NO EXERCISE, NO WATER
...YET I'M 2st 9lb SLIMMER!
IT TOOK me almost six months – and I admit I surprised myself. But I somehow managed to lose more than two-and-a-half stone by following a random diet.
It was a diet I concocted myself – and a diet with next to no exercise because I have a heart condition.
Call it Donna’s Dopey Diet if you like, because my plan conflicts in some ways with the generally accepted ‘rules’ of the dieticians in several aspects. I didn’t drink loads of water, as most slimming experts advise. Eight glasses a day? I doubt I drank that much in a week…and what I did drink was generally tomato juice or fizzy water rather than the boring tasteless stuff you get free from the kitchen tap in the UK.
Dumpy Old Gran is now Dainty Old Gran (relatively!), though I still have a spare tyre around my midriff.
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BEFORE
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That’s the legacy of being unable to engage in a weight-loss programme involving aerobic exertion due to a combination of angina, backache and arthritic laziness. About 15 years ago, I lost 21lbs on a Slimming World diet. But I knew I’d be unable to follow a set regime and since I simply HAD to lose that 35lbs to sairs money for my sick granddaughter Daisy, it had to be a diet that was simple. Anything remotely complicated was a no-no as I’d be sure to forget the recipe. So I decided to base the whole thing around a carbohydrate shutdown.
I’ve never been a big fan of rice, pasta or potatoes – including chips - so cutting them out was no big deal. I also decided to keep my bread intake to a minimum. For breakfast (when I was bothered), I’d have a single round of toasted wholemeal with a thin coating of butter and strawberry jam and a cup of tea or coffee with a little semi-skimmed milk and a sweetener.
I tend to get up late, so it would usually be mid-afternoon or later before I was hungry again. If my tummy began to rumble earlier, I’d snack on a pickled gherkin or a few cherry tomatoes. If that didn’t do the trick I’d have some fruit. As much of it as it took. For lunch, if I was at home, I’d make myself a chicken, ham, smoked salmon or tuna salad, and dress it with balsamic vinegar rather than mayonnaise or oil. Followed by a 125-gram creamy yoghurt for dessert. At 111 calories per 100 grams, I saw my favourite muesli yoghurt as an acceptable treat – providing I didn’t have more than one a day .My other special treat was two squares of milk chocolate each evening.
For dinner, I’d prepare a saucepan full of green veg and carrots, boil it all for about ten minutes and serve it up with chicken, steak , chops or liver - or if I felt fishy I’d go for oven-grilled salmon or mackerel. No limit on the amount of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, etc
Initially, I thought that eating out would be a no-no. But I ended up dining in all sorts of restaurants at least twice a week…and still lost weight. In, fact, only once in the 22 weeks of my diet did I GAIN – and that was a result of being wined and dined by my daughters during a visit to England.
Like most people these days, I love Indian and Chinese food . But while I’ve yet to find a decent limited-calorie Chinese meal, I found I could eat Tandoori dishes without putting the pounds on. Typically, I would order a Tandoori mixed grill with salad and a single poppadom with a small amount of mango chutney. No rice, curry sauce or nan bread, yet I’d enjoy the meal more than ever because I didn’t go home feeling bloated.
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AFTER losing 2st 9lb
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In ‘normal’ restaurants, I’d order a steak and salad with perhaps a few grilled mushrooms. Desserts were one of the things I missed…though if hot cherries were on the menu, I admit I did occasionally indulge. I had my consolation in those two squares of chocolate waiting for me at home. I also found a new treat in frozen bananas, something I first heard mentioned during my Slimming World days in the late 1990s. Just chuck a few peeled bananas in the freezer, leave them for a few hours - and treat them like ice lollies. You can even push a stick into one end to make the banana easier to handle. You’ll find they begin to thaw as you eat them and somehow taste much nicer than in their natural form.
Well, that in a nutshell is how I shed 2st 9lb in 22 weeks without ever feeling hungry. But a word of warning. It’s little over a week since I reached my goal weight, during which time I’ve been celebrating big-time.
The slap-up meals are already taking their toll. I’m not saying what the scales read this morning…let’s just say I need to go on a diet.
FOOTNOTE: My Diet ran in conjunction with a campaign to raise funds for CICRA, the Crohn's In Children Research Association. Details are at www.justgiving.com/donna-gee
Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) July 12th, 2013