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Well children we have come to the end of our journey.
Unfortunately I am stopping the experiment early, I'm loosing too much weight and it's not good for me.
Well, I suppose this is the part of the blog
Where I say what I have learnt
(god I hate cheesy endings)
Ok so after all of this I guess I am going to have to hold my hands up... some aspects of this have really worked for me.
Smoking:
The not smoking is an obvious good point, those nasty cigarettes will still call to me on a drunken Saturday night, but I think I can resist temptation.
five a day:
I am so sick and tired of fruit, if I never see another piece of fruit again ill be a happy woman.
I don’t think that 5 pieces of fruit and veg is attainable at all.
If you cant make the lazy people of the world healthier, then your never going to get us all healthy.
eight hours of sleep:
The hours of sleep were insane, it just made me tired. To be honest I don’t think anyone could abide by this rule. Back to the drawing board with this one Tony.
Eight pints of water:
Water, ahh eight pints of water a day, surprisingly... attainable!
I quite agree that this is one good idea; Girls it makes you skin beautiful, you feel more energetic and it completely detoxifies your body.
Two units of alcohol:
The hardest and most painful part was the alcohol; I have struggled with this part of the experiment many times! But no scary drunken posts to read, so I must have done quiet well?
I think this is an extremely un attainable request, but a fair one to make.
Well Mr Blair if you’re reading (which I bet your not) I must say you’re not as bad as they make out.
I think I have learnt a lot about myself, and a lot about how far I can be pushed. I hope I have inspired some of you to try this experiment, and all of you to cut down on drinking and smoking.Lots of Government policies are flawed, and i think they have a lot to learn about the general public before they get this healthy living right.
As I say goodbye to all of you, we must also say good bye to Tony. He never controlled us, he tried, but failed miserably.
Mr Brown, take good care of us!
I end our journey together with a little quote to encapsulate this experiment.
' Life’s a bitch and then you die... so fuck the world and lets get high.'
Well I'm back already.
Tonight was a complete bust, I was really excited till I got into the union and it hit me.
I don’t want to drink.
I am officially a rubbish student, but this healthy living thing is rubbing off on me more than I realised.
I thought about the consequences of drinking, I didn’t want to do that to myself.
I felt hollow; I don't get the rush I used to get from drinking. Its sounds corny but I feel complete; I don't need drink to feel whole.
I have got to say, I know I'm young, and there will be many drunken regrets to come, but I feel I have learnt a lot from this experiment more than I thought I would.
As much as I have whined about doing this I really feel I'm learning more about myself than about government failures.
Mr Blair. Well done.
Once more into the breach my friends.
Yes that’s right I am trying the union again tonight, I think I should be more prepared, I found some really interesting ways to stop the amount you drink.
Guess where.... an alcohol abstinence website see my test results its shocking.
So apparently I should have smaller measures, keep putting my drink down and have a hearty meal before I start guzzling the vino!
Lets hope I can remember all this when I (accidentally) get shit faced tonight!
Come on a girls just gotta have fun! .... At least once a month.
Its my bed time... but I cant sleep again.
I feel about five years old again, when my mum used to send me to bed when it was still light.
I'm feeling really frustrated, figity. It also feels naughty!
I'm not tired, yet not quite awake.
Sleep doesn't come naturally anymore, I feel as if I'm forcing sleep (I swear its giving me premature wrinkles).
Right a new method is needed to ease my pain... hot semi skimmed milk me thinks.
How exciting.
Good morning world.... or not.
I thought I'de try a new way to show you the real extent of day-to-day life on the plan.
So it’s 9.30 and officially disgusting o'clock for me.
Every morning is the same at the movement, get up and feel like shit.
For a few days I’ve felt like this, really heady and hung over.
I went to the loo a minute ago (ok too far but I have a point) and literally swayed to the door.
I feel like Tom after jerry hits him with that oversized ACME hammer, I wish I could see the little tweetie birds round my head, I feel like I should be able to.
I thought I’d turn into one of those people who jump out of bed with a smile and a bounce their step.
