Secret to diet success: chilli flakes

DAY 28

Apologies for the promo-style title. But did you know, one mother of three lost five times her body weight using this one simple trick?

Yesterday was a 500-calorie day for me (known as a 'fast day' in the exclusive club of 5:2). It was particularly difficult because it was a bit of a bad day. The kind of day where you just want to go home and eat a whole packet of chocolate digestives. All I could do was go home and inhale the steam off some herbal tea, which is more pleasant than actually drinking it.

But in the evening I discovered something interesting (word used loosely). In my 200 cal stir-fry (24g of chicken, one 'nest' of noodles, garlic, tomato, mushrooms and soya beans), I sprinkled in an unusually and quite frankly dangerously large quantity of chilli flakes. I don't know what came over me. I suppose I was just feeling reckless (word used loosely).

The result was a dish that alternated between highly toxic and absolutely delicious. The initial forkful would be full of fresh, garlicy flavours but as I chewed and swallowed, my mouth and throat and chin (I'm a messy eater) would start burning furiously, and I'd have to take a big gulp of water and wipe the tears away and take a few moments to recover. In the end, it took about three hours to finish and, because I'd been taking every bite with a gulp of water, I was completely full up by the end.

The certainly were 'hot, zesty and intense', in much the same
way having your tongue nail-gunned to a recently-used BBQ might be.

So forget fancy diets - this is the real secret to weight loss: load your food with chilli flakes so it's a struggle to get through and you're relieved when it's over.

In other news, my boyfriend has taken on the role of personal trainer and is making me do new stuff at the gym. While it's quite embarrassing jumping around, sweating profusely and making disconcertingly masculine grunting noises in front of the only person in the world who needs to find me attractive, it seems to be working and I can feel myself getting stronger. And anyway, he's seen me drunk.

Oh, and if you're interested in how chilli really can boost your health (rather than my inane observations), then check out this blog by my friend and MASTER OF NUTRITION Louise Comerford - Six amazing health benefits of chilli pepper

Rejection and pasta bake



Dogfish: unassumingly cute

Well, I'm disappointed not to get the job I was excited about, especially as they asked me what my favourite shark is. I knew I shouldn't have gone for a great white! Far too obvious. Next time I'll go for something unexpected, like a dogfish. They'll think wayhey, here's someone who can think for themselves.

Finding a job is hard - it's such a competitive market, but you have to keep going. I know there are things I need to work on because they come up time and time again, but the good thing is, I'm quite certain I'll get there. (Cheesy analogy coming up) It's kind of similar to how I felt during the half marathon - my knees were hurting, my body said 'let's go home and sit on the sofa, shall we?', old people were over-taking me on their afternoon strolls, but I knew that if I kept putting one sweaty, numb foot after the other, I would eventually cross the finish line. It would be impossible not to. And I did! For some reason at that moment my overwhelming emotion was anger, I'm not sure why but that is beside the point, which is that I am going to get there - wherever 'there' is, eventually. 

Today is the end of a very stressful week. But in a kind of masochistic way, I really like it. If I'm not doing something I find uncomfortable, then I'm probably procrastinating. So now it's time to forget about it all, the exams, the job, the attempted weight loss, the big expanse of AHHH WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE ahead of me...and just concentrate on the pasta bake I am about to make, which will involve tuna, vegetables, and a looottt of cheese.  

How to make a drink last 4 hours

DAY 23

Diet is difficult today. Might start
nibbling the aloe vera.

I'm sitting in All Bar One in Covent Garden waiting for my job interview...but it's about four hours from now so I've got a bit of a wait.

I'm also on a £5 budget and a 500 calorie maximum, so I'm going to drink this (Covent Garden price) diet coke very very slowly, possibly putting a beer mat on top after every tiny sip so it doesn't evaporate. 
I came in early so I could jump in a taxi to the station with my mum, whose destination is slightly more exotic than a sticky table in central London. In 30 hours, she'll be on the other side of the world in New Zealand, where it's summer and they have a nice accent and whales. But nevertheless (I hardly ever say that word in real life), today could be the beginning of a really cool career for me! And if not, it's a nice day out. I can pretend I'm businessy and important in my interview outfit. People will think I'm typing important work things. Maybe I should get an excel spreadsheet up?

