The 17 Day Diet

I was lucky enough to win a copy of The 17 Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno, from Simon & Schuster publishing house recently.  Just in time too, as my winter weight gain may otherwise interfere with me fitting into my springtime clothing.  I admit I was not as active this winter as I have been in the past, but as I mentioned in a previous blog, I've fallen three times in the past year and I simply wasn't taking any more chances.

I did a test run of this diet on Friday, and discovered that I was down 2 pounds by the following morning.  I say test run as my food supply needed to be restocked and Saturday I ate things like bacon and fried eggs for breakfast, a lovely big biscuit with my soup at lunch time, a muffin for a snack and a big plate of spaghetti for supper. Oh, and let's not forget the cheese ball that went with the wine and cheese while we observed Earth Hour by candlelight last night.  This morning I weighted 3 pounds more than the night before. 

I did get my shopping done however, and made sure I had lots of fresh vegetables and an abundant supply of both chicken and fish.  The chicken breasts were on sale, thank goodness, and were much cheaper than the turkey breast I spotted and considered.  I had kind of hoped to find some ground chicken or turkey also, so I could add bit more variety to the type of meals I was about to prepare.  My nice big grocery store didn't happen to have such a thing however, but perhaps I'll find that some other week.

I'm not going to tell you exactly what my menu was for today, as I'm sure the publishers would rather you go buy the book, but I'll give you an idea of how the day went. 

For breakfast, I didn't need to eat all that was in today's menu and I was quite satisfied anyway.  I really enjoyed my lunch, and supper, which consisted of ample portions of both protein and vegetables.  My biggest problem seems to be getting all that water in me. Like most diets, they tell you to drink 8 glasses of water. That's more fluid than I would normally take in during any 24 hour period, no matter what I tend to drink.  Normally I'm a tea drinker, and I can have that, but I cannot count it towards my water intake.  Well, it's now 7:04pm and I've had only three glasses of water so far today, and can only imagine maybe getting one more in before bedtime. That's half what they suggest, and four glasses more than I would normally manage to drink.   

I'm taking an online painting course these days, and while it's supposed to run from 3:00 to 5:00pm, you have to get in there about an hour early, in order to get a spot. Then the instructor carries on until he's finished, so we're seldom done before 6:00pm.  Somewhere in there I have a dinner to prepare, and I've managed to do that both Saturday and Sunday every weekend for the past nine weeks.  Tonight, of course, we were having chicken breasts, which I wanted to grill.  Well, you can roast chicken while in another room, but you can't exactly stick it under the broiler and then wander off.  However, it is a quick way to cook poultry, and I was able to prepare, and cook, the rest of the meal during the time it was in the oven.  Of course it is necessary to add some extras to my hubby's version of the meal, but that wasn't difficult this evening, as I had some left over rice in the fridge.

I still have a snack available for later this evening. I say later, as right now I'm quite full and don't feel the need for anything else.  Of course, that could be the water.  What ever it is, I can't claim to have been hungry today.  This could be an easy diet, especially since I only have to follow it for 17 days.  If I decide I want to lose more after those 17 days are up, I can actually add other food into the diet for the next 17 day cycle.  In other words, it gets easier as time goes on, and you are not so likely to get bored. 

Wish me luck. I'll fill you in on how things go.