Every day brings with it a fresh start and for me, today is about clearing out old stories from the Blog (delete, Kaput, good-bye!!) and re-starting the FIT FIX Diet Plan. Yep, it’s back to a JUICE FAST day for me.
I’m well aware it’s not particularly interesting reading material to keep banging on about this diet, but I do know it’s the only way to make myself stick to the straight and narrow. So I’m just going to keep plugging away and this time, try to keep the updates regular, confess to all my sins and add in any new recipes or diet tips as they come to hand.
It’s also fair reason to add in a few funny life stories for amusement.
Take last night for instance. Of course I couldn’t have an AFD when taking part in a Trivia night with friends at the local pub! And after a few chardys, it seemed only fair to buy a shared dessert plate for the table to keep our brain cells active. So the diet went out the window.
But I think the sugar did the trick. While we didn’t win, we were only a few points away from victory. There were some stellar moments from the group – such as recognising the theme music from TV show Water Rats and knowing the name of the U.S. military decoration given to those wounded in battle. (It’s a Purple Heart)
I didn’t know many answers, but had one fine brain flash when we were asked what was the only anagram in the English language for the word ‘exclaims’. And I got it in a second!! Shall I give you a minute to think about it?
I’ve had a bit of feedback that getting this FIT FIX Diet Plan in dribs and drabs is a bit messy and you’d like to see it laid out in its entirety to get a clearer picture about what’s going on. Again, I reiterate that this is a diet I’ve devised for myself as an experiment and you really should check with someone who knows more about these things than me (like a doctor) before embarking on this program.
1. Things you can’t eat: potato, rice, bread and products with more than 5% sugar content. (the sugar rule doesn’t apply to wine or the one day you are allowed chocolate!)
2. You must write down everything you eat and count calories. (sounds boring but I have an easy solution for this!)
3. You must exercise every day for a minimum of between 45 minutes and an hour. I am going to aim for spin classes four days a week, plus two lots of abdominal classes and two sessions of body toning or weights workouts. If you don’t go to a gym, you can ride a bike, run and do toning exercises at home.
4. You must weigh yourself every day.
5. You must have three alcohol-free days a week. I calculate my week starting on a Sunday.
6. You can have one day off the regime per week where you eat what you like and ditch the calorie counting.
3. An I-phone or device that can use the My Net Diary App. This is my secret weapon in the fight against flab. It means you can easily put in all your measurements and target weight and it will calculate how much you should safely eat per day in order to lose weight. Add in everything you eat to keep your calories quota in check!
WEEK ONE – FOOD PLAN
SUNDAY-TUESDAY – Start with a 3-day juice fast to put you in the right frame of mind for your new weight-loss mission. For more tips about juice fasting, see blogs dated from November 19th. ( https://jenniferhansen.com.au/?p=4566 )
Breakfast – The Muesli (50 grams) with skim milk, (100ml), Greek yogurt (50g) and frozen berries (25g). Snack – 2 celery sticks Lunch – can of Sirena basil tuna, lettuce and spring onion Snack – Tamara sugar-free yoghurt with berries (small tub) Dinner – Bolognaise sauce – NO PASTA, plus two glasses of red wine
Breakfast – Uncle Toby’s Quick Oats sachet with 125ml skim milk and 1/2 a cup of frozen raspberries Snack – 2 celery sticks Lunch – 4 Vita-Wheat 9-grain biscuits with 2 light cheese slices and ham Snack – Earl Grey tea with 30ml skim milk and an apple Dinner – Left-over Bolognaise sauce
