TwitFit Club - So it begins

With the arrival of the new year comes the obligatory resolutions about losing weight, being healthy and dieting. Well, 2013 is no different and a few of us on Twitter have teamed up to motivate each other and provide helpful little tips and tricks. Go team!

This TwitFit Club will be the same as your average diet club but without the inconvenience of having to go to meetings and handing over a fiver each week. It's just a bunch of people with similar goals helping each other out. 

At no point will you ever have to disclose your weight and your level of participation is entirely up to you and can vary from week to week depending on how you feel and how busy you are. You can follow whatever diet or fitness plan that suits you most (personally I will doing the Slimming World plan). No embarrassment, no regime and no pressure. 

I will be documenting my weight losses each week and have chosen Wednesday mornings as my weigh-in time. Obviously with any diet you have good weeks and bad and there's no shame in putting on a couple of pounds after a big event or bad week so I'll be documenting that too. If you want to do the same then let me know and I'll create a chart. I've been dieting for exactly 7 days and today was my first weigh-in. The scales were particularly kind and said I'd lost 5lbs. Not a bad start but the first week on any diet is always the most successful and delivers the biggest loss so I'm not expecting anything quite as dramatic next week. I'm happy to admit that I'm quite worried by the prospect of sharing my losses/gains as the various medications I take have some adverse effects. Eek!

Charleynew lost a fabulous 3lb this week. You can find her on Twitter. 

I'll start off TwitFit Club with an easy recipe for guilt-free chips that are very popular on the Slimming World plan. If you happen to be following that diet then these chips are syn free on a green day. Even if you're not following it, these chips are delicious but don't have all the fat that come with the deep fried variety. It's a well researched and documented fact that if you deny all treats you're more likely to fall off the wagon. Armed with this recipe you'll be less likely to make an impulse purchase at the chippy on the way home after a bad day at work.

Ingredients: Potatoes, Fry-Light oil, salt and vinegar. 

Method: Peel your potatoes and cut them into chips. Thick cut chips work best. Par-boil your chips and drain well. Spread them out on a baking tray and spritz a few times with Fry-Light. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 degrees. Season with salt and vinegar. Devour. If you want them a bit crispier you can cook them for longer. 

So, if you want to join in, share a recipe, offer an exercise tip or if you want to take part in the weight loss monitoring - get in touch and let me know. I'm especially interested in calorie burning stats ie how many calories a 30 minute bike ride burns. If you've got any particular requests, share them here and maybe somebody will be able to help you out. 

The Fasting/Foraging Diet

I don't think I've ever felt more popular than I have this past week. Firstly there have been a ton of questions about the Oreo Truffle recipe and secondly I've been road testing a diet that I recently heard about which has definitely got people talking.

By way of a bit of background info, I would never say I've struggled with my weight until now. My wardrobe has clothes that range from a 10 to a 16 and it's never been a problem. I have beefed up and slimmed down more times than a celeb with a fitness video because I love the wrong kinds of food. It may also surprise people to learn that I am an incredibly fussy eater. Most of the time when I'm trying out a new recipe I won't be eating it myself, it'll just be Rich or the rest of my family while I sit down with toast.

In the past I would have no trouble shedding the pounds in a very short space of time. If I had an event to go to I knew I could do my self-invented Lucozade diet and I'd be guaranteed to lose half a stone in 5 days. The Slimming World diet would guarantee a drop in dress size in a month. All that has changed since I started taking steroids for my kidney transplant. I put on THREE STONE in 4 months after the transplant due to the steroids and even though I stopped taking them in July, their legacy lives on. It's still soul-destroyingly difficult to lose even one pound a week so I'm willing to try anything.

The premise of the diet is this: fast on one day, feed on the next. The original diet is called the 5:2 diet because you fast on 2 alternating days eating less than 600 calories and eat whatever you want regardless of calories on the others. For the first 2 days of the diet I thought the feeding days had a limit of 1600 calories but I changed this on day three when I found out. I also decided to fast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a limit of 500 calories a day.

I weighed myself on Monday morning and saw I have 6.6lbs I want to lose as quickly as possible. Throughout the week I drink only water and Pepsi Max. I don't drink tea or coffee anyway so having to cut these out to save on calories from milk and sugar isn't an issue for me.

Monday - fasting

I skip breakfast and by lunchtime I'm not even remotely hungry. Surprisingly I don't get hungry until 5pm so I eat some Nutri-Grain breakfast biscuits at 189 calories. They fill me up and I'm fine until 8pm when I have a slice of dry toast at 100 calories. Total calories for the day 289 with no side effects or feeling ill.