I think I’m getting too much sleep, I’m used to cramming till five in the morning and partying till dawn.
Right I have to go and pretend to be a real person now. Wish me luck
SIN OF THE DAY: PACKET OF STARBURST
(404 CALS!)Ok so my food chart idea sucked.
But I have had a great realisation today; I’ve actually started to enjoy eating healthily.
I was in my local bakery today having my morning bacon sarnie when I asked for it 'on brown, with Flora, no fat'
Once the words had left my mouth the whole shop gave me a look of disgust, a bacon sarnie without soft white bread and thick butter and loadsa ketchup would have been the sin of all sins 10 days ago.
I have become one of those happy people you see outside Starbucks sipping a 'Chai tea latte', flicking their perfectly straightened hair and giving all you un happy people that pitiful white teeth grin.
When I go shopping I feel myself being sucked into the healthy eating section, a force bigger than me is at work here.
While I may look 'bangin' in my ripped denim mini skirt and cut off UGGS (such is the uniform of the happy people) I am sick and tired of worrying about my 5 a day my eight pints of water and my eight hours of sleep. I am however glad that some of the healthy attributes are rubbing off on me, I do rather like brown bread and wild rice isn't that bad either.
I think everyone should try these little improvements and see how they feel!!
SIN OF THE DAY: FISH AND CHIPSI seem to have begun a dangerous pattern of yo yo dieting.
Not in the sense of actually going on and off diets, but that I have started bingeing on food.
One day I will be really bad and eat something completely inappropriate for the experiment, the next, feeling guilty I will eat small extremely healthy meals.
Not only is this cycle exhausting, but as I found out by my good old friend Wikipedia its really bad for my health.
Apparently it can lower your immune system, but horrors of horrors it can actually make you fatter than when you started. It gets worse, the more you 'yo yo' the fatter you get on your stomach... you cant make this stuff up.
So to target this dangerous pattern, set to ruin my swimsuit season, I am making a chart.
Oh yes children, as I can't control what I put in my mouth (no laughing you dirty bastards) I am making a seven-day food chart.
I will write down a food plan for every day of the week and attempt to stick to it.
ANOTHER SINLESS DAY, INSTEAD THE REALITY OF MY WEIGHT LOSS.
Ok, so I'm back on the wagon and doing well.
I've decided to stop doing the exercise as my weight is really starting to concern me.
I weighed myself today and I've lost almost a stone in eight days, this is really bad, I feel like I’m doing a race to size 0, not a healthy eating plan.
I’ve started trying to eat high protein foods to boost my immune system and get some extra energy. I spoke to my friend who is a nurse, and on her advice I’m on iron supplements to help my immune system.
Either I am really weak or shouldn't I be getting healthier, not taking iron supplements.
The more and more I do this experiment; the more I think that government doesn't know what’s best for me. Is this healthy regime just for fat people?
Are they just targeting people at risk or should everyone be able to stick to this diet, because in reality... this is a diet.
SIN FREE DAY
Well lets just say last night was not one of my finer moments.
One half of cider turned into many pints and a drag on a cigarette.. well you know.
I ended up having 3 1/2 pints of cider and 5 cigarettes. BAD.
I woke up this morning feeling rough, smelly and really dirty.
The affects of a wild night after a week of abstinence makes you feel about 90 years old.
In the haze between drunk and sober I did manage to have a thought... is the union any better drunk?
As I realised this morning drink seems to fill in time, when I was sober a night out felt like an eternity.
Drink makes you lose time, minutes fly by when you have a drink to occupy you. I still felt un confident, tired and bored, i just became more enthusiastic.
The really interesting thing was the affect on my body. Because I am now free of toxins my body rejected the alcohol and gave me the affect of a diuretic ... I went to the loo a lot!
I couldn't get up this morning, my body is so used to routine I felt like my systems were crashing. So i took my own advice and did the alchohol calculator, I managed to drink triple my guide line amount in one day. The worrying thing is that was an easy night, I penned down how much I would usually drink and
3 snake bites
1 cider
2 small wines =15 1/2 units!!!
