1066 All Stars

Food Diary

Breakfast - 120ml Alove Vera Gel, 2x Garcinia Softgel Tablets, 1x Therm Tablet, water

Lunch - 120ml Alove Vera Gel, 2x Garcinia Softgel Tablets, 1x Therm Tablet, 300ml Lite Ultra Shake (with semi skimmed milk)

Dinner - 120ml Alove Vera Gel, 2x Garcinia Softgel Tablets

Evening - 120ml Alove Vera Gel

Snacks - Fibre packet with water

Free Foods - 2x plums, lettuce and tomato side salad

Drinks - 8 glasses (circa 3l) water

Thoughts

* I did it! Day one completed. Half of the two hardest days down.

* So, how was it? The morning was fine. The novelty of it seemed to overshadow the realisation that I wasn't technically eating anything and to my surprise I remained relatively full until mid-morning, which saw my first use of the free food list. Lunch was equally manageable. The shake provided a change from the gel and was again surprisingly filling.

Early evening however started to bring the first real hunger pangs and an urge to snack. I had been trying to resist the free food list, despite it being given the all clear in the info booklet, wanting to keep the first two days of the plan as 'pure' as possible. A small lettuce and tomato portion allowed me to kill two birds with one stone, allowing a snack whilst also using up some fridge contents.

* There were certainly some difficult moments. The Christmas food has yet to be finished so there are still crisps, chocolate and sweets knocking around the house which I tried my best to palm off on the kids. Morning temptation was largely manageable, save for a wistful look at the crisps as I portioned them onto the kids plates. Evening was another matter, snack desires in full force as a day of nominal physical eating started to play on my mind.

But I managed it. Snacking urges were resisted, cravings offset by some timely free food intervention.

* Having young children in the house undoubtedly makes it harder. Not only have I got to cook their meals and provide snacks, they constantly want interaction, which makes it harder to find the time to plan or simply to rest and conserve energy.

* Speaking of which, I started to feel particularly tired early evening. It is difficult to judge if this is due to the plan or simply a continuance of a weekend pattern whereby I often find mood and energy low on Saturday where the grind of the week catches up with me. My general mood has actually been pretty good, perhaps an uplift from the sense of trying something new and taking charge of at least this aspect of my life.

* Similarly an afternoon headache and accompanying bout of neck pain are par for the course for me most days, the latter swiftly dispatched with a timely dose of Aloe Heat Lotion.

* Water intake was actually easier than I feared. I have got used to drinking around 2 litres at work from a bottle but it turned out to be far easier to manage from a glass. Plus of course the absence of snacking meant that any urge to shove something down my gob could only be filled by water. Bizarrely though I still felt thirsty all day.

* Exercise was a bit less than planned but I think a day of parenting more than makes up for it and I'll soon catch up when I get back to my normal routine next week.

Taste Test

Okay, enough of my waffling. What you really want to know is how the stuff tastes.

* Aloe Vera Gel - very difficult to describe. It has quite a thick texture but is easy to swallow. If anything, it's like a deeply flavoured fruit. Not something you would bring out at dinner parties but frankly I've drunk worse.

* Lite Ultra Shake - we mixed with semi-skimmed milk, rather than the skimmed milk recommended in the plan which means a few extra calories with the trade off that skimmed milk is like barely flavoured water. The shake itself is fine. The vanilla flavour is relatively bland although mine was a little bitty. Perhaps I didn't shake my shake quite enough. It didn't seem to completely agree with me, my stomach roiling for a few minutes (although nothing more sinister), but that may simply be due to the fact that I rarely consume milk in this quantity as much as anything else.

* Fibre packet - mixed with a small amount of water, taste was barely noticeable. 

* Garcinia tablets - they're bloody huge! Tough swallow aside, no problem.

* Therm tablets - normal tablet.

So that's it. I'll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on day two with a look ahead to my day 3-9 meal plan. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some gel to drink.