The no scale diet challenge: A month on

Like a giddy kid excited for the visit of Santa on Christmas day, and desperate to go to bed as soon as possible on Christmas Eve, there I was last night, wanting it to be bed time by 7:30pm. Yesterday was the last day of my first month of diet - a whole grueling month of dieting without a scale and let me tell you it is probably the hardest thing I have ever done.

A month ago, on 6th August, I embarked on a very unconventional weight loss diet, a diet where I forbid  myself the use of scales for the first month. I really really really wanted to stay away from a scale and not to weigh for the first month. I don't last long on diets, you see and I have the awful habit of weighing myself too often during a diet, sometimes once a day, sometimes many times in a single day. I know I shouldn't but I just cannot help myself. This has has  dramatic consequences on me and triggers what I'd like to call the spiral of doom.



The spiral of doom
Discouraged by the low score of my second week of dieting - if I have lasted that long that is - I tend to go on a binge. I enjoy the binge so much that the binge ends up lasting a week. Then I feel guilty, I want to diet again and 'this time for real'. Then there's some meal or some occasion planned for the following week which, then clashes with any diet I could start, so the whole diet thing is further delayed until the 'right time' arrives. Until then, I think that there is no point limiting food intake, that I might just eat what I want and then obviously I put on the mere pounds I had lost during the little time I was on diet. The 'right time' to be on a diet arrives and I start the diet, committed as ever, weigh myself constantly, gives up in my second week, and I am back to square one. A year and a half later, I am 1 stone and a half heavier than my all life weight and I just feel rubbish.


So I decided that enough was enough and it was time to use a drastic method, in a bid to maximize my chances of sticking to my diet.


I am so addicted to food that if there's ready-to-eat food in the house, I will eat it. I can't buy a multi pack of crisps, I can't buy a loaf of bread, I can't keep a box of chocolates because I just cannot stay there in the house, knowing that this delicious food is lying around, waiting to be eaten. This a problem I have and the only way I can control it is not to have ready-to-eat food in the house, at all. If I want a packet of crisps, I ll go to the corner shop, buy one, eat it and it's done. Bread is only bought at Christmas where I'll eat a whole loaf in 2 days. This all sound a bit sad and very drastic but it's the only way that works me. So I decided to be as drastic as I am with my ready to eat food rule in the house and decided to abandon my scale in a place I knew I couldn't reach for a month.


I can't tell you how hard this has been. It feels like I have been dieting in the dark, not knowing if I am on the right track or not. The desire to weigh myself has been so high that, at times I've been craving more stepping on a scale than actual naughty food I couldnt have. It's crazy.


The wait is over. A month has passed now. Last night I was reunited with my scale. I don't know what the score will be. My colleagues who hadn't seen me for a month thought I was slimmer, even the ones who didn't know I was going to embark on a homemade diet bootcamp for a month. But then again, you always tend to feel that people have changed when you haven't seen them a month.

 

I know I've lost some weight, my diet consultant told me I lost some inches on my thighs and this is the only thing I had to keep me going and motivated. It has encouraged me, but you know, it's not the same as seeing the figure dropping down on your scale. I don't know how much I should expect to have lost in a month where I really really have given my all. I have expectations, I have an expected figure in my head, I am scared. I am scared to be disappointed and I am trying to congratulate myself for having stuck to the diet for 4 long hard weeks.





It is now the morning on 6 September. I am scared to jump on the scale.


I have lost this amount in a month.


So how do I feel about it?
A mix of emotions really. I wanted to have lost 1 kilo more (around 2 pounds more) as I gave it my absolute  all for the past month. I had saved all my days of leave to take a month off work to entirely devote it to my diet, and do some sort of diet bootcamp at home. While people relax on their holidays, I spent mine on diet shakes, at home, on my own so I would have really liked to have achieved my target. I wanted to go to the cinema at some point but I couldn't even do that, as the diet I am doing requires the drinking of 2.5 to 3 litres of water a day and that this is not quite compatible with the cinema really. Seeing a figure lower than '60' on the scale would have been so good for my morale and I can't hide it, I am disappointed.


On the other hand, I am super proud of myself to have stuck to a diet for 4 weeks with not having binged. I just wished I just had let myself go so much and put on so much weight. I am on the right track but there is still a long way to go.