Thats more than my guideline amount for a week. try it yourself, its scary.
SIN OF THE DAY: 1 SLICE OF PIZZA
I saw my GP this afternoon.
do you know what his response was..... eat bigger portions!
apparently I am still at a healthy weight and my skin is better, I was practically called a hypochondriac . Just as well I'm not forming an eating disorder, with my healthy eating obsession and rapid weight loss. Shame he didn't even ask me!
I'm sorry this is such as short post but I am pushing myself further into temptations, a Monday night out at the union. I shall update you tomorrow. Wish me luck
Today is officially the first week of my experiment.
On the whole the first week is painful. It is definitely a learning curve; I can see the affects that this week has had on me.
The water is definitely a good thing, as much as I bitched and whined my skin is full and healthy and I do feel like I am in better shape for it.
Because I don't drive I have found the exercise an easy chore, walking to and from university in itself is a half and hour walk, although I am getting big scary walker calves I would advise anyone to ditch the car, it's as dirty as smoking.
On that note smoking is still my greatest aphrodisiac, I thought the cravings would have vanished by now but I still long for that silky feeling of release from a puff on a cigarette.
(All retired smokers will know my pain) stay strong!
The lack of alcohol has really opened my eyes to how much of an ass I must look drunk, as self conscious and bored as I have been on my nights out I do feel better without that Sunday morning hangover. Drink definitely isn't sexy.
Food is the biggest problem with this experiment; I’m dropping weight like crazy. Since I have been having three square meals a day I do feel that I have to snack less and feel more satisfied. But even though I’m sinning everyday my weight loss is a serious problem that I will have to address my GP with.
SIN OF THE DAY: 1 PACKET OF HARIBOI believe the placebo affect has kicked in.
Every piece of fruit seems to be equal to a little piece of happiness at the moment, I don’t know if I'm suffering from multiple personality disorder or fruit actually makes you happy.
I'm blaming the sugar.
Since I’ve been on this experiment I’ve been bouncing off the walls, my sugar levels are really high and I seem to be full of energy.
This leaves me curious as to whether my mind is telling me I should feel better, therefore my body responds. The clue I’m shattered at the end of the day, surely if my body had all this extra energy to burn off I would find it hard to sleep?
The affects on my body are real enough, as I have said before I have never counted a calorie or been on a diet, now I realise why.
My weight seems to be slipping off (BITCH i hear you whisper) at an extraordinary rate even my close friends have seen the difference, this is making me wonder whether this healthy living routine is meant for everyone.
Am I actually endangering my body by starving myself from saturated fat and carbs? It would make sense that my weight loss would affect my energy levels, leaving me tired.
I'm starting to think I’m not actually getting healthier, but that this whole experiment could be detrimental to my health.
SIN OF THE DAY: 1 PACKET OF Mc COY CRISPS
Let me apologise for not posting yesterday, I had no Internet connection.
I decided to push myself a little further yesterday and drag my behind to a night out at the union.
'Not much of a challenge' I hear you say, well seeing as I have never seen the union without staggering, having a snakebite in one hand and a poorly rolled cigarette in the other, I would say it was a personal triumph that I returned home sober not shit faced!
But as the night progressed, and my friends became more inebriated I realised how alcohol can change everything, from atmosphere to choice of friends.
We all have them, we all know someone who is one, a drunken acquaintance, that person you shout at from the other side of the dance floor, have a dance and a giggle with then ignore the next day. Well as I found last night I have many, alleged friends, who I once found amazing... sober are the biggest losers on the planet.
In that respect alcohol does change things, to be honest I became too self-conscious to dance and was rather embarrassed by my friends dance technique to say the least!
I was bored, tired and rather unimpressed with my drunken friends. The most eloquent and highly intellectual people I know turned into blathering idiots, as much as I appreciate I have done the same on many occasions, being told that you are loved more than 7 times starts to be annoying.
The union changed from being like that bar 'Cheers' where everyone knows your name, to a drunken infested hole where everyone knows your name, then forgets it ten minuets later.
