The Perfect Diet?

Today we had a vegan lunch. Tomorrow - who knows.

Back in July I wrote this post about the Ketogenic diet versus a Vegan Diet. At that time I came down decidedly on the side of the keto diet because I was convinced by the carbs turning to glucose argument. I was, and am still, in favour of intermittent  fasting. However, I can't get the vegan factors out of my head. And, to make it all more complicated, I like history, nostalgia and tradition so what are you supposed to do about baking with real butter, chicken soup with kneidlech, shepherd's pie, Cornish pasties, and all other meat and potato pies?

I've spent hours on You Tube watching documentaries and testimonies form every camp. They all claim to solve the world-wide obesity crisis, reverse type 2 diabetes, reverse even stage 4 cancers, eradicate heart disease, eradicate strokes, eradicate dementia, eradicate almost everything including old age! Grown men and women shouting at each other with passionate anger that they have found the secret to universal good health.

Confused? I totally am. This is what I've found out about all the different ways of eating. Maybe if I write it all down we can see some helpful patterns.

1. What Grandma used to make.
It sounds sensible because who could be more sensible about food than Grandma. She cooked the family through the war (if  you're old enough, otherwise think Great-Grandma) and the nation have never been so healthy as they were then.

But if you're going to do it you need to do it like Grandma (or Great-Grandma) did it. They ate a little of everything, there was no (or very little) processed food, they did not eat between meals, they ate much smaller portions than we are used to now, sugar was rationed.

You also have to take into account that the wheat, vegetables, and especially the meat, that we buy nowadays is not as nutritionally sound as it was back then. The wheat has been modified, the vegetables are sprayed, the soil is depleted, the animals are fed antibiotics (and maybe hormones) to keep them alive and growing. And don't let's start on the spiritual notion that their stress and suffering in some way taints the meat, dairy and eggs. Ok, let's include that because we're not dismissing anything here and I sort of do believe it.

2. The Ketogenic Diet.
No carbohydrates except those occurring in salad and crusiferous vegetables. No sugar, flour, root vegetables, fruit (except berries), alcohol, grains, or milk. On the other hand you can have cheese, cream, butter, meat, fish, eggs, avocados and berries. They advise moderate amounts of protein so it's not Atkins. The perfect keto meal is a moderate portion of protein with loads of vegetables.

The science they claim is that carbs are just glucose waiting to happen, and that glucose is what leads to too much insulin, fatty livers, and all the other diseases mentioned above. Once you eliminate the carbs, your body has to use your stored fat for energy and you go into a state of ketosis and lose weight.

I don't dispute any of this. I've seen amazing transformations from obese and nearly dead couch potatoes to healthy, fit, exercising people with abundant energy and sparkles in their eyes. They have indeed reversed many of the dreaded diseases of middle-age and it shows on their blood tests.

3. Whole Food, Plant Based, Vegan.
I'm skipping vegetarian here because vegetarian makes no sense. The dairy cows and the laying hens are kept in the same conditions as the meat animals. Milk and eggs have the same fat, hormones, and antibiotics. Dairy and meat cows eat the same amount of grain (that could be used to feed hungry people) and give of the same the amount of gas. So if you're vegetarian but not vegan you're kidding yourself.

Vegan on its own is also not enough if we're looking for a healthy diet. Crisps, jelly beans, and all sorts of processed sugary snacks are vegan, You could live off them and still be vegan. So I'm only talking about whole food plant based vegan here.

The WFPB camp are about animal suffering, the planet, and our health. I agree with them about the animals. It's not like it was in olden times when you knew the farmer and the animals frolicked in the fields until their eventual demise. Despite the pictures of happy cows and hens on the packaging, all our meat comes from animals living suffering in factory conditions.

I agree with them about the planet. I have to take their word for it on the gas emissions being the biggest cause of greenhouse gas and therefore global warming. I do understand, however, that the enormous amount of grain fed to animals gives way less food than the grain would have given had it by-passed the fat and protein machine (i.e. the animal).

It only gets complicated when we look at the health benefits. Every amazing transformation and healing miracle I've seen from keto people, I've seen the exact same incredible results from the WFPB vegans. They say you can get enough protein from plants, avocados are super-foods, beans are the key to eternal good health, and you can reverse or prevent all the diseases we fear whilst simultaneously saving the planet and stopping animal suffering.

I also kinda have to agree that it doesn't make sense to be afraid of a potato (although you should be afraid of the vegetable oil in crisps and chips) or a piece of fruit. So again you have to be selective - a healthy WFPB vegan diet does not include sugar, vegetable oils, or any processed foods (including highly refined grains). You also need to eat the whole fruit and not just the juice as this leads to drinking the sugar from 10 oranges instead of the whole fruit and fibre of one orange.

The vegan doctors say they see clogged arteries full of animal fat and it's nothing to do with glucose. They advise high carb, low fat. I'm not a doctor.

4. One Ingredient Shopping.
You can have what you like as long as you buy only foods that consist of one ingredient. Meat, dairy, fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts. I like this concept and you would necessarily eat less if you had to make everything from scratch. I just included this because it's a simple solution although it doesn't solve the carbs versus animals dilemma.

