, plus it's only 24 hours. Even I can control myself for a single day. Really as it's for such a short period of time, it's more of a detox than a diet and a detox is exactly what I need.

A scan through the recipes uncovered just a small number of obscure ingredients. Tesco.com revealed that most of these were not as obscure as I thought (wheatgerm and fennel bulbs? Who buys these?!) Maybe I'll discover some gem of an ingredient that I didn't know existed. Standby for Part 2



All this in one day? That's my kinda diet..