I am not sure what I'll do next. Shall I just keep my scale at work again and not weigh myself before a month has elapsed (6 October)? It helped me so far. Although I am disappointed with my score, and that I have no problem picturing a big fat domino's pizza in my mouth right now, I feel like it would be a shame to binge and ruin my diet because I've come a long way and lasted a whole month. Shall I leave my scale at work again?


Could you 'diet in the dark', resist the temptation of weighing yourself and physically get rid of your scale for a month?

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Skinny Sprinkles: A review and a flash giveaway

So your clothes don't fit anymore, you avoid mirrors because you can't stand being reminded you've put on weight. You decide 'this is it, i am going to be on a diet', you're having 'your last meal' and engulf anything you can and there is a problem: you are on diet day 1, and you're having to switch from a day of massive indulgence to a day when you need eat 'normal' portions again without wanting to eat your own hand by 3pm.


How on earth are you supposed to regain control over your appetite from one day to the next? Not without an exceptional amount of willpower and dedication that's for sure. When I first read about the Skinny Sprinkles, I saw a little ray of hope for managing my raging appetite and diet better and I instantly wanted to try it.





What is Skinny Sprinkles?
Skinny Sprinkles® is a new weight loss supplement, when sprinkled into a glass of water creates a strawberry flavoured drink with a 'smoothie' texture. How does it help you losing weight will you ask? In a nutshell, it's a 20 calories drink which fills you stomach up before a main meal and help curbs your appetite.


How does it claim to work?
Skinny Sprinkles contains Glucomannan, which is a dietary fibre that absorbs 200 times its weight in water, which is why it makes you feel full. It also contains Inulin a water soluble dietary fibre which helps to moderate blood sugar levels in the body, and avoid sugar rushes and reduce sugar craving. There are no side effects, it contains natural ingredients (Glucomannan comes from the Konjac plant and Inulin from Jerusalem artichoke and dahlia tuber) and it's safe to use. The Glucomannan exists in the quantities recommended by EFSA (European Food Standards Agency). {Full details on scientific evidence on glucomannan for weight reduction on the website} So the idea behind Skinny Sprinkles is to control hunger, make you feel fuller, help you control portion size, snacking whilst increasing your energy levels (more on that later)




How and when to take Skinny Sprinkles?
They recommend to take Skinny Sprinkles 15 -30 minutes before a meal to reduce the urge to over eat and to take it 3 times a day for maximum weight loss results. You are to pour the contents of the sachet into 200ml of cold water, stir rapidly and briskly for 2 minutes, let it stand for 60 seconds, stir one last time and drink the contents straight after.

What does it taste like?
Skinny Sprinkles is made with real fresh spray dried strawberries. The smell is absolutely lovely and it tastes surprisingly really nice but not too nice like berocca to which I became addicted. Only me can get addicted to berocca, I tell you! My photos make it look more yellow than it really is and in reality it's more pink than that. Is it a smoothie? I wouldn't call it a smoothie. To me it has a texture reminiscent of fruit compote and a jelly. I can't get over how divine it smells.




Most importantly, does it work?
In an attempt to reduce my appetite, I don't eat in between my meals. My meals are a big deal for me, I have a big appetite and I eat loads basically. My first time on skinny sprinkles was at lunch time (12 noon) one day at work and omg, they really were not kidding about the curb appetite part: I was full on just having some 200 calories soup (that’s usually my starter!) and was not hungry again until evening time (I usually have my meal around 6pm) I can't even begin to tell you how euphoric I was about this victory over my appetite, appetite, which, let's face it, rules my life.

There was another reason why I might have been euphoric on that day. Skinny Sprinkles contains caffeine (provided by the Green Tea and Guarana which naturally contains caffeine. I am quite sensitive to caffeine which sucks a bit. Sachet says 'high in caffeine'. How much caffeine does it contain exactly? If my calculations are correct, it contains 62.5mg of caffeine which is a bit less than what a nescafe cappucino sachet would contain. So in other words, it's the equivalent of a coffee from a ready made sachet and it's something to bear in mind if you are sensitive to caffeine. For me this means I'd rather not take a skinny sprinkle after lunch time really as I am scared it might affect my sleep.

All in all, I am ab-so-lu-te-ly delighted about the skinny sprinkles and this feeling of feeling full with not eating as much is just exhilarating. The caffeine bit might be a blessing for me as it means my box of skinny sprinkles can last longer and my money go further. I also love all the work which has gone into the skinny sprinkles: the whole retro 50's vibe with a modern twist imagery, the model they chose, the youtube video (see below), the skinny box (the packaging is designed to fit into a letterbox), the tiny sachets you can carry everywhere. They forgot to write the 'stir one last time' instruction after letting it stand for 1 minute on the individual packaging though, so please don't forget to do that! 