Breakfast – Oat Bran pancakes Snack – hard-boiled egg Lunch – Tuna salad with can of Sirena chilli-basil tuna, chopped lettuce and 2 spring onions Snack – Cup of tea with skim milk and Tamara sugar-free yoghurt with berries (small tub) Dinner – Grilled chicken fillet and broccoli
Breakfast – The Muesli (50g), low-fat Greek yogurt, skim milk and frozen raspberries Snack – 2 Cruskits with onion/chive Philadelphia cream cheese Lunch – Cold beef, lettuce and tomato salad Snack – Body LoCarb Bites (chocolate protein balls – still under the %5 sugar rule) Dinner – Stir-fry garlic prawns and veggies
WEDNESDAY
Breakfast – Berry smoothie (using Swisse Slim Shake protein powder), Greek yoghurt, frozen berries and skim milk Snack – 2 sticks celery Lunch – Ham, spring onion and tomato omelette Snack – Tamara sugar-free berry yoghurt (small tub) Dinner – Mongolian lamb stir-fry
Breakfast – Oat Bran pancakes Snack – Herbal tea, Lunch – Mashed avocado (50g) spread over 2 Light Cruskits topped with four cherry tomatoes Snack – 1 apple Dinner – I chicken pattie with papaya salad
FRIDAY
Breakfast – Uncle Toby’s instant oats with berries Snack – Hard-boiled egg Lunch – Chicken tikka pieces (about 125g + 166 calories) I buy it pre-made from the supermarket and heat it up in the microwave. Simple. Snack – Tamara sugar-free mixed berries yoghurt (small tub) Dinner – left over chicken patties and papaya salad (recipe listed in Wednesday’s blog)
SATURDAY – DAY OFF. Eat what you like!
WEEK THREE – FOOD PLAN
MONDAY – Juice Fast Day, (juices from Pressed Juices)
Breakfast – The Muesli, yoghurt and frozen berries Snack – Hard-boiled egg Lunch – 4 Vita-Wheat 9-grain biscuits with 2 light cheese slices and ham Snack – Body LoCarb Bites (chocolate protein balls – still under the %5 sugar rule) Dinner – Pesto salmon grilled with broccoli
WEDNESDAY
Breakfast – Berry smoothie (ingredients as per above) Snack – 2 celery sticks Lunch – Sirena tuna, lettuce and spring onion salad Snack – 2 Cruskits spread with onion/chive Philadelphia cream cheese Dinner – Cold beef salad
Breakfast – Oat Bran pancakes Snack – Yoghurt Lunch – Peppered Salmon portion (pre-packed from supermarket – 217 per piece) and 1 carrot Snack – 1 apple Dinner – Grilled fillet Tandoori chicken with broccoli
FRIDAY
Breakfast – Uncle Toby’s instant oats with berries Snack – 2 celery sticks Lunch – Mashed avocado (50g) spread over 2 Light Cruskits topped with four cherry tomatoes Snack – Yoghurt Dinner – Grilled flake and salad
SATURDAY – DAY OFF. Eat what you like!
So there you have it! Three weeks of a food plan completely mapped out for you. I haven’t specified weights for all the food servings, as you can be flexible – as long as you weigh your food and record the details in your I-Phone My Net Diary App and keep under your daily calorie limit, you’ll be fine.
Most days listed have a food requirement UNDER the calorie limit, which allows you to add in snacks or larger meals, depending on how hungry you are. And you can drink wine – as long as (again!) you stick to your calorie quota.
Sampling Shane Warne’s new ’99 Not Out’ exclusive beer!
There will be days when you sin. I do – often…
Take last night for instance. After a fabulous party at Club 23 at Crown, where I very much enjoyed not only trying a new beer cricket legend Shane Warne helped create himself, aptly titled 99 NOT OUT, (very nice, it is too!) but I also had a couple of wines…
Now, the biggest problem with alcohol is how much it sabotages your will-power. Hence why we NEED at least THREE alcohol-free days a week.
I thought I’d been reasonably well-behaved with my food intake yesterday. Even at the party, where there was a wonderful array of delicious finger-food, I was restrained – only having ONE item – a small peking duck pancake. But then I woke up this morning and found THIS on the kitchen sink along with the dirty dishes, yet to be tidied up…
Yep, I’d demolished what was left of the cookies and cream ice-cream. ALL GONE.