I can see the offices across the road which is, now I think about it, quite a stalkery position to be in. I should have bought my journalist trench coat and newspaper with eye holes. I can check out all the other candidates. Maybe set traps for them. Come to think of it, they're probably all waiting in this bar too. 

Earlier I had a walk through the Apple Market where they usually have the buskers and street performers. There's also a food market selling shredded duck wraps and paella in big sizzling dishes and it smells AMAZING.



Sadly I've already got my lunch (vegetables) in a Tupperware box in my very stylish backpack, but I'd quite like to trade it for a duck wrap and a ben's cookie (which, if you haven't tried, are incredible. Sort of cakey, gooey inside but crispy outside, crammed with big chunks of melted chocolate. This is killing me.) I do wonder sometimes if I should just give up trying to be healthy, and live a happy life gorging on all the things I love.

I better get on with some shorthand practice now before my laptop battery dies. I'm also about one tenth of the way through my coke. Better slow down.

The end is nigh!

Journalism at its finest
(from Private Eye)

DAY 22

Crikey, it's been a while since I last wrote a blog post. The end of my NCTJ fast-track course is nigh, and I've been busy cramming myself with information I'll forget by the end of the week. That's what exams are for, no? 

After 14 years of state education, three years of university and two years of grown-up work, I can honestly say this last five months have been the most gruelling. There is just so much stuff. So much stuff to know. It's been constant pressure, constant doubt about whether I'm good enough, whether I've just blown a lot of money and actually maybe I should just do what I wanted to do when I was six, and become a farmer's wife so I can have a dog and a lamb. But I had to keep going, and as much as I've looked, there are no farmers wife courses in this country. 

I'm really going to miss the morning train journey to Brighton. This is not sarcasm, I love trains. I love that you can just sit there for a while, not having to do anything, not being anywhere. If I sat down like that on the sofa I'd start feeling guilty for not doing stuff. And it would be a bit weird. There is something exciting about train stations and airports and the tube. Everyone's going somewhere, there's a feeling that you're on a frontier, that beyond the platform there's a whole world to explore. Obviously I just go to college, but it's nice to have the option. Every morning I get into the same carriage with the same people. I never talk to them, but I'll miss them. Lady with the grey bob, guy with the headphones, bald man.

The 5:2 diet is still going alright! Especially as my body hates letting go of fat. In 3 weeks I've lost 4lbs, 4% of body fat and put on 3lbs of muscle. The pull up is still a long way away as I haven't had much time to get to the gym recently. I went for a run tonight though, got out all my post law-exam jitters.

I'm London-bound tomorrow for a job interview. I'm like a nerve junky - I've been so awash with adrenaline this week I've become numb to it. Maybe this time I won't make a twat of myself.   

I bloody love the countryside

Next to my house is a lane. Down the lane is a style. Over the style is the A27, and across the A27 is this:

A really pretty field that (to the right of the frame) looks over the valley towards the Rickney marshes. I don't come here much because I'm not very good at crossing roads. The A27 is definitely a 'close your eyes and run' job, so it's best if I don't do it too often. Balance of probability and all that. 

Today has been beautiful. I sandwiched horrible, horrible public affairs revision between a 2 mile run (to ease myself back into it after a persistent knee injury that doubled as an ideal excuse not to go running) and a walk this afternoon to the other side of the A27. 

There's nothing more refreshing than getting out by yourself into the countryside. I do like the gym, but nothing beats this. 

In other news, I discovered something good yesterday. The 5:2 diet seems to be working! It's only been a week, but according to the bathroom scales, I've lost 3lbs, put on 3lbs of muscle and lost nearly 2% of fat. It doesn't make sense, because on Wednesday I went to the cinema and demolished a bag of sweet and salty popcorn from Tesco (v yum) and then a pint of lager at the pub. This must be the best diet ever. 

Anyway, the moral of this blog, is that time spent alone in a beautiful place is the best cure for most things. Except for agoraphobia, and loneliness, and fear of sheep which is, according to Google, called 'ovinaphobia', a word that sounds a little bit like some kind of STD. 

People on diets piss everybody off

Example of annoying dieters:
See Gwenyth Paltrow's website 'Gloop'
and Cameron Diaz's new 'Body Book'
for confirmation.

