We’re really rolling now.
Eat breakfast. Take your supplements. Drink your water. Go for a walk.
Being Prepared, and Why It Really Matters
We can’t emphasize this enough: preparation is all. This diet is incredibly easy to follow if your fridge is ready for it, and not so easy if it isn’t. If you work long hours, or live miles away from the shops, your new way of eating is going to require forward planning. You do get hungry on this way of eating, and if there’s nothing suitable to hand, you’re likely to grab the wrong thing, simply because your body is telling you to eat. And that’s a big fat disaster.
Unfortunately, the kind of food you’re eating is the opposite of the kind of stuff you can keep in the cupboard – no rice, no pasta, no other useful starches or grains. Pretty much everything you’re eating is made from scratch and involves fresh ingredients. It may sound like advice from the Good Housekeeping Institute in the 1950s, but with this diet, it really, really pays to sit down on a Friday evening and plan your meals for the following week. That way, your time spent at the shops on Saturday will be intelligently spent. The alternative, if you’re me (India), is to do a mad, hurried dash round the supermarket and end up with far too much food, bought on the basis that it’s bound to come in handy and it’s allowed.
We don’t know what your own personal tastes are, obviously, but here is a sample shopping list that should last you a good few days. We like this shopping list. If anyone tells you that the way you’re eating is unhealthy, show it to them. We bet it’s a great deal healthier than theirs.
• Organic eggs
• Rooibos tea, or herbal tea of your choice
• Two cartons unsweetened organic soy milk
• Butter
• Large carton heavy cream
• Bacon, preferably cured without nitrates
• Ham, any kind, preferably cured without sugar
• Salami and chorizo
• Walnuts, pine nuts, almonds to snack on
• A hunk of parmesan
• A hunk of cheddar
• Mozzarella
• One organic chicken
• Another meat of your choice – anything from chopped beef to veal shanks for osso buco
• Fresh fish or seafood (but eat it the day of purchase)
• Firm tofu
• Fresh spinach
• Fresh mushrooms
• Fresh tomatoes
• Fresh salad, and salad vegetables, including chives, cucumber, radishes
• Fresh avocados
• Fresh cauliflower
• Fresh broccoli
• Any extra seasonal green leafy vegetables you fancy
• Fresh herbs of your choice
• Onions
• Garlic
• Olives
• Good olive oil
• Peanut oil
• Mayonnaise, if you don’t make your own
• Sour cream
• Canned tuna (you’ll never starve if you have canned tuna on hand)
• Canned tomatoes (but watch out for added sugar)
• Splenda, if you use it
• Whey protein powder
• Vanilla extract
Now here’s what a non-dieter might purchase instead:
• Eggs from caged chickens
• Normal tea or coffee
• Cow’s milk or artificial creamer
• Margarine or “fake” butter spread
• Large carton ice cream
• Potato chips to snack on
• Cookies to snack on
• Chocolate to snack on
• Processed cheese
• Caged chicken
• Mechanically processed “meat” products
• Fish fingers or frozen battered fish
• Frozen peas and another vegetable or two if you’re lucky
• Canned fruit in syrup
• Canned soup
• Sugar
• Cakes
• Bread
Anyone who tells you this diet isn’t healthy – because they believed all the scare stories about Atkins and eating ground beef fried in lard three times a day – has not got the full picture. And remember: good plans shape good decisions. The contents of your fridge are the foundation of this diet.
I buy frozen dinners a lot. I live alone and they’re just really convenient. You’re going to tell me to give them up, aren’t you?
Not necessarily. But you are going to have to turn into Miss Marple and scrutinize the packaging with enormous care. The majority of frozen dinners use starches as fillers, and they’re usually full of flour and sugar, as well – to say nothing of really bad trans-fats. Obviously, this won’t do.
However, they’re not healthy, and so it’s no great loss. On the other hand, they are massively convenient. We suggest you eat better ones less often. The most expensive ones (they would be, wouldn’t they?) are the ones formulated with the least additives and preservatives and the fewest chemicals.
I do a weekly supermarket trip for things like water and toilet paper, but then I rely quite heavily on the corner shop. Is there anything at all I can eat that’s quick to make and buyable from my local convenience store?
To be honest, your options are going to be really limited – also, it’s a really expensive way of shopping. You can buy the ingredients for an omelet, or a cheese plate (maybe), or for a big tuna salad, but beyond that things are probably going to get a bit repetitive. If you like shopping daily broaden your net and find a street with a good grocer and a decent butcher or fishmonger. Then it becomes simple: a piece of grilled chicken, some roast pumpkin to go with it, and a salad on the side. Easy.
Useful Tip
If you physically go to the supermarket rather than ordering online, avoid the cookie, cake and chip aisles for the first few weeks of this eating plan. There’s no point at all in putting yourself in temptation’s way. Sooner rather than later, these aisles will hold no fear for you. We now blithely skip about every aisle of the supermarket, and buy “forbidden” foods for our families without batting an eyelid.
Needless to say, it is a really, really bad idea to go food shopping on an empty stomach. Don’t make life difficult for yourself: eat first. If you’ve forgotten, head for the nut aisle, grab some shelled pistachios, or whatever nut you like best, and eat them before you carry on. Remember to hold on to the empty packet, as you still have to pay for them!
Here are some more basic takeout lunch and dinner ideas:
Almost any Indian curry, served with pickles but without rice or bread: chicken tikka masala, for instance, with a side of fragrant spiced spinach and another of cauliflower bhaji.
• Thai green or red curry
• Clear Thai soups/broths, such as torn yum
• Satay
• Stir fries
• Chicken with cashew nuts
• Chinese-style spare ribs
• Lemon chicken
• Chicken or shrimp or fish or crab with spring onions and ginger
• Beef or chicken or pork in satay sauce
• Tiger shrimp
• Wok-fried scallops
• Bok choy, or any Chinese greens, either with garlic or with oyster sauce
As you can see, eating this way is not difficult if you’re after something yummy to scarf down in front of the television. Having said that, though, try not to eat in front of the television. You end up eating in a completely absent-minded and repetitive way, which means that you usually end up eating far more than you needed to. Eat at the table, like a normal person.
How We Felt on Day Nine
India:I used to do a funny thing when I was really fat: I was incapable of eating by myself, just looking at my plate. I had to have distraction, in the form of either a book or magazine, or the television. It was as though I knew that physically seeing the amount of stuff I was proposing to wolf down would probably freak me out a bit. Stands to reason, really – I was in denial about what I was eating. So I shoveled it in without properly looking at it, staring at a magazine instead. Weird, isn’t it? This is one of the many reasons why we would really encourage you to eat sitting at a properly laid table, with a napkin, with cutlery, with a jug of water, whether you are eating alone or with somebody else. You need to focus on what you are doing, and that can’t be done with distractions other than conversation. It also means that you’ll know when you feel full, rather than just mindlessly carrying on chomping long after you might have stopped.
Neris:I felt okay.