5. Intermittent Fasting.
This works with any diet and you can do it without any big dietary changes. The theory is that you leave time for your body to use up all the energy from the previous meal and get a chance to use some of your body fat for energy. It seems to be another way to get into ketosis.

People say that once they are using stored fat they have abundant energy whilst losing weight. Dr Jason Fung explains that your body tries to slow metabolism when it feels it's running out of food but once you go into ketosis there is a load of fat to burn so you don't slow down at all. He advises to eat low carb, high fat, and drink lots of water. (Actually everyone advises lots of water.)

Intermittent fasting can be as little as no eating between meals, skipping one meal a day, only eating one meal a day, fasting for 16 hours and eating only in an 8 hour window each day (or 18:6, or 20:4). It can be fasting for 2 days a week, or 3, or an extended water fast of several days. Or you could do an extended fast a number of times a year (after Xmas and after your summer holiday?). The beauty of it is that anyone can do it: you travel - don't eat, you have erratic schedules - don't eat, you have food allergies - don't eat, you can't afford a special diet - don't eat, you eat kosher/hallal - don't eat, you're vegan - don't eat, you're in keto - don't eat. Cute eh? I didn't make up that speech, Jason Fung says it. (Obviously some specific medical conditions mean that some people are not advised to fast.)

And, yes, all the amazing, incredible results seen on both keto diet and the WFPB vegan diet are also documented and available all over You Tube for intermittent fasting. Same. Same diseases cured, same conditions reversed, same healthy new lives for people who were almost dead. Go figure.

My Conclusions.
*If you want to save the planet and be kind to animals you need to be vegan.
*If you want good health and to save the planet and be kind to animals, you need to be WFPB vegan.
*If you want to lose weight quickly you could go Keto but some doctors swear that they see all that animal fat in the arteries. So you might be way more healthy and active than if you were obese and this might be why you have good blood work and fewer chronic conditions.
*If you work from home or part time, and have a garden, you could try buying (and growing) only one-ingredient food, cooking like Grandma, and eating like they did in the 1940s. I have no doubt that this would be healthy. It would also take up your whole life.
*Intermittent fasting works for most people on whatever level they want to do it. Many people find it easier not to eat at all than to restrict portions and types of food.
* Whatever works for you is better than eating junk, fast, processed, and sugary foods.

**** EVERYBODY AGREES that you should eat loads of vegetables and drink lots of water.
****EVERYBODY AGREES that you should avoid processed foods, sugar, vegetable oils and trans-fats.

Slimming Sunday - Vegans Vs Ketos

Vegetable Shakuka with eggs and cheese

My blogging friend Michelle from Mummy from the Heart, has been running a Linky called Slimming Sunday for about four months. I thought - great! I'll join that as soon as I have something significant to share. Sadly I'm still waiting. And I promised my real life friend Janet that I would stop writing about weight loss and just do it. Sorry Janet.

Added to that, this is not the post I should be writing today. The last few weeks of school were hectic with all the wrapping up activities, parties, reports, etc... I have about 10 posts backed up in my head and if I don't write about them soon they will become too historical for interest.

However and despite all of the above, here I am. Also because every so often I get asked on facebook how it's going. It wasn't going until yesterday. I was still at the stage of doing loads of research and not having the time to clear my mind and get it into the right place for this project. Every time I did make a good start, a party or a festival or a holiday or an invitation to dinner would open the flood gates and wash me back to the beginning. It was very frustrating.

About the research. There seem to be two camps with opposing views. On the one hand there are the vegans who advocate high carb (all whole grain and organic of course) and low fat but absolutely no animal products. I sympathize with this camp as I think veganism is the ethically correct way to go and it's certainly cheaper and more convenient to stock up on pasta, rice, couscous, oats, beans, etc... But the science doesn't add up. Carbs are just pre-glucose with little nutritional value. They keep you burning the glucose instead of burning your own body fat. They feed cancer cells, provoke insulin production until you have insulin overload and end up with a fatty liver, heart disease, and possibly Alzheimers. Go directly to type 2 diabetes, do not pass Go, do not collect a healthy old age (or even a healthy middle age).

On the other hand, you can find many testimonials that swear they have reached health Nirvana through high carb, low fat, veganism. I think some of them are too far in to back out gracefully having based their whole reputation on this theory. You'll have to do the reading/listening yourself and make up your own mind but it doesn't make sense to me. There is also some dodgy research behind it. For example Ancel Keys who showed that a high fat diet in 7 countries lead to heart disease. He conveniently left out the other 15 countries which he studied and that did not show this correlation. As a result a whole generation (us) have been brought up to fear fat and strive for a low fat diet while obesity has become epidemic. Something must be wrong.

The other camp is a combination of a ketogenic diet (to whatever degree you choose to follow it) and intermittent fasting. Just for the record, the keto diet is very low carb, moderate protein (so it's not Atkins) and loads of vegetables. To be fair, the vegans also advise loads of vegetables so that's the one thing we can all agree on.

Intermittent fasting is as little as no eating between meals to water fasts lasting several days. The most popular choices seem to be the 16 hours fasting/8 hours eating window per day or the 5 days eating:2 days very reduced calories. When I first brought this up a facebook friend commented - I bet your doctor didn't recommend fasting. I'd not spoken to my doctor about it specifically but when I did she actually said I should try to extend the fasting to 17 or even 19 hours a day.