DAY SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT and NINE

The truth is: people on diets piss everybody else off. Nobody really wants hear about how 'good' you've been today, or how you nearly gave in to the cookie jar at work but managed to veer off at the last second. They don't care about your 3 bean salad, or your 'after-gym smoothie'. Those things are really annoying. 

But to the dieter, these things become an overwhelming part of day-to-day life. As soon as you restrict your diet, you start to think constantly about food - what you're going to eat and when - what you'd rather eat and how much of it. Some people even start adapting their social lives to fit around their diets - they stop going to dinner with friends in case the burger and beer deal proves too tempting, they go to the gym instead of the pub after work, and they say no to that night out because they're 'going for a run tomorrow'. In other words, they become instantly quite boring. 

Like people who do a lot of charity work, these people are annoying because they make the rest of us feel bad. I went through a phase of healthy eating, training and charity fundraising last year and I have never been so annoying. (Note - it is the people who donate money, and not just the fundraisers, who deserve to feel good.) (That's not to say they don't work hard. Bar charity skydivers.)

At the risk of sounding like I've been paid to say this, this is what makes the 5:2 diet so appealing. It's a part-time diet, so some days you're that infuriating person who turns down offers of sweets and chocolate and yaps on about having no energy, and other days you're in the pub quaffing pints of beer and packets of pork scratchings. You might not achieve a body like Beyonce's any time soon, but at least you can tell people, between mouthfuls of crunchy pig fat and Guinness, that you're on a diet. 

Today is my second 'fast day' of the week, where I'm only allowed 500 calories. It's absolutely fine, I'm breezing through it. Even though this morning my strict 45g of porridge erupted in the microwave, leaving me with a kind of small sticky, not very satisfying oatcake for breakfast that I had to first peel off the outside of the bowl. 

I keep meaning to take pictures of my portion sizes in case anybody's interested in how it looks, but when I actually get round to eating I tend to be too hungry to think of getting my camera out. After 11 hours of study though, a 200 calorie dinner looks a lot like this:

I'm going to weigh myself at the end of the week and compare to the beginning of the week to see if there are any changes. Unfortunately I've not had time to do much exercise as exams are coming up. 

Before I go, just a quick note to say thank you to everybody who's taken the time to read my blog. I'm always surprised when people actually want to read my stuff, which is usually scrawled in diaries that nobody will ever see. Also thanks to my mum, who is doing the 5:2 with me even though she doesn't need to. 

Panic at the buffet

DAY FIVE

I'm joining the masses and starting the 5:2 diet tomorrow. The one where you eat normally for five days and restrict yourself to 500 calories for two. 

The problem is, I'm a 'panic eater'. Like those people who, at the first hint of a storm, rush out to buy unusually large quantities of things like tinned haricot beans and spam, I often find myself eating, not because I'm hungry, but because an opportunity has presented itself. Say someone puts out a plate of biscuits. How can I not have one? It's not every day someone puts out a plate of biscuits. And why stop at one? Why not have three, or even four? Who knows when I'll next get a chance to have a biscuit? At least, that's what the primitive part of my brain tells me. The part everyone else in modern society seems to have got a handle on. My appetite can't seem to fathom that we no longer live in the hunter gatherer days where people had to eat as much as they could because chances were scarce.

This panic eating problem proves particularly interesting at buffets. When I walk into a buffet, I immediately become very suspicious of everyone around me, and very protective of the food cart. Of course, I have to maintain at least an illusion of decorum, so I usually wait at my table for four of five minutes before sauntering up to the counter like I couldn't care less whether there's any food left. Once I've piled up and returned to my table, it's not relief I feel, but fear that while I'm here eating my duck pancakes, all the sesame toast will go. Buffets are very uncomfortable places for me. Getting full is the worst thing. Walking out of the door knowing you're leaving all that free food behind is just wrong, it's wrong. 

So my point is, I'm worried that if I know tomorrow's going to be a hungry day, won't I just stock up today?

It seems I'll have to establish a bit of old fashioned self control if I'm ever going to banish the belly.

Tonight I'm going to weigh myself (eek), take some measurements and then get this 5:2 experiment going. According to clinical trials, some people lose up to 12lbs in a month on this diet. Sounds a bit drastic to me but that would be 12 fewer lbs to lift when I get round to doing my pull up, so it's worth a try. 

Pull ups and interview tips

I recommend Daily Yoga and Daily Workouts as great
Windows 8 Apps if you can't get to gym. 

