How I Lost 2 Kg In 7 Days Without Counting A Single Calorie - Detox and Eat Well Not Less

The Objective
 
To detox by feeding my body non-processed food for 7 days and see the impact. It wasn’t designed to be a "diet" just an experiment to clear my body of all the junk. I felt “dirty” after a 5 day holiday eating lots of ice cream, cake at breakfast, pasta and fried foods – you guessed it, I had been to Italy.
 
In general, I was getting obsessed with food and my portions were getting larger and larger. I was reaching a new norm with my eating.
 
My weight post birth had fallen to a steady state of about 77 kg and in May it had been jumping between 77 and 79 kg never going lower than the 77kg mark even though I was trying to be food conscious.
 
DETOX DAILY MENU
 
Breakfast: a fruit smoothie – I thought this would be hard to get used to because I love porridge BUT it wasn’t. I had a huge smoothie that almost filled the NutriBullet cup and it took so long to finish that by the time I did, it was nearly lunch time.
 
Lunch: a huge bowl of salad
 
Dinner: a light cooked meal with lots of fresh fruit and vege  

Snack: any fresh fruit or vegetable allowed BUT I found that I wasn't needing to snack much. Coffee and tea with milk allowed with no sugar. Honey allowed to sweeten one cup of tea or coffee in the day. All second cups of tea or coffee cannot be sweetened.
 
Where I got my recipes: LoseWeightByEating
 
Note: I didn’t have smoothie only days as recommended in the Detox above because that would be too extreme for me, I'm breastfeeding. I adjusted recipes to account for my taste, e.g. I added tomatoes, cucumber and grated carrots to salads a lot. I used chicken thigh instead of breast or canned mackerel in sweet chilli – it’s more fattening but hey ho!
 
Banned Food

• No confectionary (sweets, chocolates, cakes, biscuits)
• No processed meat (i.e. sausages or bacon or ham!)
• No red meat (for me that’s just pork, minced beef or beef meatballs and goat, we rarely have proper beef pieces or lamb at our house)
• Nothing made from flour, so: no pasta, no cous cous
• No bread – a huge deal for me, I love toast
• No cerelac – I usually have it once or twice a week
• The biggie – no rice! I love white kilombero rice from Malawi. I eat it almost daily.
• No nsima
• No oats at breakfast – they’re healthy but fruit and vegetable smoothies are better
• No juice or soft drinks. I didn’t really have to ban juice and fizzy drinks because I don’t drink these much anyway, they’re already not part of my diet.

Basically no easy fast energy; give your body foods it has to work to break down to get the sugar out, e.g. quinoa or beans instead of pasta.
 
Allowed Processed Food

• Dried Berries – sprinkled on my salads in small quantities
• Prunes – I had them once in the 7 days sprinkled over yoghurt (3 prunes sliced up)
• Canned fish, e.g. mackerel, Tuna
• Canned beans
• Cheese and greek yoghurt (small amounts)

 
In a proper detox you should only allow canned food in water with no sugars or sauces but I didn’t go that extreme. I had a can of Heinz 5 beans over the week (half on one day and half a couple of days later). I drain as much of the sauce off as possible when I had canned food.

EXERCISE

I jogged 3 times and swam twice over the 7 days.

​The jogs were just under 3 km each and the swims were 30 minutes each time. Always first thing in the morning, always on an empty stomach. That's how I usually exercise. I hadn't jogged in 7 months due to pregnancy and recovery after but I had been doing cardio and lots of walking in that time so I wasn't starting from a base of no exercise.

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The big question I had before I started: how long will I last? I thought 3 days max, my husband thought 1 day.
 
I wanted to make a facebook status update re. my detox project but I was so sure I would fail that I decided to only do it if I succeeded. Facebook is a happy place, right?
 
SO – WHAT HAPPENED?
 
Weight Over The Period:
 
I weighed myself in the morning before drinking or eating anything
14-June: 77.7 kg
16-June: 76. 3 kg
17-June: 76.0 kg
21-June: 75.7 kg
 
Note: my breasts are super full with milk this morning and I think if they weren’t I could be as much as 0.5kg lighter – you should see the size of them.

The shocker: my breastmilk production shot up! My baby had been stuck to my breast all the time, never unlatching, a possible sign that it was taking her ages to get the needed quantity of milk. However, by about day 3 or 4 on this eating plan she was getting so full in 5 minutes - she'd unlatch and take on this milk-drunk look - that just said, "that was nice". I don't know if this was a coincidence as milk production gets more efficient over time anyway but I think it is definitely related.
 