Keto eating is not hard. Who doesn't like meat, fish, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and salad? The hard thing for me is giving up potatoes in any way, shape or form; and giving up the convenience of a sandwich as a meal on the go. And we choose not to have meat at home so that makes it even more difficult.

But I've never been a breakfast eater and I've always known that for me it's best not to eat at all than to try to eat moderately. So yesterday on July 1st, with 2 months of summer holidays ahead of us (although I am teaching a summer course but this is way less pressure than a full schedule), no festivals until mid-September, feeling relaxed and motivated, I ate between 2.30 pm (vegetable shakshuka with three eggs and covered in grated cheese and a small salad) and 5.30 pm (having finished a large salad bowl with tahina dressing).

The Slimming Sunday Linky is once a month so I'll report back about my progress on the first Sunday in August.

Three Weeks Of No Sugar

11 items containing sugar that I found in my kitchen two weeks ago

I was going to wait until the month was up before posting any results but so many people have been asking and after three weeks I have a nice tidy result. So here's the update.

First the original blog post titled Poisoned by Sugar in which I recommended three videos about the effects of sugar in our lives and on our bodies. It was the single most successful blog post I've ever published with over 1,000 views in one day. This proves the point, as if we didn't already know, that people know that something is not right with the western diet, they are searching for answers, some of them are desperate, and the information we are getting is often heavily biased according to who's paying the big money.

I chose three videos that I liked and trusted. The first is a woman whose family gave up sugar for a year. It's an honest unpretentious account of what happened. The second is a Doctor and activist who is fighting at the highest levels of Government to get sugar recognised as a drug on a par with tobacco and alcohol. And the third is actually a series of six videos where Dr Jason Fung explains how too much sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes, a collective name for insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, heart disease, kidney failure, and probably eventually dementia.

If you are already pre-diabetic and have a fatty liver, which I probably do, Dr Fung assures us that you can reverse some of these conditions by giving up sugar, cutting down on carbs and intermittent fasting. I have been doing all this and will tell you more about it in a moment. First a few words about the reactions to the blog post.

Some people said, "That looks interesting, I'll take a look over the next week or so."

However, many people were positively incensed that I should recommend watching videos about a healthy diet. Interestingly, all these nay-sayers are intelligent educated people in real life but in this instance, without even watching one of the videos felt very strongly that they were all a load of rubbish, they would no more watch these videos than join the Flat Earth Society, and that it was very dangerous of me to suggest that anyone else watch them. Presumably because no one is intelligent enough to watch and make up their own minds. It was all a bit like trying to argue with a cult who shut out the modern world lest people be tempted by something that makes more sense than the lives they have lived for the past 50 years.

Others saw the word 'fast' in the phrase 'intermittent fasting' and, because they didn't watch the Fung videos, didn't understand that I wasn't promoting some sort of anorexia approach.

And finally, there were those who cannot condone any dietary choices, even giving up sugar and alcohol, without first discussing it with my doctor. They didn't like the fact that I had read all the symptoms of a fatty liver and, because I have every single one of them (from blood test results, how I felt, and visible signs), concluded that I probably do have fatty liver disease. And, because they also had not watched the videos, didn't understand that the best thing to do about is to make the dietary changes, lose weight asap, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and then check out the situation again with more blood tests. Because, unless you already have liver cirrhosis or cardiac arrest, every doctor is going to advise just that.

Here is what I did and what happened....

Down to 9 items this week. The ice-cream, Nutella, and cake is for DD
I expect we will throw out the jelly as DD has gone off it - too sweet
DD also gets chocolate for Shabbat but there's none left by Sunday
Astoundingly the gluten-free flour (for my nephew) is cornflour and sugar

No Sugar
I cut out almost all sugar. I did not eat cakes, sweets, biscuits, chocolate, most processed foods including yogurt, fruit juices (even 100% juice), ketchup, soft drinks, alcohol, honey, jam, or maple syrup. I looked at the ingredients of anything that came packaged in any way and rejected those items with sugar in any of its forms.

Exceptions: I chose the mayonnaise with the least sugar but when this jar is finished I am going to try making my own. I also kept the soup powder I use to add flavour to soups as the one teaspoon per litre of liquid is acceptable to me. (That is 1 tsp of soup powder, not 1 tsp of sugar.) I also kept the soy sauce as, even though the main ingredient is molasses, the tiny amount I use is negligible. Finally, I am also using up my mustard and next time will either buy the option in the supermarket with the least sugar or buy mustard powder to make my own.

This is what I eat: vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, fish, bread, rice and other grains, pasta, humus, olive oil, non-dairy milks (because I don't like milk), nuts and dried fruit, tea and coffee. (I also choose not to eat meat.) I have to confess that I've also been eating crisps occasionally which is not a good choice but it's my treat instead of anything sweet.

I have been drinking lots of lemon water with apple cider vinegar. I don't know if the apple cider vinegar has the magical qualities that are claimed for it but I've grown to like it and it must be better than too much tea and coffee, which I now drink only occasionally. Mostly I just drink water.

Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting can be anything from not eating in between meals, to following the 5:2 regime (where the 2 fasting days allow you to eat between 500 - 800 calories), to the one meal a day diet (OMAD), to not eating anything for 2, 3, 5, 7, 14, 21, 28, 30 or 40 days straight (drinking plenty of course).

Without even consulting my doctor, I decided not to eat in between meals. ;~p And I've never been a breakfast eater even as a child so I am in fact eating only two meals a day, lunch and supper. I'd like to say that my meals are low carb but many of them are not. I wanted to give up bread but sometimes a sandwich or toast is the easiest option. On the other hand, with two small meals a day, the carbs are automatically reduced by default.

Results
So mainly by cutting out sugar, intermittent fasting, drinking plenty of water, and eating lots of vegetables, I have lost 10 lbs (about 4.5kg) in three weeks.

The fasting has been easy for me as my food addiction is similar to that of an alcoholic. It is impossible for me to eat something small to keep me going until the next meal without opening the floodgates and ending up bingeing on anything and everything. This happened a couple of times and my binges were all about bread and potatoes - no sugary foods.

In general I ended up not eating from about 7pm until 2pm the next day (19 hours). In reality this means not eating in the evening, which is the hardest part for me. In the morning I'm rushing off to work and busy without a break until lunchtime so I don't even think about food until then. I do sometimes have a tea of coffee in the morning with milk.

I feel less stiff, the pain I was getting in my knees when I climbed the stairs is gone (I live in a third floor walk-up), and I am less breathless when I reach my front door.

I intend to continue until the weight has gone and then check out the fatty liver situation to see if a more modified diet is needed to reverse it more.

If anyone has any questions please watch the videos before asking as all the answers I have are answered in them.

Poisoned By Sugar

The 11 items in my kitchen that contain sugar. More about this on a later post.

I've been saying that sugar is poison for years. I knew it to be true but I couldn't explain why except that sugar is known to be empty calories. I'd read Pure, White and Deadly and also Fast Food Nation but I didn't retain enough facts to be able to make the argument. And despite knowing that it was true, it's ever so hard to give up on sugar completely.

Then I had some routine blood tests done and some of the results were shocking. I've always been healthy if, at times, overweight. This was a big wake-up call especially as the 'at times overweight' has slipped into obesity over the past couple of years.

As you know from reading this blog, I've tried everything in a quest to eat a healthy diet. For me it was never just about losing weight (except when I was desperate), it was was always about finding the healthiest diet to ward of disease, to keep from becoming an old woman before my time, to be able to get the most out of life, etc... Of course this also includes not being fat.

My 'wake-up' call was actually frightening, all the more so because my father died this year from multiple complications of type two diabetes, which isn't a disease in itself but rather a collection of symptoms including insulin resistance and any number of the following: non-alcoholic fatty liver, fatigue, obesity, pressure on the heart and kidneys, circulation problems leading to leg ulcers and amputation, skin problems, loss of eyesight, and possibly alzheimer's disease.

I started googling about healthy diets for prediabetics. Folks, it's all about the sugar - even the sugar in carbohydrates such as bread and pasta. Ok, we knew this already. But did you know the extent of the sugar in your food? And do you know what it's doing to you?

I love this entertaining talk about Our Year of No Sugar by Eve Schaub. I'm giving you the link rather than embedding the video because it's more reliable in the long term. Please watch it, it will make you think about how you feed your family.

I was then all fired up against the food industry and thought that surely, after all these years of being told about it, someone must be fighting it. I found Dr Robert Lustig on You Tube who is waging a similar war to the anti-tobacco wars. The two are remarkably similar in many ways. Please watch Dr Lustig here, it's shocking.

And finally I found Dr Jason Fung, an expert in obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type two diabetes. I wanted a real doctor, not a health guru with something to sell. And I wanted information that applies to everyone, not a specific diet. I love it that he tells you how you can reverse type two and that the drugs are not the answer.  This is also for anyone who doesn't want to be fat or unhealthy in the first place. (Warning: this is the first in a series of six videos.)

If you care enough about this issue and you take the time to watch all eight hours of video that I've given you, you will be well informed. What you do after that is up to you.

Vegan And Juicing, Information And Misinformation

Since starting this clean eating I've read a lot and learned a lot. I've also got a lot of questions and reactions from people who at the least know what I know but seem to assume that I've not read all the same popular articles as they have about the subject. Why is that? (Real scientists not included in this observation.) So here is what I've learned.

1. The most annoying question is: are you going vegan for health or ethical reasons? You have to know why you are doing it. However it's not just a case of picking one of the five stock answers: health, weight loss, ethical (grain going to cows instead of starving people in Africa), environmental (CO2 emissions from cows and water resources used), animal welfare. It's never either/or, it's a mixture of all of them and some more important than others according to your individual circumstances. I gave my reasons here.

2. Since then I've switched to juices rather than smoothies because it felt like I was liquidizing my salads for no good reason, juices are far more refreshing and they do also contain fibre (especially with my cheap juicer) just less. Also a 'fast' in this context doesn't mean nothing else, it means substituting some meals for juices.

