Minimize Me: 10 Diets to Lose 25 Lbs in 50 Days by Andy Leeks Page B

because an iPod
offers far more choice (as does the grapefruit diet of today) and it’s much
more expensive (more calories means more money spent on food). Talking of iPods
and fruit, I do find it funny that there are two giants of technology with
products named after fruit. I am referring of course to Apple and Blackberry,
and I know there are thousands of journalists out there keeping everything
crossed and hoping against hope that both companies collapse on the same day,
just so they can run the headline "Apple and Blackberry crumble".
     
    The grapefruit diet for me has been the
easiest one yet. I’m used to eating fewer calories now and that has been helped
by cutting out snacks completely and hugely reducing my portion sizes. Another
technique I have adopted, which I urge you to do if you are thinking of losing
weight yourself, is to drink a glass of water before each meal as it helps you
to feel full more quickly. I got into a routine of peeling and segmenting a
grapefruit for breakfast and saving and storing the subsequent juice to have
with my lunch. I then had a normal evening meal followed by another grapefruit
for dessert. I really enjoyed my five days on the diet and I genuinely feel sorry
for those people who had to suffer the 1980s version, especially for the ones
who don’t even like grapefruit in the first place...
     
    I stepped onto the scales on the
Thursday morning expecting to have lost very little weight. Even though I had
kept to my promise of eating exactly the same as the previous week with the
only variable being the grapefruit, it still meant that I was consuming an
extra 100 or so calories a day with my morning and evening shots of vitamin C.
The scales registered a 1 lb loss, and I was pretty happy with that. Sorry San Diego, but I beg to differ.
     
    Summary:
     
    A perfectly healthy diet if you are to
take on the most recent incarnation, but I’m not convinced the grapefruit
actually does anything for you other than increase your vitamin C levels.
     
    Starting Weight: 14 stone 1.5 lbs
     
    Finishing Weight: 14 stone 0.5 lbs
     
    Weight loss: 1 lb
     
    % of body weight lost: 0.5 %
     
    Faffiness: 2/10
     
    Difficulty: 2/10
     
    Would I do it again? Yes
     
    Total weight lost: 27.5 lbs
     
     
     

Diet 10 - The Cabbage Soup Diet
     
    Thursday 4th December
November to Monday 8th December
     
    Weight: 14 stone 0.5 lbs
     
    So it’s finally here – the
last diet of my 50-day challenge, and I’ve decided to finish on what could be
deemed the most extreme diet of all – the cabbage soup diet. For the next five
days I’ll be consuming at least three bowls of cabbage soup, combined with a
small amount of other allowable fruits and vegetables, every day. It’s an
extreme diet with a proven track-record, with some people claiming to have lost
as much as 10 lbs in just seven days. Every article I have read, however, has
some kind of disclaimer which says that the weight-loss is only ever short-term
as the weight you’re losing is from water rather than fat.
     
    I’ve never been a huge fan
of cabbage, except for when it’s swimming in butter and cream or served with
the welcome addition of lardons or walnuts. I just find it a little bit boring
on its own. In restaurants, the tastiest foods get top billing, and when a dish
is described on the menu you'll notice that the ingredients are listed in order
of either taste or cost. You’ll also notice that cabbage almost always features
last, thanks to being out-scored on both counts.
     
    Here’s an example:   
     
    Roasted fillet of local
lamb with sautéed sweetbreads, confit lamb shoulder, baked Jersey royals with a
chilli and rosemary butter, minted peas and spring cabbage.
     
    Every other item on the
menu either explains in detail how it’s cooked or what it’s cooked with, but
the cabbage is just a cabbage. It’s cheap and it’s reliable. If the cabbage
were a chess piece it would be a pawn, if it were to appear in a Hollywood