As I always say, you just have to pick yourself up and start all over again… At least my weight has stayed down below the 70kg mark – now on 68.2kg. So I do think the FIT FIX Diet Plan works. Especially if you actually stick to the rules… Let’s see if I can get to my goal weight of 64kg. I’ll keep plodding along and document how this goes just to keep me accountable. I know it’s hardly riveting stuff, but it’s working for me, so selfishly, I’ll stick to blogging about it too. I’ll add new recipes, confess my sins and answer any questions you might have. Stay tuned!
There’s always going to be times when you hit a few speed bumps when trying to stick to a new diet regime and in my case, the last few days have been more like a major road block.
Yes, I could have been strong but faced with an all-night movie marathon session on Friday of Nightmare on Elm Street films back-to-back, I knew I wouldn’t survive without chocolate. And lots of it. And jelly beans. So Friday’s FIT FIX Diet Plan went out of the window.
That led into Saturday, which is generally a DAY OFF from the regime. Now, given I’d pigged out the night before, I should have been good, but no, I stuck to the plan of having a day off and kept the piggy on a mission theme going strong.
That meant two pieces of raisin toast with lashings of butter for breakfast, the rest of the chocolate block from the night before for morning tea, leftover Mongolian lamb for lunch and a night out at Riva restaurant in St Kilda for dinner, with lychee cocktails AND wine. I also practically demolished an entire Asian plate of duck spring rolls and fried calamari. And then there was a shared dessert platter. Except I did most of the eating.
Then Fletch’s brother was visiting from Perth last night so of course we HAD to go out to dinner and again, I got stuck into dessert. And wine.
And that explains why I haven’t been blogging about the amazing FIT FIX Diet Plan for the last few days. It HAD been working a treat. After starting out at 71.4kg, I had dropped to 66.7kg and was mighty pleased with myself. And therein lies another problem with dieting. Success breeds contempt and yes, I let myself sit on my laurels, and boy, did they get squashed.
Check out the latest chart results after today’s scales reading. Yep, that little black line has skyrocketed! Today I’m back up to 68.8. It’s a bit depressing, but I’m going to pick myself up, dust off the sugar crumbs and get back to work.
At least I went back to Pressed Juices yesterday to stock up on supplies for today’s JUICE FAST. My body is looking forward to it.
I’ve also had feedback that you’d like to have the FIT FIX Diet Plan listed in a weekly format, so you can plan ahead yourselves. So that’s going to be my next blog. Let’s hope it helps us ALL stick to the straight and narrow…
When I look back at how I survived the first week of the FIT FIX Diet Plan, the one thing that stands out is that for the first time in AGES, I had FOUR alcohol-free days in one week. I’m sure that’s a huge part of why I dropped weight quickly in week one. And while that’s been great, I fully expect the weight loss to be a lot slower this week.
I’m having a JUICE FAST day today, which in effect gives me another day off from calorie counting. And cooking! Well, I’ll whip up a pasta dinner for the family, but it is a relief not to have to think about food for myself all day. Just crack open a bottle of juice, down the hatch and we’re done!
Another reason I expect the weight loss to slow this week is that I won’t be able to exercise quite as much as I’d like. Various work and family responsibilities will take priority, so I’ll try my best but there aren’t quite the same gaps in the diary for gym time that I had last week… Even this morning, the scales tipped upwards a fraction after a heavier meal last night with steak, mushroom, onion and broccoli.
But I am looking forward to getting stuck into those juices again. Even though I enjoyed my piggy lash-out on Saturday, sugary food didn’t taste quite so fabulous after a week of being a health-food junkie. And I didn’t feel that great after eating all that sweet stuff, plus it took much longer to get out of bed yesterday morning as a result. Or maybe that was the wine?
Yesterday I stuck to the food plan listed in Friday’s Blog – Keeping It Simple – but substituted one snack item after going to the supermarket and finding this! You may have discovered it already, but it’s new to me. Philadelphia Chive and Onion cream cheese – mmmm… Spread it on a couple of Cruskits (both items meeting the less than 5% sugar rule) and it’s a great simple, tasty snack.
