To reach perfection all I had to do was follow Tony’s 10-Day Pure Energy Challenge. If I could ‘commit with full force’, I would ‘experience the power, vitality, energy, and joy of your body being totally alive with health’.
Life would never be the same again! Starting TODAY!
- Get up at 6am! Sit up in bed and do Tony’s deep breathing and something called ‘priming’ which involves thinking of everything I’m grateful for and everything I see in my future. I see fancy cars. Hot men. Bestselling books. A nice flat. And I’m grateful for everything. Grateful for my bed! For my friends! My family! For my laptop!
- Go downstairs. Boil the kettle and drink hot water with lemon. No more coffee for me – it’s acid! Too much acidity in the system causes lethargy and illness! My body is now a temple. A dilapidated temple undergoing renovation!
- Make salad for breakfast. Yes, salad. Open bag of lettuce and chop up an avocado. No more marmalade on hot buttered toast – bread is the devil! All white food is evil. Green, that’s the colour I want. Tony says that we should ‘Go Green!’ to alkalize our bodies. No more processed carbs either! No wheat! No sugar! We are what we eat! And I want to be a green smoothie! I will no longer be hungover and spotty, instead my skin will glow and I’ll bounce out of bed with energy!
- Talking of bouncing . . . Tony bounces on a tiny trampoline called a rebounder every morning to stimulate the lymphatic system and get rid of toxins and possibly protect against cancer. I don’t have one. Instead I jump up and down in the kitchen for ten minutes – OK, maybe one minute – until I get dizzy. Then I run – OK, walk quickly – to the top of Parliament Hill, where I jump up and down some more. I am lymphasizing!
- Keep running – well, walking fast – while pumping my fist in the air. I wait until I find an empty bit of the park before shouting: ‘I am unstoppable!’ at the top of my voice. This is an incantation. Affirmations are for wimps, what you need are incantations, where you really feel what you are saying and you shout it out loud. A woman walking a Jack Russell appears. It’s awkward. I keep running – OK, walking – muttering the incantation in my head and pumping my fist in a subtler way, kind of down around my hip.
- Come home. Tony plunges into an ice bath every morning, to boost his circulation and immune system. I barely remember to fill the ice tray in the freezer – so instead I turn the water of the shower onto cold. Kick legs under cold water and shriek. This can’t be good for you! I turn on the heat.
- Go back to kitchen and make a green smoothie by stuffing kale, cucumber, coconut water and green vitamin powder (£26) in my new NutriBullet (£59). Glug down some Udo’s Choice Oil (£24), which Tony recommends because it is full of essential fats. Not all fats are bad! We all need good fats!
- Work from 9am to 1pm. I am a working, focused machine. No tiredness. Tiredness is all in the mind. I write another article about mascaras. Take regular music breaks to get into a ‘peak state’. Jump up and down by my desk to Rihanna and Beyoncé. Feel inspired by their power and beauty. I too can be beautiful and powerful! Oh yes, and rich!!
- Find myself worrying that the intro to my piece on mascaras is crap but stop myself going down this negative path by throwing my shoulders back. Tony says the quickest way to change your mood is to change your posture. I sit up straight, with chest, chin and eyes up. Yes, sir!
- Salad for lunch. More lettuce. More Udo’s Oil. Want to chop up some cheese and ham but Tony doesn’t like too much red meat or dairy. Settle for a tin of tuna but think he said something about mercury in it? Maybe I should go vegetarian? Yes! Maybe even vegan?
- Another brisk walk. More muttered incantations and subtle fist pumping:
I am powerful and strong! Fist pump.
I do it all easily and effortlessly! Fist pump.
I am powerful and beautiful! Fist pump.
- 2pm. More work. Write about a new pair of tights that claim to be the best-ever tights in the world. Try them on. They rip straight away.
- 4pm. Pee on a stick to check the acidity of my urine. Yes, to change your life you must first change your urine! Tony says my pee should be pH7 but mine is 6. This is bad – I am acid!
- Drink water. Lots and lots of water. Water is an essential and major component of all living matter! My body will soon be as clean as a mountain stream.
- 4.30 – the late afternoon slump but I don’t need caffeine, I need to oxygenate, or in other words, breathe! Tony says that instead of taking coffee breaks, we should take ten ‘Power Breaths’ three times a day. I inhale for eight seconds and try to hold for the recommended thirty-two seconds but splutter out air after ten. Oh well.
- More dancing and bouncing. Download the soundtrack from the event on Spotify.
- 6pm – look at Tony’s Facebook group. People are posting motivational quotes: ‘Own Today!’ ‘Make your Move!’ ‘If your dreams don’t scare you – they aren’t big enough.’ We send each other messages: ‘You’re freaking awesome!!’ These are my people! Positive, motivated people! Making the most of their lives!
Text from Daisy: ‘You’re outstanding!’
‘You too!!’
‘You freaking rock!!!’
‘Have you peed on your stick?’
- 7pm. Don’t drink wine – it’s acid! It kills brain cells! Get high on life!
Rachel walks in as I’ve just finished my third salad of the day and am doing more jumping up and down in the kitchen to Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Paradise City’.
‘I think I preferred F**k It,’ she says and walks upstairs.