Tuesday - feeding

Again, I'm not hungry at breakfast so I skip it. At work I feel fine, no problems at all. I have some breakfast biscuits for lunch at 189 calories. At 5pm I'm starving but Rich is at the cinema tonight so I'm not cooking any dinner and I'm too lazy to make something for just me. I have a packet of Wotsits, a plain wrap and a Rice Krispie square which comes in at under 450 calories. Only 2 hours later I'm ravenous so I raid the freezer to find something quick to cook and come up trumps with some Tesco potato animal shapes, hardly cordon bleu healthy cuisine but it'll do. I have them with some ketchup and it comes to 500 calories. Total for today 1,139 calories.

Wednesday - fasting

I realise I've been missing loads of nutrients so I decide from now on my fasting days will consist of breakfast biscuits, an apple and grape bag, a banana and a Babybel. This totals 380 calories giving me a 120 calorie buffer if I need it. I've come to the conclusion that I can miss breakfast without it upsetting me so today is no different. I do notice today that I'm incredibly scatty. I do the weekly food shop and buy the wrong crisps for Rich. I also keep leaving things around the house and forgetting what I was doing 2 seconds before. Putting the shopping away is frustrating because I kept misplacing things. I eat my biscuits, apple and grapes, banana and Babybel by 5pm but by 6pm I feel like I've not eaten at all. I have another Babybel and I'm fine after that. Total calories for today 450.

Thursday - feeding

I wake up at 5.45am to take Rich to the station for a business trip. By the time I get home I feel like I could eat a horse. I practically inhale 2 scotch pancakes, some breakfast biscuits and a class of milk. This comes in at a whopping 500 calories - more than I ate in the entire day yesterday. At work all I can think about is food and I start planning my lunch from 9.01am. I get home at 1pm and I cook 100 grams of pasta and add 3 tablespoons of tomato pasata and 15g of cheese. I also cook 2 pieces of garlic bread. Lunch is around 600 calories and I'm in physical pain after eating it. I lay on the sofa unable to move because I feel sick from eating so much in one go but all I can think about is something sweet so 30 minutes later I steal one of Rich's cake bars at 135 calories. I don't have any dinner but when I collect Rich from the station at 8pm he says he's hungry. We go to Burger King drive-thru as it's quick and easy. Despite stuffing my face all day long I order a Rodeo Burger for 585 calories and eat it all. I am horrified at how much food I've eaten today and feel disgusted with myself. I can't see how I'm going to lose any weight like this. I feel heavy, fat, depressed and bloated. Total calories for today 1,820.

Friday - fasting

I'm painting the meeting room at work today. I have no breakfast again but I feel great all morning, full of energy and able to climb up and down step ladders without any trouble. I go straight to the shopping centre after work to buy a book. As I walk past Boots I have to fight the the urge to throw-up because of the smell of cosmetics wafting out the door. I realise I should have eaten before going. I go to bed when I get home for a nap without eating. I don't get hungry at all today. I have some breakfast biscuits at 6pm. An hour later I have a Babybel and a banana. I have a shot of Malibu as well. Total calories for today is under 400.

Saturday and Sunday - feeding

I didn't really calorie count at the weekend. I just ate whenever I was hungry.

On Saturday I had some Philadelphia Light Garlic & Herbs with some crackers and 3 mini Twix bites (about 1 side of a normal Twix) at lunch time. For our dinner I want to use up some of the random bits and pieces in the fridge so I grill some sausages and cut them up really fine. I mix them with pasta, pasata and cheese. I also have a tiny chunk of garlic tear and share bread. Oh, and 2 slices of halloumi. Later on I have a caramel shortbread.

On Sunday I have a slice of white bread with a very thin spread of smooth peanut butter for breakfast. Between 10am and 6pm I have 2 Oreo cookies and an Oreo Truffle, nothing else. I then have more Philadelphia and crackers. I'm still hungry an hour later though so I have a plain wrap and a banana. I also have a (hefty) shot of Malibu.

THE WEIGH IN - EEK

I think about all the terrible food I've eaten this week. Chocolate, bread, peanut butter, a packet of Wotsits, a burger, cheese, pasta etc. I am appalled at how much junk I've eaten and I'm convinced I can't have lost any weight having had all that crap. I can imagine the renal dietician having a fit over the lack of fruit and vegetables and I cringe at the thought.

To my amazement when I step on the scales I've lost 2.6lbs - over a kilo. The fact I usually struggle to lose even 1lb a week makes this a small miracle.

I haven't felt dizzy once. I've kept a very close eye on my blood sugar levels and every time I've tested them they are well within the healthy recommendations of between 5 and 7. I've not experienced any headaches and aside from being a bit scatty and almost being sick outside Boots I've felt ok all week. On my fasting days I've cooked dinner for Rich and haven't once been tempted to snaffle a mouthful or steal a bit.


Overall, I've loved this diet but I think it encourages you to eat junk on your days off. There isn't a single vegetable on my entire weekly intake and that is simply not good enough. I don't especially like vegetables anyway but I can certainly make more of an effort to include them. Now that I've had a week on the diet I know what to expect so I can make adjustments accordingly.

I will continue with the diet for the planned 3 week period and I'm seriously considering keeping it up for the rest of the year.