3. Labels will do you in. In popular agreement vegan seems to mean a holistic approach to not using animal products for anything - no honey, no leather, no wool. Whereas a plant based diet is only eating plants without any judgements on wearing leather or wool. The purists are not interested in pesco vegan or flexi vegan. Apparently this gives them a bad name and makes it harder for them to argue their case. So unless you are 100% committed, don't even go there. Make up your own name. Personally I have no problem with honey or wool and I'm leaning towards eating fresh unprocessed fish rather than relying on foods fortified with artificial vitamin B12 or taking a supplement.

4. Environmental vegans have a problem most of them don't even know about. Crops grown on the scale we need to feed the world population need fertilising. The fertiliser used is either from animal waste or made from fossil fuels. Either way you're screwed. Otoh, show me a regular vegan (not an off-grid-living extreme vegan) who won't go on holiday by plane or even use the petrol it takes to run a car. So we're all making compromises just by living in the 21st Century. Get over it.

5. Plant based diets are all about health. There is very little scientific evidence (if any) that a 100% plant based diet is the key to good health. I firmly believe that a mainly plant based diet and cutting way down on (or even cutting out) processed sugar, dairy, added salt and chemically enhanced processed foods will vastly increase your chances of being healthy. I don't think a moderate amount of unprocessed meat, fish or eggs will harm you. I would also keep wheat down so not too much bread or pasta but ok to enjoy moderately. I'm basing this personal conclusion on a revisit to Forks Over Knives after being alerted to various ploys of mis-information used in the film. You can read a full critique here  but keep an open mind as this writer gets a little over enthusiastic in debunking everything that moves in the movie, some of which is legit.

6. Mis-information in Forks Over Knives. The original documentary is no longer available on You Tube but you can find the extended interviews which is all the 'science' without the cartoons. Here is the bottom line as I see it.

a. A western diet is not only a meat eating diet. The western diet is rightly (imo) blamed for bad health and specifically for conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, allergies, some auto-immune diseases, obesity, joint problems, some cancers, and much more. This is probably true and there is scientific research to back this up. However, they keep confusing meat eating with a western diet. Research that shows how a western diet that is detrimental to good health includes too much wheat (bread, pasta, and pastry), too much sugar, too much salt, and too much vegetable fat - all vegan and plant based. By interchanging the two terms they deliberately confuse and the conclusions make no sense.

b. The China Study. This study looked at the health of the population of China according to province. They found that the rural areas where a traditional rice based diet was eaten, resulted in the healthiest population. Where people had switched to eating a more western diet (although the doctors are being interviewed specifically about animal protein) they started to suffer from all the chronic illnesses and cancers that are prevalent in the west. What they left out was that the people in rural areas also eat some dairy, meat, and eggs in moderate amounts. Doesn't every farmer have a goat and some hens? They probably also eat less as they don't have access to fast food.They also forgot to mention that the western diet includes all the unhealthy stuff mentioned above. And that the industrial areas where the western diet has become more popular is also more polluted and the jobs tend to be more sedentary.

c. The doctor who saw the second and third generations of Filipinos in Hawai slide into ill health and obesity as their traditional Philippines diet was abandoned for a western diet didn't mention that they also ate a lot of fish in The Philippines and some meat. That the new western diet saw a switch from other grains to an enormous amount of bread, and an enormous jump in the amount sugar and salt being eaten. And the access to fast food as opposed to home cooked meals only which means they're eating far more. All crucial to the equation I would think.

d. The Norway Effect. There is a sensational graph showing how when the Nazis invaded Norway in 1939 they confiscated all animal livestock for themselves. Hardly any meat or dairy was available to the Norwegians from this time until the end of the war. The graph shows a drastic drop in death by heart attacks and stroke, and a dramatic rise once the war was over. The graph looks very dramatic but if you look at the actual numbers they have a scale of 20 - 30 on the y-axis and the actual number of deaths from these diseases fell by 6 or 7 deaths per 10,000 people. The article I linked to above made a big thing of only 6 people not dying from the change in diet which was annoying because there were 3,000,000 people in Norway at the time so the actual number was around 2,000 after five or six years of reduced meat and dairy diets. 2,000 people a year is not insignificant and worth further research. My point is - have you seen the amount of coastline in Norway? It is inconceivable that they did not continue to fish and eat animal protein from the sea. And again, the lack of food during those years means people just ate less of everything which has also been linked to better health.

So there you have it. This is what I've learned. I am very happy to discuss all the above in comments here or on fb but I bet (as is always the case) most of my answers will be - please read the blog post this point is covered. Serious discussion, observation, opinion, experience, and even correction, is welcome.

The Snowman Diet

I've finally found it - the fastest, simplest, biggest weight loss diet ever. It's called The Snowman Diet after our very own little Olaf who trialed the diet whilst wasting away on our balcony. Here is the chubby little fellow at 10:30 am on the day he came into our lives:

Six hours later on The Snowman Diet and he looked like this:

There were a few side effects such as the loss of an eye (his only good one in fact) and an elongated nose but his clothes were literally falling off him so it was all worth it. I swear to you that there has been no photoshopping on these pictures whatsoever. This is the genuine article, he really did drop about 30% of his body weight in only six hours!