Feelings Over The Period 
 
14-June: I kept realising I was stopping myself from snacking on things, e.g. my son’s food, bits of chocolate. I realized I don’t eat large quantities when I snack but I am grazing all day on anything and everything: nuts, crisps, a piece of a chocolate (not a whole bar), toast, sandwiches, etc.
 
15-June: I had a carrot as snack to avoid a post-swim sugary snack; I go to the park with my friends on a Thursday and I was 100% going to have a pastry if I hadn’t had an apple to hand when I got hungry. Note to self: always carry a fruit in one’s handbag otherwise you will give in.
 
16-June: I was peckish in the evening so I had 2 peaches and an apple. This normally happens if I delay a meal.
 
17-June: By the end of the day I realized I hadn’t been particularly hungry enough to snack ALL day. My only snack of the day was a mint tea with honey in it and I never got round to having another snack! I want to eat like this forever was my feeling when I went to bed.
 
20-June: I’ll stick to healthy eating in the week but even on my eat whatever you want days I won’t go crazy. I’ll just have a couple of treats.

21-June: the detox is officially over but I've found it so easy I'll just carry on until Friday.
 
Realizations About The Way I Eat
 
Carbohydrates are a large part of ALL my meals at the moment:

• Breakfast is normally oats and as a treat once or twice I’ll have other cereal, usually Rice Krispies, Cornflakes, Fruit & Fibre.  Very seldom, weetbix
• Lunch is normally a sandwich or white rice with meat & cooked vegetables.
• Dinner is normally rice, pasta or nsima with meat and cooked vegetables.

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​The Plan Going Forward
 
Completely cutting out processed food is not realistic for me. Although by day 4 I realized I wasn’t having cravings I know I enjoy the junk I eat so I’ll end up bingeing if I decide to cut it out entirely. I’ve decided the following:

• I’ll allow myself to eat freely from 5pm on Friday to 5pm on Sunday.
• Outside of these hours I will eat as above but I will allow a small portion of nsima, 1 ntanda / rice, 125g / pasta, 150g / cous cous at dinner time. I will start substituting some meals with bulgar wheat and quinoa instead flour based carbs.
• Bread is now a weekend-only food, as is cerelac and oats. Smoothies for breakfast worked for me perfectly as did salads at lunch.

 
Tips:

• Small plate: When I had a stodgy dinner I put it on a side plate to make the portion look larger than it was.
• Carry snacks: I carried an apple or banana in my bag when I was out the house in case I got hungry. It stopped me craving sweet carbs.
• The shocker: I think what lots of diets recommend, i.e. eat whatever you want in moderation is a huge lie. I think the key to me not having cravings was that I completely eliminated sugar and my body stopped desiring it and also stopped getting hunger pangs.

 
I love banana cake and I still know what it tastes like so I’ll bake it this weekend BUT I currently actually feel scared to eat it because I might start getting that hungry feeling again. It’s funny that when I was eating much more than I am now, I was always hungry and wanting a snack. I never stepped into the kitchen without grabbing a handful of nuts, a pack of crisps, a yoghurt etc. In addition, I’m out a lot so I just buy snacks too with the excuse that at least I’m not bringing them into the house but if you’re usually out the house anyway there’s plenty of scope for eating bad snacks out there. Just cut them all out. Don’t accept offers of cake, biscuits etc. from people; cut out the hot chocolate, energy bars, flap jacks etc. and you’ll see your desire for sugar and fried foods falling. Just one biscuit makes you want 5 – that’s how the brain works.

I might try to follow the maxim of “eat all the junk you want provided you make it yourself!”

I ignored all people who say don't eat fruit, it has too much sugar or don't eat bananas because they are high in carbs - the fact is, NO ONE out there is obese because they eat too much fruit. A banana or a handful of grapes a day won't kill you. Yes, fruits are rich in sugars but this probably only really matters if you're trying to get super skinny.
 
Biggest advantage of this way of eating: you don't have to count any calories. Before you put anything in your mouth you just ask: does this food occur in the environment like this? If the answer is yes, eat away.
 
Disadvantage of this way of eating: the salads take 15-20 minutes to make where as toast with an egg or a sandwich, my previous go-to lunches take less than 5 minutes.
 
Buying all the extra fruit and veg has added £10-20 to the weekly shop but that’s okay for me. You spend a little more in the first week because you stock up on some staples, e.g. quinoa.

If you try to cut out processed foods yourself I'd love to see how it goes for you.

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