Price wise, it's £29.95. This might be a little bit pricy for some which is why I've got a deal for you, well for two of you, my dear readers. I was sent a small quantity of skinny sprinkles to try (not a full box) and I would like to share my samples with you:

I have 6 sachets which I am happy to give away so that 2 of you can try the skinny sprinkles for one day. If you want to try, just write 'i'd like to try the skinny sprinkles' below together with your name, and email address (giveaway is international and ends Monday 28 May 2012, 10pm BST)
---- For an extra entry, you can tweet:
 Win a day supply of @SkinnySprinkles with @tsunimee http://bit.ly/skinnysprinkl #skinnysprinkles

what: Skinny Sprinkles (Weight Loss and Energy Drink)
how much: £29.95 (You can get 20% off your first order with discount code 'FRANKII'
(Please note,if you choose to checkout with Paypal express they will not be able to redeem the voucher)
where to buy: online at http://www.skinnysprinkles.co.uk/
disclaimer: product was sent for review purposes. I approached the company.
flash giveaway rules: open to all my readers, ends Monday 28 May 2012, 22:00 BST.
There are 2 winners and each winner gets a day supply of skinny sprinkles (3 sachets each)

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Diet coke gets Breton and cheeky..

This is not like me to want to blog about something which can be sold at Harvey Nichols (I actually only been in a 'Harvey Nicks' at they say only once in my life and swiftly left the shop as I felt out of place) But I would like to make this sumptuous release my exception. I have just heard about this collaboration on Pampered and Polished and I just had to post about it too.


Jean Paul Gaultier poured some of his genius creativity and redesigned the look of diet coke bottles. The result is absolutely gorgeous and very sexy!




    
Wait. There is more!
People have said for many years that the shape of a bottle of coke is evocative of the curves of a woman well the creative team went a little bit further. They went on to paint the design of the bottle on two models, who wore, nothing but the design on their bodies, posing live in the shop window of a Harvey Nichols in London. Let me reassure you, the result is nothing seedy, just a little bit cheeky and superbly well done I thought.

The women who went on to fight for the 'Miss UK Beauty' competitions to be banned in England (and probably their descendants) will probably be up and arms about this publicity coup, claiming this is exploitation of women, and treating women like cattle yadi yada, but I absolutely love it!

Great creativity, great make up and just the right amount of cheekyness.




The limited edition Jean Paul Gaultier Night & Day bottle collection for Diet Coke was launched in Harvey Nichols stores across the UK on 16 April 2012, and will be available for 4 weeks at £1.95 each.

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Diet Coke Nails Inc ‘Plum’ NOTD

Blogging about nails and stay current at the same time is tricky: Your nails need to be decent for any eventuality and any release. Sadly my nails are not very good at the moment, especially the poor nail of my index finger which is slowly recovering from a bad break. But the ‘Nails Inc Diet Coke’ operation (buy 2 bottles of diet coke and grab a free polish from Nails Inc from 4 to to choose from) cannot wait for my all my nails to grow at the same length and I just had to show you this colour.  Apologies for the bad pictures, hasty application (no clean up – this is raw pictures baby) and missing index finger.






This is my second and final purchase from the Nails Inc Diet Coke this January 2011 as the 2 other free shades on offer (blue and lilac pink) didn’t appeal to me. This one is simply called ‘plum’.







Coverage from one coat was very impressive but here it is with 2 coats. Like caramel I tried on yesterday, this shade is nice enough but I don’t like on me. The finish is nice, the shine is nice, but I find it a bit dull and bland on me.

 




I was wearing caramel all day today (the first free shade I got from this diet coke offer) and actually quite like it with a sheer coat of revlon starlight on them, but this one is not a keeper and I am not quite sure what to do  with it? Does any of you like it?

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Best things in life are free? NOTD Nails Inc Diet Coke Caramel Nails

Shame on me. I can't believe I have not got round writing about my favourite to-go nail polish: London from Nails Inc, The London nail polish came about a few months ago, as a freebie part of the Diet Coke operation. Helen from SparklzandShine kindly donated it to me, as I was a slow taker and when I had got round to boots to get it, all the shades of London had gone. You bet when Nails Inc and Diet Coke joined forces and offered free polishes that I had to be there on the first day and grab my free polish. It was a no brainer and I wanted to get my hands on 'caramel' the shade which reminded me of London.