We next weighed in after another couple of hours. So this next picture shows 8 hours on the diet. Notice his long, elegant, slimline, nose:

So far the diet had involved just sitting in the sun. No food was imbibed but, on the other hand, no exercise was necessary. This diet is especially suitable for those who abhor exercise.

Anyway, just as a plateau was seen to occur, as it does mid way through most weight loss programmes, we changed tactics. Our subject, Olaf, switched to sitting in torrential rain for the next few hours. Once again, for those worried about the exercise requirements - he didn't move an inch, we brought the weather to him. And only 3 hours later, 11 hours after starting the amazing Snowman Diet, Olaf looked like this:

At this point we, the professional dieters, thought that he'd gone far enough and should probably stop the diet. However, he wouldn't hear of it and insisted on staying out in the rain. Between you and me, I think a tinge of anorexic psyche had crept in. Whatever, the client is always right, so we went with it. Two hours later we had to concede that this is not a diet you want to try at home. Our subject looked like this and was ailing fast:

And here he is at half past midnight, after 14 hours on The Snowman Diet. After this distressing photo shoot, I went to bed:

Surprisingly there was still something left of him at 9.30 in the morning after 23 hours of dieting:

But by 10:30 am, exactly 24 hours after commencing the [now controversial] Snowman Diet, there was nothing left of him. R.I.P.:

There is a conspiracy theory that at the 23rd and a half hour, the pizza delivery guy smuggled in some garlic bread and spicy dip, thereby providing enough sustenance for the snowman to ride away with him on the back of his motorbike and go live at the pizza parlour, near the stone oven, where there is loads to eat, and it's nice and toasty. There's a flaw in this theory, however, or several.

No, we must sadly report that our subject did not survive The Snowman Diet. This means that 100% of snowmen who trialed The Snowman Diet did in fact die.

Verdict: This is not a diet to follow if you want to live as well as lose weight. For people who don't particularly care about living, as long as they are slim, The Snowman Diet could be the answer to your dreams.

Disclaimer: It's Purim next week, a Jewish festival in which we are encouraged to be very silly.

Why The Downton Diet Won't Work

I have just watched all five seasons of Downton Abbey in about two weeks - I usually made it to bed before 2 am (just) except for one memorable night morning when having watched a whole season in one sitting, I crawled under the covers at 4.30 am.

Being obsessed with food and diets, I came up with the brilliant idea of a Downton Abbey Diet. I googled Downton Diet to check that it'd not already been done and got 27,700,000 results in 0.45 seconds. Oh well.

The thought is an obvious one of course. Here are a family of stick thin women who never go to the gym, don't do pilates or yoga, do not jog (heaven forfend) and eat without ever considering calories, carbs, fat, or any other nutritional science. They eat three meals a day and afternoon tea with cake.

On the surface you could make a good argument for the Downton Diet (other than the catchy alliteration). I thought about it a lot and made a study of what and how they actually ate. Of course I'm only talking about the family upstairs. Downstairs they can eat whatever they want as they are engaged in physical labour for upwards of 14 hours a day and running between four storeys to do it. Upstairs, one writer has already pointed out that though they do walk a lot, on the other hand they don't even lift their own hairbrushes to do their hair.

It seemed to be done by eating meals of basic ingredients cooked from scratch, no foods with added chemicals or trans-fats, small portions, eating slowly, no seconds and no eating between meals. I noticed that the women drank a cup of tea at teatime but never took a slice of cake. Every meal was an occasion. Marielle Guiliano says to do that in French Women but she doesn't go so far as to recommend dressing for dinner every night.

I was all set to write the book me. So to extend my research I did a bit  more googling around the subject. Turns out things weren't all Downton Abbey in the 1900-1920s. In fact far from it. So here are the reasons The Downton Diet has been scrapped.

1. The Crawley women are all actresses in 2015, not real women from the 1920s. I know this will come as a shock (it did to me) but they are probably all working out for two hours a day and doing the Atkins/Juicing/5:2 diet.

2. I looked at pictures of real women from that era and whilst none of them is obese (no fast food, processed calorie laden snacks, or take-aways) they are all shapes and sizes. They don't look as skinny as the Downton ladies that's for sure. Some are less curvy and some more so but it looks like no one cared or even gave it a second thought. And in fact men preferred the curvier figure that suggested a life of ease rather than one of a starving skivvy.

3. After The London Season Edwardian society departed for the The Season Abroad, attending spas in Germany and Austria, or Switzerland. There they would be put on a strict regime of diet and exercise. After a month they would return home with their stomachs settled and their weight down. Some people repeated the spa experience again after The Christmas Season. They had to do this every year as, in fact, they lived a life of gluttony. All they did was eat and socialize. Pre-breakfast, sit-down breakfast, mid-morning snack, luncheon, afternoon tea, a fuller tea for when dinner would be late, a multi-course dinner, a late night supper, and nibbles placed in bedrooms in case they were peckish during the night.

4. The cook worked full time in the kitchen. She had no other duties. The raw ingredients were delivered so she didn't even have to go shopping. They do say you have to make the time for a diet but this arrangement might be a bit excessive for anyone with a life. Having said this, Sarah Ferguson did take a few months out to do a full-time diet in Switzerland with a private cook and diet coach. Although she came back ready to teach us all how we too can lose weight like her, we all understood that we may be able to lose weight but not 'like her.'

