Apparently my last blog was a really douchey post.
I was just curious about some word origins, but Amy told me that I needed to put a pound in the jar. The douchebag jar, that is.

It was the first blog I’d done in months, and I feel bad that it was the blog I did now! So I am getting back on track, I’m going to write some blogs of good content, that will (hopefully) be a good read.

Getting back on track is not just what I need to do for writing for this blog, it’s what I need to generally at the moment!

In January I started a diet, called the Harcombe diet, which was kind of like hell on earth in the first week, but it turned out to be really good.

It starts off as cutting everything good out of your life. In all honesty, that’s not really much of an exaggeration. The variety of food you can eat is so minimal, and the range of drinks is almost non existent, so trying to function normally for the five days you are meant to do phase one for, is really tough. I ended up being really anti-social, I couldn’t stay up late because I didn’t have the energy, I was moody, I couldn’t go out for food because restaurants and cafes serve all the foods you can’t eat. So unless you have the willpower of the Green Lantern, you just can’t function normally that week.

I only lasted three days in phase one. I ended up having pains in my legs, and in my shoulders and in my back, all from the changes in my body due to the lack of caffeine and sugar. It was weird, horrible, but now, I can see it was necessary!

The basics of the diet are this:
You can eat either carbs or fats for each meal. You can eat as much veg as you want, but you have to limit fruit, because they’re carbs. You have to leave four hours between eating carbs and fats. You can’t eat any processed foods at all.

Overall it is quite a sensible diet, you eat good food, and as much of it as you want, you just can’t eat carbs and fats together. Quite awkward at times, but pretty basic rules.

I lost 2lbs short of two stone over the first six weeks of doing this diet, but now, I have really fallen off the wagon. I have put 8 lbs back on since February/March. It’s so easy to put weight on, and when you go through the pain and difficulty of losing weight, and know how much of a struggle it is to lose that weight, it kind of inspires you to not eat the rubbish you used to.

My problem is easy food. I moved house a couple of months ago, and since I have done so, my diet has not been good. I’ve been opting for easy food, rather than nice, tasty, healthy food! It’s easy to fall into bad habits, but it’s so difficult to create good habits.

I think I need to re-evaluate my New Years resolutions and maybe create a new list of autumnal resolutions ready to go into winter.

More than anything, when I started the Harcombe diet, I felt great! After the first couple of weeks, obviously! I had so much energy, and generally just felt very healthy, and in control of my body.

Now that I am eating chocolate and sugary drinks again, I do feel like they are more in control again, because they are addictions. I come to rely on a sugar fix, rather than eat energy-sustaining grub in the first place. It does take organisation, but that’s it really.

A massive positive I have got from doing all this dieting is cutting caffeine out. If I drink caffeine now, about half an hour later, I start shaking, then about half an hour later again, I get really hungry. I can see now how dependant my body had become on caffeine, and how unhealthy that kind of reliance is.

I do really recommend the diet to anyone who wants to get healthy, lose a few pounds, or just cut out some addictions. It’s very tough, but everything that is worthwhile in life is difficult, so rise to the challenge, and give it a go!

Publishing this will hopefully be the kick up the backside I need to restart it myself!