First impressions: I preferred when there was no diet coke sticker on the lid of the bottle, it makes the fact that you got it as a freebie even more obvious.





This second picture is probably the most accurate in terms of colour and 'mismatch' again my skintone. I won't beat around the bush and there is no other way to say it: I don't like it and I don't like this shade on me. I feel the nude colour does nothing for my skin tone and I find it bland bland and bland. I can already hear what a typical pragmatic bloke would think looking at this shade: what’s the point of having nail polish on if it’s going to look the same colour as your skin? He’s right!





Did anyone say corpse hands? How obvious, incidentally, is it that I am trying to hide as best as I can the nail of my index finger lol? :P









What a shame. I could cope with Miscellaneous (the rosy nudey  mannequin shade of MissGuided (freebie from cosmopolitan magazine) and by retrospect I quite like it now, but I honestly don't see myself wearing Caramel on my nails. Not on its own anyway.


I've tried to pair it with my new love (this will have to be the subject of another post) Revlon Color Beam in Starlight, it's a little bit better but still not me. I shouldn't complain, caramel came as a freebie but I cannot help but feeling disappointed. Caramel hasn’t never tasted as bland as today…

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Me, Myself and Alli

If you have missed my previous post, I have started to take the highly controversial diet tablet called 'Alli'. It is controversial for 2 reasons: it has severe secondary undesirable effects and it's strictly reserved for individuals with a BMI over 28 and my BMI is lower. So before I go any further, I would like to stress to anybody under a BMI of 28 NOT to try this at home. It's been a week now and I wanted to post a little update. And what a week it’s been!



 

First half of the week: (Sunday to Wednesday) was like honeymoon. Came Thursday, I feared I ruined it and I had major doubts actually but I carried on and I am quite proud of myself. The idea is that you need to use Alli  with a low fat diet and have a good eye on your fat intake. This week was a major eye opener for me. Before I would only look at the overall calorie content on food labels. So, this week, it felt like it was like discovery channel in HD and I feel I’ve learnt so much. For example: I’ve found a nice soup which stinks when you heat it in the microwave but has so little fat content. Woohoo!

I am still not sure on how much fat I can eat, but I blindly based myself from a guideline I got from a friend:
-  no more than 20g of fat per day (which I discovered is not a lot at all!!!, that’s like 5 chocolate digestives)
-  fat intake should be nicely spread out over the day
-  and not more than 10g of fat per meal.

So when on Thursday, I misread my label, and realised I consumed double the fat than I wanted to, I really panicked. In the end, everything went fine and I didn’t have any problems. I later found from some website that people should not take more than 15g of fat per meal, and that I overdid it by 1g. I can’t rely on this source as these figures are based on people who have a BMI over 28 after all. It’s all complicated and gave me a headache.

Did I lose any weight after all that? Did I have any of the common ‘toilet problems’ associated with it?

There's no so much difference on the scale (I've lost 2 pounds) and no, nothing bad/gross happened to me. Not even the slightest bit of difference in the ‘toilet department’. Maybe the need to stock more on Glade Air Freshners… Frankly, how could I have something bad happening to me, with only 20g of fat maximum a day!!! (apart from Thursday that is). I am glad nothing bad happened to me, but rather mift I didn’t lose more because this week involved a lot of effort.

What effects did Alli have on me?

Not much and a massive amount of difference at the same time.
I have lost those 2 pounds not thanks to Alli, I've lost those 2 pounds because I was ate less, and because I consumed less fat in the process.

Will I carry on taking Alli for another week?

Hell yeah, I will! I have a tendency to food binge a lot and while I keep this under control most of the time, there are times when it goes all haywire. A bit like I need some extra help from a friend shouting at me to stop eating for three for food is available and ready to eat. This is where Alli comes in and its psychological power on me, like I expected, is just phenomenal. All my life, I have been craving for some control over what I eat and Alli just does that. Its psychological power on me is amazing, and went beyond my expectations: Because I am so scared of the gross undesirable effects (and because I am proud and don't want to fail this, now that I've started to blog about it, lol) I eat less food, and I eat less fat. Alli to me is some kind of big brother person, who is there all the time watching you. You cheat and karma, in the form of diarrhoea will happen to you. What stronger incentive do you need?