5. Even the raw basic foods we buy now are not as pure and basic as the food was 100 years ago. Our meat and dairy is full of antibiotics and hormones, our eggs might be too, our fruit and veg is genetically modified and sprayed with dangerous pesticides, much of it comes frozen and vacuum packed from half way around the world, and salt and sugar is added to anything you didn't pick/kill yourself. I'm exaggerating but only because the food industry is so large, powerful, convoluted, and secretive that no one really knows the truth.

So there you have it. The rise and fall of The Downton Diet. Anyone fancy some cabbage soup?

Meal Hygiene

It seems to me that DD is hungry every evening just before supper. Even if I bring it forward to to try and catch her before the whine, "I'm hungry!" As soon as I go to make supper she's hungry. Of course I tell her to wait bearing in mind that she's eaten a number of snacks since coming home from school about an hour before. "Supper's in 10 minutes," I say.

"But I'm hungry now! What can I have to eat?"

"Nothing, you'll wait 10 minutes and we'll have supper."

"But I'm hungry! Can I have something to keep me going?"

"No there's nothing now, wait for supper.

"There must be something I can eat now." She goes to the fridge. 

"Get out of the fridge!" I shout, losing it. "We're not in Africa, you're not starving to death, you can wait 10 minutes!" I forcibly pull DD's head out of the fridge, shut the fridge door, and banish her from the kitchen.

Later while we eat, I tell her that when I was a little girl and I was hungry, I would ask, "what time's supper?" not "what can I have to eat now?" And if Grandma said supper was in 10 or 20 minutes, I'd go away and be hungry for 10 or 20 minutes while I waited for supper. I don't think she got it.  

I remember my brother-in-law saying that they never established good meal hygiene and that it had been a mistake. He wasn't referring to washing your hands before you eat and using a knife and fork, he meant serving proper meals at set times, sitting at the table and not running an all-day open buffet. I loved this idea and vowed to instigate in my home - but I've never quite managed it.

Natasha at The 1979s Diet writes this: In the 1970's we had 3 meals a day. The only snack we had was a piece of fruit. There were no take-aways, no giant cupcakes, no endless supply of nibbles ...... and you felt properly hungry between meals.

Natasha once wrote about this oft had conversation: "I'm hungry."
"Have an apple."
"I don't want an apple."
"You can't be very hungry then."

LOL, didn't we all get that response at some time in our childhood?

At what point in time did we stop waiting for supper (or any proper meal)? When did we make the shift away from three proper meals and a couple of tea/coffee breaks to just grabbing food whenever we felt like it?

I think in our case it might have been when I was about 9 with the instigation of packed lunches for school and my Mum going back to work. These two events meant that there was suddenly a stock of small bags of crisps and chocolate biscuits in the house to supplement the sandwich and fruit for packed lunches, and we were encouraged to take something for 'tea' to keep us going until supper - which changed from an early children's supper to one family supper later when Dad got home from work. Suddenly we were allowed to help ourselves and we did.

I tried to be more strict with DD and I got the following lecture from my 6yo: "But I'm hungry. You've got to let me eat something if I'm hungry. I didn't come here just to be hungry and not eat anything!"

I stood my ground but, as always, it ended with a fight. I won of course because I'm the grown up but I know why she fights it - because she's seen me eat whenever I'm hungry and not just at meal times.

So from now on this family is going back to 1970 when there were no ready made snacks in the house apart from fruit, meals were served at the table three time a day, and in between were a drink and a biscuit - just one. Well maybe two.

Does anyone practise meal hygiene these days? I'd be interested to hear how it works in your house.

The Silliest, Most Unhelpful Response To Diets

As you know if you've been reading this blog recently, I'm doing Herbalife. With mixed results and another two weeks to go, I'm not making any final judgments until the end. You can read my Herbalife posts here.

However, I have to comment on what to me seems like the silliest response to anyone who announces they're on a diet. What overweight person hasn't heard it? As soon as you say, "not for me thanks I'm doing Atkins (or any of the other diet plan)," someone is going to respond with, "diets are all rubbish, all you need is to eat smaller amounts of healthy food." This is usually said by a slim person.

Whether it's Herbalife, The Cambridge Plan, Atkins, South Beach, Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Billy Connolly (it's not Billy Connolly - what's that woman's name who sells whole pre-packed meals and exercise dvds?), etc... I agree that all of them have a way of eating that you would not want to keep up for the rest of your life. Some are faddy and unhealthy for a long period, some too expensive, and some just too complicated to think about for more than a few months.

But how does it help to tell a fatty that all they need to do is eat smaller amounts of healthy food? Do you think they don't know that it wasn't a healthy diet that made them fat in the first place? Do you not think that if they were able to sustain a diet of smaller amounts of healthy food they would have been doing it for a while and not be fat?