Now let’s have a look at the first few days for this week’s food plan:
MONDAY – Juice Day, (juices from Pressed Juices)
TUESDAY
Breakfast – The Muesli, yoghurt and frozen berries
Snack – hard-boiled egg
Lunch – Cold beef, lettuce and tomato salad
Snack – Tamara strawberry yoghurt
Dinner – Stir-fry garlic prawns and veggies
WEDNESDAY
Breakfast – Berry smoothie (using Swisse Slim Shake protein powder), Greek yoghurt, frozen berries and skim milk
Snack – celery
Lunch – Ham, spring onion and tomato omelette
Snack – Body LoCarb Bites (chocolate protein balls – still under the %5 sugar rule)
Dinner – Mongolian lamb stir-fry
Normally, I would vary the stir-fry options, rather than have a stir-fry two nights running, but for various logistical reasons, Thursday’s dinner will need to be cooked in advance, so that’s the way it’s panned out.
Plus my daughter was nagging me for prawns so I caved and slotted that dish in for Tuesday. And stir-frys really are a great low-fat, tasty food option. More about the recipes later. Right now I don’t have to think about cooking with my favourite chocolate almond ‘milk’ waiting for me in the fridge for tonight’s main course. Yum.
I didn’t post an update for the FIT FIX Diet Plan yesterday, as if was my scheduled ‘day off’ from counting calories and having any food restrictions. So I was pleasantly shocked this morning when I stepped on the scales and saw that despite a day of unhealthy indulgences, I’d still lost weight!
It’s surprising given how much I ate. The day started off with thick cafe-style raisin toast with lashings of butter and a cup of tea.
Then for morning tea, I went all out. For days, I’ve been yearning for a slice of a heavenly cake my daughter baked, so yesterday was the day to tuck in – and I did it in style with two big scoops of cookies and cream ice-cream on top.
For lunch, the kids wanted cheesymite scrolls from Baker’s Delight, so naturally, I had one too.
Two large pieces of dark chocolate for afternoon tea, followed by a night out at a Japanese restaurant with bucket loads of wine followed, so it only seemed logical that I’d face the music on the scales this morning.
But no. Joy, oh joy, the number dropped to 68.4kg. This time last week I was 71.4kg. I can only imagine it’s the result of the cumulative effect of being ‘good’ all week and exercising pretty hard with daily spin classes. (And that wine is very good for you.) Today, I’m back on the program and sticking to my guns. See Friday’s post for today’s food list if you are wanting to follow suit.
Tomorrow, I’m back on a one-day JUICE FAST and looking forward to it. And very grateful there’s a store like PRESSED JUICES to do all the hard prep work for me. Will keep you posted on the rest of the week’s dietary plan tomorrow.
So now I’m into DAY THREE of my Juice Cleanse and I’ve stuck to it solidly. Here’s how yesterday panned out and what’s happening today:
DAY TWO
Day Two started off swimmingly, but my enthusiasm started to wane by late afternoon. It wasn’t that I was getting tired of juice – I was starting to feel rag-doll tired.
I really should have listened to the advice from the Pressed Juices staff who recommend taking it easy on the days you’re ‘cleansing’. I thought I was doing well skipping a spin class at the gym and going for a power walk instead, but in the afternoon, I had quite a bit of running around to do with appointments and errands in the city and Chadstone shopping centre, so by day’s end, I felt completely drained.
I still enjoyed the juices with a fantastic selection of flavours. My favourite was the Zest Juice in the afternoon made up of pineapple, ginger, mint and pear – yum.
Challenges included watching my daughter eat sushi at Chadstone from our favourite store and suddenly missing the action of ‘chewing’ myself. Then she baked some delicious smelling biscuits when we got home which was horribly tempting, but I stuck to my guns.
DAY THREE SO FAR…
You might think I’m a piker, but I’ve decided to eat a ‘proper’ meal tonight, cutting back my 3-day JUICE CLEANSE to two and three-quarter days. I can justify this quite admirably though. You see, I REALLY want to get back to the gym tomorrow morning and without a bit of protein in the tummy tonight, that just won’t be possible.