For how long will I take this?

Maybe till the end of June, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.




The obvious  drawback on this, as I see it, is that, in the long run, on some weaker or vulnerable people, it could trigger even more yo yo dieting. Pigging out for a while, and going onto Alli. Fortunately, this drug is expensive, not easy to get, so this should prevent me doing that. It should anyway...

It could also trigger some anorexic alike behaviour, when you’re obsessing about labels and freak out at the sign of fat. Sadly, I do not have this tendency, and I could just feed myself from domino’s pizza all the time (medium sizzler with extra cheese, with roast chicken instead of tandoori chicken, mushrooms instead of onions, £8.99 on collection special deal) it would be heaven. *sigh*

Overall, I feel that, if anybody over the BMI of 28 ate what I ate this week, they would have definitely lost 4 to 6 pounds this week, without a doubt. It’s not having this effect on me as I would have liked to. But nothing has EVER kept me on my toes as drastically as alli did this week. I just cannot get over that fact. And I shall continue, for a bit more, and keep you updated…

Now, If only they sold convincing alli lookalike sweets…



Disclaimer:
I am not affiliated with the company and if I were, I would be the least eligible character to try this: For one, I am not suitable for it, my BMI is not high enough. Also this drug is non recommended for people who have 'complex relationships with food' aka eating disorder. I believe I have a mild form of an eating disorder, similar to bulimia but without the purging: it's just called binge eating.  Also unlike the typical bulimic, I manage to keep my condition under control at most times: I tend not to keep yummie ready to eat food in the house, and I try to just eat at meals times and nothing in between, as I feel it would increase/encourage my appetite if I did, and, oh boy, I really don't need any encouragement in that department!

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Alli – The Experiment

Ever since I saw the diet tablets ‘ALLI’ in the shelves of my local Boots, I became fascinated by the product and wanted to try it. I don’t know if it’s the colours of the actual lettering (Research says that products using the 4 colours of blue, yellow, red and green – ever noticed the colour theme of eBay and google? – tend to grab more attention than any other colour scheme) but I was drawn to it, and been obsessed with it  ever since.





If you’ve never heard of it, ALLI ( containing orlistat) is a diet tablet which claims to “block some of the fat that you eat, keeping it from being absorbed by your body and helps you to lose weight. ALLI is exciting news for adults who are overweight with a BMI of 28 or over, want to lose weight and who understand the importance of sensible eating when they’re trying to lose weight.

This ‘diet aid’ is strictly reserved for people with a BMI of 28 and over and this is where it becomes controversial: My BMI is lower than that and there is no chance I could have got my hands on this, as basically, I am not fat enough to have the right to take it. The problem is that because it’s forbidden, it has become more attractive to me, a bit like smoking and drinking alcohol for a underage teen. I wanted to try it because it was bad.


I managed to get some by some devious but legal way (I paid for it and didn't stalk on any individual outside the shop to buy it for me) but I won’t be able to reveal where I got it as buying over the internet is a dangerous business, and I would not like you to get into trouble. Anyway, I bought it, I am going to start tomorrow, and I wanted to share my experiment.


The way it works is that it stops some of the fat you eat from being absorbed. In short,If you eat too much fat (any fat, whether it’s good fat or not) well the drug cannot deal with that, and you are in deep doo doo, literally! Put it bluntly, if you eat too much fat at once, and overall during the day, it will automatically cause severe diarrhea of the worst kind, coupled with crippling howling painful stomach aches and oily leakages from your bottom, when you’re least expect it, in the car, white trousers or not. To say that I am pooping myself trying this is an understatement.


Why am I subjecting myself to this? Because I am fascinated by it and want to try it. My lovely friends on twitter have tried their utmost to warn me, and discourage for my own benefit to try it, alas I am stubborn. I am so scared of the undesirable effects that I feel it might work on me psychologically and keep me on my toes, to prevent from bingeing so much. If anything, I am too proud to have to say that I was wrong, and really would like this experiment to be a success. *cough* Aaa the things I do for scientific purposes, huh?

Jokes aside, I realise this is highly controversial. You are more than welcome to comment as usual, if you wish. Most probably I will have realised my mistake in a few days – if not before – but it’s something I want to do. I hope I am here to tell the tale lol.
Thank you for reading.
xxx

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