DAY THREE

I just devoured a handful of grapes. It's the first bit of fruit I've eaten for two weeks. Usually I eat fruit to get rid of sweet cravings, but over Christmas that would just be absurd. It would take up space that should be reserved for important things like Lindor balls and Boursin cheese.

It's DAY THREE of my resolution to do a pull up. I did some yoga, arm and abs exercises this morning, but I do wonder if I still would have done them if I didn't have a huge pile of revision to avoid. 

In fact, I'm not sure I'd be writing this blog at all if I had no impending deadlines to blot out. I tend to be at my most productive when there's something unrelated but quite urgent to do. 

On top of revision, I should also be preparing for an upcoming job interview. The last one I had seriously flumped. It was for an editor role that was way above me, so much so that I wondered if they'd short-listed me by accident. But I tried anyway - I did lots of research, thought about what skills I had to offer and tried to convince myself that beneath the shyness and social ineptitude, there was a high-powered 'Meryl Streep in Devil-Wears-Prada' character just waiting to burst out of me.

There wasn't. But at least I can now compile a list of interview tips:

1. When drinking tea, keep an eye on what your mouth is doing. 
If possible, try to also control the order in which you swallow, breathe and talk. I messed mine up and ended up dribbling tea from my mouth onto the desk. In an attempt to reverse the dribble, I inhaled sharply and ended up breathing the tea back into my lungs, which I then spluttered back up onto the desk. This was all before the first question.  

2. Always prepare ideas, or at least try to improvise. 
I was asked what kind of articles/content ideas I would pitch for a lifestyle magazine about the coast. Now I thought I'd be brilliant at this kind of question, seeing as I love the sea and also really enjoy coming up with article ideas. But for some reason, the only thing that popped into my mind at that point, as they stared at me waiting for the answer that could make my whole career, was 'lobster farms'. I couldn't even expand on it. As I sat there trying to look like I was really considering the question, the only two words going around my head were lobster, and farm, blotting out all other potential ideas. So make sure you always go to an interview armed with a few intelligent responses, and don't overestimate your ability to improvise under pressure. 

Needless to say I didn't get the job. 

I've run out of tips, and it's also lunchtime so better wrap this up... as online stuff is all about interactivity these days, I'd like to invite you to add your own interview tips as comments if you have any :) (queue embarrassing blank space) 

*Have just received this interview tip from my friend Kaylie, who writes a very funny blog called That's The Way The Kookie Crumbles :

• Don't spray large quantities of toilet air freshener on self beforehand "I once used a staff toilet before an interview and sprayed loo air freshener on myself rather than deodorant. I stunk out the joint to an eye watering level."

New Year's Resolution: do a pull up

My New Year's Resolution is to do a pull up by the end of 2014. It doesn't sound like much, but I weigh almost 12 stone and have the arm strength of a small child.

So to get to this almighty goal, I'm going to have to lose the chub. 

It's not going to be easy. Last year I trained pretty hard for a half marathon and gave up all nice (bad) food for Lent, but only lost about 4lbs, which sneakily found their way back onto my stomach and chin(s) when I wasn't looking. 

I've just about got the endurance fitness, now I need the strength. It's important to note too that in any apocalyptic situation, I may at some point have to pull myself up from a window ledge/cliff face/tree branch, so it would be comforting to know I could do it.  

I should also say that I don't really like succumbing to the whole female stereotype thing of hating my body and wanting to lose weight because it's silly, really. A couple of years ago I injured my back at the gym and had sciatica for about 11 months which meant I couldn't walk very far let alone run, so now I feel like just having legs that work is brilliant. However, sometimes I look pregnant and that's not on. 

I'm going to try to keep a short daily blog of my progress, just because I've never really kept a proper blog before and I've always felt vaguely guilty for not having one, seeing as I call myself a writer. 

DAY ONE  

On Day 1 of my resolution to do a pull up, I woke up in a Premier Inn in Langney smelling of cigars, jaeger-bombs and sick. I then went to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet and strategically ate everything. Then, being far too full to do any exercise, I went home and watched TV for the rest of the day.

DAY TWO

This morning I made it to the gym, where I did my workout and managed to hang onto the pull up bar for about 10 seconds. I then went home and ate a giant slab of lasagne.