Plus we’re going to a family dinner tonight and how can you say NO to your Mum’s home-cooked roast??? I won’t have potatoes though. Or dessert. And maybe I’ll have to ditch the gravy as well. NOOoooo. I’ve changed my mind. I’m having gravy.
But I have stuck to the Juice Cleanse for all of today so far and I’m feeling fine. In fact, most of the time (apart from yesterday, late afternoon) you feel fabulous! For exercise, I put in a good forty minutes on the treadmill, walking at a fast pace, so I can tick my exercise box too.
Now it’s time to get down to the RULES of the diet I’m going to design for myself. Let’s call it the FIT FIX DIET for the sake of having a reference name.
FIT FIX DIET RULES:
1. Things you can’t eat: potato, rice, bread and products with more than 5% sugar content. (the sugar rule doesn’t apply to wine or the one day you are allowed chocolate!)
2. You must write down everything you eat and count calories. (sounds boring but I have an easy solution for this!)
3. You must exercise every day for a minimum of between 45 minutes and an hour. I am going to aim for spin classes four days a week, plus two lots of abdominal classes and two sessions of body toning or weights workouts. If you don’t go to a gym, you can ride a bike, run and do toning exercises at home.
4. You must weigh yourself every day.
5. You must have three alcohol-free days a week. I calculate my week starting on a Sunday.
6. You can have one day off the regime per week where you eat what you like and ditch the calorie counting.
3. An I-phone or device that can use the My Net Diary App. This is my secret weapon in the fight against flab!
It means you can easily put in all your measurements and target weight and it will calculate how much you should safely eat per day in order to lose weight.
You might think it sounds terribly boring to type in everything you eat, but the bonus here is that once you pop the food item into the system, the App will recall all the details and the information will come up automatically. Given I don’t vary my food intake THAT much, it isn’t too hard. And believe me, I’m no tech-genius, so if I can do it, you can!
I start with My Net Diary tomorrow and eating a regime of more regular food. Which I’ll detail in a food plan later.
The other aspect of this App I love is that by storing your weight every day, it produces a little chart to show how you’re progressing. It’s great when you finally see the line on the graph start to head south!
I’ve been debating whether to write about this topic or not, since it’s almost politically incorrect these days to say we’re ‘NOT happy with our bodies’ or to even mention the word DIET, because it SHOULD be about being healthy rather than how we look, right?
Not to mention the fact that there are so many more serious political issues I could be addressing rather than the trivial obsession with what we put in our mouths and whether our muffin tops have grown since last year…
But heck, it’s my Blog so I can write what I want and I want to get into shape for summer, so selfishly, it suits me. It’s also something I haven’t addressed since the beginning of the year, when I went on the SUGAR FREE DIET for six weeks. Well, I did eat some sugar products – as long as they contained less than FIVE PER CENT sugar per 100 grams. I have to say I wish I’d stuck to it, because not only did I feel great during that time, I also dropped a few kilos without too much effort at all.
Sadly, since then the old bod has expanded beyond what I consider to be an acceptable size. It hasn’t helped that I’ve travelled quite a bit this year, which has meant less exercise, more food and overall, less self-discipline.
Now it’s time to get motivated again. Well, that’s what I thought about two months ago and since then have been re-visiting the rather large collection of fad diet books I’ve bought over the years to try and work out what’s going to be the most effective way. Clearly, it’s taken a bit of time to come to the right decision.
At first I fell in love with Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet, with its vegan slant and wonderful array of fresh juices. Dutifully, I trotted out some amazing salads for the family, but was met with scorn and revolt at the lack of protein and abundance of healthy green stuff. (Not to mention their inability to appreciate hemp seeds.) It was also difficult finding some of the ingredients, which might be a cultural problem, but nevertheless, made the recipes all the more challenging.
Ms Carr’s power of persuasion about the health benefits of fresh juice even led me to purchase our own whiz-bang Breville juicer. A few weeks went by when the fridge was bursting at the seams with magical green juice, that again, I was the only family member to truly appreciate. What I didn’t appreciate was the time and effort to make the stuff.
