Thursday 10 April 2014

Eat Your Heart Out AKA The Satan Diet

For the past week, I've been giving "The Satan Diet" a go - a diet cleanse that I found on Pinterest promising up to 10lb in weight loss in just 7 days. I thought I would give it a go as I only have 16lb left to lose before I hit my target, and it would be lovely to drop a whole mass of that quickly! Once I have lost weight I tend not to put it back on as I then regulate with good diet and exercise. So it's not a fad, as such, just a "boost".

I followed this diet to the letter for five days. Zero cheating. However, the diet wasn't the only thing I did differently - I only drank flavoured sparkling water (5kcals per 250ml) or occasionally high juice no-added-sugar fruit squash (11kcals per 250ml). Usually, I drink a lot of Coca Cola - I try to get Diet but sometimes that just won't cut it, you know? So that's something else that changed with this diet - what I was drinking as well as what I ate. I love carbonated stuff, so the fizzy water was a good subsitute. I also didn't drink any alcohol for the full five days and I might have had the occasional beer of an evening normally.

I also did 2x HIIT Tabata workouts during the 7 days, these only last 7-8 minutes but really kick your booty, and are designed for weight loss. I have amalgamated a few workouts that I've found online rather than following a specific one, doing 30 seconds of either squats, burpees, high knees, star jumps, planks or walking lunges. You do 30 seconds all out, like your life depends on it, then you have a 10 second rest. Literally just 10 seconds, and then you do the next exercise. I generally do as much as I physically can, which is usually 7-8 minutes until I'm ready to drop. I use an app on my phone called HIIT Interval Timer and it's brill - you can set your workout period, rest period, and even add in a set up time if you need to get down into a plank for example. It beeps whenever it's time to change exercise and it's so much easier than a stopwatch or clock-watching.

So, with that out of the way, here is the diet -

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/232076187022511871/
This diet is great in theory because, rather than limiting your intake, it's just limiting the food stuffs. You can eat as much as you like on each of the days, as long as it's on the list above.

I HATE bananas. It's the texture I don't like. So on banana day, I only managed 3, two of which I fried. I didn't fry them in anything so they didn't lose any healthiness. They were just more crispy and therefore more palatable for me. The rest of the day I just had the yogurt.

So other than not liking bananas, I did alright with this diet. I ate loads of fruit and veggies, well over my five a day so I guess it was pretty healthy. The problem with it? I lost 1lb. One measly pound! For all that effort! AND I worked out during the week! I wonder if I hadn't worked out, how much I would have lost? Granted I did it for five days and not the full seven, but I don't think I was going to lose 9lbs in two days. I'd be quite worried if I did!

Overall, very disappointing. Yes you can eat as much as you want but you don't lose much weight either. So as far as a fad crash diet goes, it doesn't really tick the boxes! On the Saturday I had a nice juicy burger and four pints of cider to console myself :)

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