The DietChef Thing: Day 28.

Hey everyone.

Well this is it: you're finally rid of me! Well, not quite, I do have this one more entry to do, and I expect I'll be back with more posts and updates now and then, and I have Anchor, Youtube, Team-FM, in fact hey, what's that? You're not rid of me at all! But this is the last DietChef every day blog. Today is the 28th day of my DietChef journey.

I do not want to wake up this morning. A lot of gentle calling, arm stroking and even a kiss has to be used to bring me into the world. I'm horribly stiff this morning too. Oh well, boohoo! Karen levers me up in the end and we go through the morning routine. No Granola left, boohoo again! Actually big boohoo because I have to eat luxury birdfood, I mean muisli. Actually it's ok, nice and crunchy, but come back soon Granola, all is forgiven! I have to face bran tomorrow, but I think even Lady Willpower baulks at that, I didn't order it! I think we might bug out and have toast.

OK, breakfast over, we get on with what turns out to be an extremely busy day. Only soup I don't like or pot noodle for lunch. Again I skip it, naughty me! Anyway I'm too busy to stop for it. Even busier in the afternoon and the five O'clock hole is very very very deep. But here's a thing. Noble husband's having pizza, and though it smells completely divine I'm not wobbling. Isn't that an amazing change? I said I had no more new things to try. I do, I have two, the first one is dinner, cottage pie. It's a british staple, but if you don't know what it is, it's basically ground beef or lamb seasoned with fried onions in a rich gravy, topped with creamy mash potato and usually crispened up in the oven. Sounds pretty plain, and a badly made one can be hell on a plate, but a good one can be oh so gooood! I'm having my usual nice helping of crunchy dark green leafy greens with mine, so I heat it, plate up and sit to the table.

First bite: yum! I went ahead and added my usual sprinkle of salt, I've only found one dish I didn't have to do that to, and providing I remember, this dish is good. Nice tender meat not ground too fine, rich savory gravy, creamy mash and of course, fresh greens cooked crunchy tender. It's definitely a "Watch this, Effie!" dinner!

I spend a leisurely evening, mostly on Youtube. At nine I have my last cup of tea and my last snac, Strawberry Apple Oat Bar. I won't do a first bite because I've had oat bar before. Think any kind of low calorie cereal bar and you've got it. Slightly sticky, slightly crumbly, very sweet and not very satisfying.

And so, my faithful readers, and you who have found this by accident. Here we are. This isn't the end, not by a long way. It's only the end of the beginning. Four weeks ago today I was so enormous my marriage rings wouldn't fit me, which was distressing me very much. I was growing out of my clothes. I was finding it hard to move properly, hard to bend, hard to, um, how to put this delicately, care for myself personally in ways you never want anyone else to have to. Like I said in one of my early blog entries, when you live with a chronic condition for thirty years, you get to know your body, every little creek and twinge and gurgle, and I knew I'd never ever been this big before. The feeling of things slipping out of my control was really terrifying me. I'd tried so many, many diets and exercise plans before and all I'd achieved was to make myself obsessed with food all the time, desperately hungry and miserable. I'd always shied away from DietChef because it's not cheap, and you have to be committed. If you do it for a few days then decide to chuck it in, that's a lot of money down the drain. But this time, well, four weeks ago today, I'd been researching things I could try, pills, juice diets, all kinds of weird and whacky things, and they all just said "Quack! quack!" to me. I thought to myself: "The only thing that's going to work is that thing where I get all my food sent for each day and all I have to do is heat it up."

"Yeah," Whined whining Whinnie, "But that's really expensive! And what if we don't like it."

"Then we'll have to lump it!" I said. "Hell, they must have something we can eat, surely we could just look at the menus. If they haven't got anything we like, we won't buy it."

So that's what I did. I'm glad actually that I didn't read all the bloggers and reviewers first. I looked at the website and made my own judgment. There are some that say it's a scam because they've had bad experiences. If you actually look at those posts, you'll see it's one problem which was then sorted for them, but those posts saying: "Don't do it, they're thieving no good scammers!" stay on google forever! I actually did look at trustpilot, which is a review site I've used before, and that was quite enlightening, saw a lot more praise than blame there and found it agrees with my own judgment. My own review is there now too. Just for the record, and Google, They are not scammers. I think there are ways they could improve, but my own experience has been very good thus far. Touch wood.

Anyway. Four weeks on I have lost a bunch of weight. Karen says she can see more coming off every day. My rings now fit me again, to my great joy and I can wear all three on my left hand again. I don't weigh, I find it's just too stressful, but I know I'm losing by my own shape, by the fact that jeans I couldn't even do up four weeks ago fit me comfortably now. By the fact that when I go out, people ask if I've been dieting and wow about how much weight I've lost. I can move better, bend better, my bones don't hurt quite so much. Best of all, I know this is a program I can stay on and I'm not hungry nor suffering any bad cravings.

I hope someone has found this blog helpful, and I hope you might have got some insight, or at the very least, a few smiles out of reading it. My 28 days hasn't been perfect, I've had slips and missed entries, but, as I promised I would, I have always been totally honest. This has been a true record of my first four weeks doing the DietChef Thing.

I want to devote the last words of this blog to my wonderful husband. I couldn't have done this without him, nor could I go on doing it without his help, love, unending patience and support. He has unflaggingly hauled my heavy box, scanned packages for me, put up with hunger snarks at the beginning while I was adjusting, held me tenderly through wobbles and tears when the cravings hit, exhorted me not to skip lunch, made me endless, and I do mean endless cups of tea without one single murmur of complaint, never ever hectered or bullied me if I wavered, or, even worse, jollied me along when I was feeling fed up. I'm incredibly lucky to have him, my love and my best friend. For what he is to me and does for me every day no thanks can ever be enough.

So now I am done. Thank you for reading. Until we meet again, goodnight everyone.

Food eaten today.

Breakfast: Luxury Muisli, plain no fat yogurt.

Lunch: skipped it.

Dinner: cottage Pie, sliced spring greens.

Snack: Strawberry Apple Oat Bar.

Drinks: Tea, no milk or sugar.

Bad? No.

Are you hungry? no.

Mood? Reflective.

Music: Ella Fitzgerald: Everytime We Say Goodbye.