My enthusiasm quickly waned and before long, the hoards of veggies I was buying with the intention of juicing, would wilt and wither in the fridge, then be tossed out before they even made it to the juicer. The problem is that this juicing caper is WAY too time-consuming. Washing, peeling, dicing and prepping the fruit and veg for the juicer takes FOREVER and then you’re faced with a mountain of dishes.
On the plus side, I have to say I did feel great when I went on a juice binge and I was the only member of the family NOT to get a cold this winter.
Regardless, I put that book to the side and decided to sign up to the Michelle Bridges 12-week Body Transformation. A friend had done the program and swore by it. But it wasn’t for me. Sure, my body transformed – I put on two kilos! I found the meal program to be heavily laden with carbs and again, if you’re a working person, too much time and effort required on the food front – especially for lunches.
The Dukan Diet has worked for me in the past, but does become boring for the taste buds. I also think it’s impossible to stick with long-term and as soon as you break the momentum, the weight goes straight back on.
I know, I know, I can hear you shouting – but what about the simple EAT LESS, EXERCISE MORE theory? Yep, you’re absolutely right. That makes total sense. BUT I like a plan. A bit of a regime to get me motivated. And to keep me away from all those temptations – like this chocolate, which is TO DIE FOR.
So I’ve decided the best solution is to come up with my OWN diet. A mixture of all the good bits from the diets I’ve been researching, smashed together into one GRAND PLAN. I’ve also realised that being accountable is a good thing. So I’m going to be accountable to YOU.
I’m going to check in with Blog reports, listing my food and exercise plan and whether I stick to it or not. I hasten to add, I am NOT a dietician so please don’t follow this unless you chat to someone with the right authority to let you know if it’s a healthy option for you. I’m just doing this for myself as an experiment. It will probably be more Bridget Jones than Michelle Bridges, but hey, let’s give it a shot and see what happens.
DAY ONE – MONDAY, November 18
Day One of a new regime is always my favourite. That’s when I’m full of positive energy and determination to succeed with my new plan. Part of my enthusiasm comes from the fact that a new store opened in our local area – PRESSED JUICES.
Now, I’ve never been into all that detoxing stuff before, but after feeling the benefits of fresh juices through the Crazy Sexy Diet plan, I do agree that a short-term ‘cleanse’ can set you on the right path for a new way of approaching food. So when Pressed Juices opened up, I was thrilled. Now I could enjoy a fantastic range of fresh juices without having to go to all the trouble of making them myself.
That’s the other drawback of having your own juicer. You can really only make one batch at a time, whereas buying them already made, you can enjoy a variety of flavours.
The Pressed Juices brochures explain in detail how it all works, so I decided to kick start my new diet with a three-day juice cleanse. There are a couple of stores dotted around Melbourne and Sydney if you’d like to do the same, and likewise, interstate or overseas, you should find that similar stores are popping up everywhere and there’s very likely to be one near you. Or bite the bullet, buy a juicer and do the work yourself.
I’m lazy and LOVE this option of buying my six bottles for the day and putting them in my fridge. Not only are there massive health benefits, it means NO COOKING for three days!! Just grab a bottle, crack it open and down the hatch. Not even cutlery needed. Bliss. I told the family they could fend for themselves.
Breakfast was a Green Smoothie with avocado, banana, coconut water, cucumber, lake, lime, mesclun and pineapple. Delicious! Thank God I didn’t have to make it – would have taken at least two hours.
I won’t detail ALL the juices I drank, but suffice to say they all tasted great and I didn’t feel hungry. It’s advised not to exercise TOO strenuously during a cleanse. Yesterday, I DID go to the gym and did a spin class, but I’d had a big meal the night before so was still burning that off. I felt a little more tired than usual at night, but that’s to be expected.
Today I trotted off to Pressed Juices again to restock, but ditched gym in favour of a half hour power walk. I’ll get back to the heavier gym stuff after the 3-day cleanse is done. SO now I’m half way through DAY TWO and feeling great.
Time to work out the plan of action AFTER the 3-day juice regime. How much I hope to lose, confess to how much I weigh right now etc… Stay tuned…