It's not just a matter of willpower. I know fat Jewish women who, if you presented them with a sumptuous buffet and said, "by the way it's not kosher, everything's made with ham or cooked in lard," they would not touch a morsel. However hungry they were and however delicious the food looked, they would not even be tempted. It's not kosher so it's not for them any more than if you'd served a wonderfully presented dish of dog food. Yet they cannot restrain themselves from overeating in any other [kosher] setting.

Nor is it ignorance. Fat people often know more about nutrition than anyone due to years, lifetimes sometimes, of researching the solution to being overweight. They are not fat because they don't know that too many carbs result in too many kilos of fat. They don't eat those excess carbs because they think it's healthy. Fat people eat as compensation for something else in the way that an alcoholic or drug addict is tempted by their own particular poison when certain stress buttons are pushed.

If I'm upset, frustrated, angry (or even just a bit cross), nervous or agitated in any way, I find myself heading to the fridge for comfort. Under stress for long periods of time I've not had a heart attack, migraines, stomach problems, skin eruptions, a stroke, or a nervous breakdown. I've got fat.

The best antidote is to get into the right mindset and cure oneself by eating smaller amounts of healthy food. No Nobel prize for stating the obvious here. However, I bet a Nobel prize would be awarded to the billionaire (and they would become billionaires if they cracked this one) who discovered a sure way to get yourself into that mindset. I've done it a few times in my life and ended up slim and feeling great. In every instance I kept off the weight until I was sabotaged by extreme stress or upset. And every time it took me years to achieve the same mindset that enabled me to lose the weight in the first place. If I could only pinpoint the trigger I'd be writing the book as we speak.

In fact I did manage to lose a stone (14lbs) in the four weeks before I started a month of Hebalife. In my case it was desperation followed by ten days of a urine/kidney infection that left me without any appetite. Experience has taught me that a few weeks of eating smaller amounts of healthy food is not enough to keep me on the straight and narrow for the long haul.

I chose to do Herbalife because it would give me a strict programme to follow, without being complicated (involving too many choices or loads of preparation), for another month. Never mind how effective Herbalife is as a nutritional product, for me the success would come from knowing I'd paid quite a lot of money for it so I jolly well wasn't going to waste that, and from adding to my 14lbs of weight already lost as extra motivation to continue losing afterwards.

For those who cannot get themselves into the right mindset, diets like these (choose any of them, they all work if you stick to it) get you to the starting post without all the excess baggage. In the end if you want to stay slim and healthy, of course you must eat smaller amounts of healthy food. Nothing will take the place of changing your eating habits for life. But how much easier it is to do this from the starting line of being fit and healthy. How much easier it is to eat healthily without the added burdens of depression, low self esteem, ill health, restricted mobility and general sluggishness of being overweight.

So no we haven't been conned into paying for rubbish (rubbish is all the processed and fast food we might have been buying beforehand) or even wasting money on something we can do ourselves without paying for it (I clean my own home but I wouldn't ridicule those who employ a cleaner and don't do it themselves). Sometimes you need a little help to get started and you pay whatever takes. For me it's three weeks of guaranteed not falling off the diet wagon. And when I've reached my target weight, then it might be useful and helpful to remind me to eat smaller amounts of healthy food.

Listography: 5 Truths According To Women

With the wisdom of a certain age (beginning with F and rhyming with nifty) and the experience of being a woman, here are five things I've learnt and feel compelled to share (in no particular order but there's something for everyone). You can read more truths according to women at the Listography HQ, Kate Takes 5.

1. No matter how many times Trinny and Susannah say that figure hugging clothes are more flattering to the fuller figure, it is usually more comfortable to wear something floaty. And that's the secret. Comfort outweighs fashion every time. There is no point in looking like a magazine fashion plate if you have that pinched look of pain or discomfort on your face all day. Why would anyone choose a pair of shoes (or a long tight skirt) that effectively turns them into a cripple? Floaty, comfortable, glam, fabulous, happy and relaxed works best. Just remember FCGFHR - it stands for floaty, comfortable, etc... ;o)

2. No one has as charmed a life as you think. Everyone has their problems, hang-ups, regrets or worries. At the end of the day you want to bring your own problems home with you rather than someone else's problems.

3. That fantastic amazing diet that made your three best friends lose upwards of two stone each and you can't wait to get started (just as soon as you can get your hands on 14 grapefruits and a suitcase of cayenne pepper)... it's not the diet. It wasn't the diet that was fantastic and amazing, it was the women who stuck to it. Most diets work, none of them are magic. You just have to choose one and stick to it.

4. The way you spend your days is the way you live your life.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Look after the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves (I adapted that one myself).
You can't have your cake and eat it.

All of the above are true. Take it from someone who has recently turned 50 and is still making the same resolutions she made when she turned 30 (and every year since). I have to admit that it was a grey day when I finally realized that most worthwhile careers come with a lifetime of homework but get over it and just do it.

5. This one is a bit spiritual and out of character for me, but I do believe it to be true. If you are in tune with the world it will work for you. Coincidences and good luck are your own personal miracles and they happen if you are open to them. There is plenty of money and love to go round as long as you are in the loop. Let go of the need to control everything and the universe might just show you good things you never even thought of.

Note to publishers: I could probably expand this wisdom into a book with lots of made-up case studies, some photos of sunsets off Google Images and a large advance. Contact me privately.