SIN OF THE DAY: 1 STARBUCKS MANGO SMOOTHIEFeeling better today,
I think the cravings are dying down.
There is one big problem though... calorie counting.
I have never ever counted a calorie, but it is surprising in our ' size zero' society that calories aren't on everything yet.
I decided that if I am to live this lifestyle for a month I should try to live as normal of a life as possible. With that thought I rushed out of class, and before I knew it I was ordering a mango ice smoothie and a granola cake from Starbucks.
When I awoke from this sudden laps in concentration I realised that I didn’t know how many calories were in my cake, so I asked (and looked like a prat) it took them over 20 minutes to find the nutritional information.
Surprising, as one of the biggest chains in the world, rivalling Mc Donald’s, they were un prepared to give me relevant nutritional information. Now some of you out there will be feeling a little de-javu, and you would be correct too, because it was Morgan Spurlock's famous 'Super size me' documentary in 2004 where he found himself in the same situation under the 'golden gates' of Mc Donald’s.
With all of its critical acclaim three years ago, one would assume that corporations would take heed from this very embarrassing situation. But no, they are still un prepared; I give the poor cashier kudos for finding the information, and my local Starbucks chain for actually having the breakdown of ingredients and calories.
And I know your all wondering.... it was 470 calories!
SIN OF THE DAY: QUALITY STREET ICE CREAM Officially the worst day of my short life.
The real cravings have started kicking in today; I’ve actually been walking next to smokers inhaling their second hand smoke! Its become this bad.
Temptation is getting really hard to resist, as you can see my sins are getting bigger and bigger! I went to our local student union last night to wean myself back into socialising; I was amazed at how much I appreciated my 2 halves of cider.
As hard as it was to restrain myself from jumping behind the bar and shoving my mouth under the cider pump, I started to enjoy my alcohol and actually enjoy being sober.
They always say the 3rd day is the hardest for quitting smoking, but as I have just realise it is not the smoking I miss but the sugar which they put in cigarettes, the synthetic sugar they coat the tip of cigarettes adds to the flavour and addictive quality, they also add ammonia which helps the Nicotine rush.
This also grooms children into smoking, as the sweet taste becomes a subconscious reason to smoke, shocking. This really annoys me; they are going to start putting diseased lungs on cigarette packets yet they won't stop putting sugar and additives in cigarettes.
The irony of it is lung cancer is one of the biggest killers in Britain, yet they won't ban cigarettes because they fund the NHS!
Still want to light up... I DO!
check out http://www.whudafxup.com
SIN OF THE DAY: HALF A SNICKERS BAR
Today was yet another painful day, not on myself but on my wallet.
I assumed that not going out and not spending money on cigarettes would give me more money to play with, not less.
In fairness I have been buying packaged fruit, which is invariably more expensive, but if government wants people to eat healthier shouldn’t they lower the price of fruit and veg.
This is all making me very disgruntled with the un achievable goals we are supposed to reach. Everyone is supposed to eat 5 a day yet the time needed to buy and prepare healthy food is non-existent. If I, a student cant find time to prepare three healthy meals a day then who the hell can?
If we are all to become healthy, then healthy food needs to be more attainable and no, I'm not talking about loosing the GM's and putting a pretty coloured wheel on food packaging. I’m talking about affordable, healthy, lazy people food. But maybe I’m asking too much?
MY FIRST SIN OF THE EXPERIMENT:
2 SUGAR RASIN BISCUITS
Today was the first day of the experiment, and I hope the worst to come.
I sit here chewing my way through a pack of orbit extras to stop my cigarette cravings, surprisingly that hasn't been the worst affect of this experiment.
It’s the copious amounts of water I have to drink, as you can imagine, the toilet seat and myself are rather well acquainted as my body detoxes, (maybe that 3rd pint of cider last night wasn't my best idea.)
It seems an unattainable task to ask anyone, there just isn't enough time in the day to drink 8 pints of water.
But I shall troop on, with one thought in mind... maybe all this healthy eating and exercise will help me fit into those skinny jeans I’ve been eyeing up all month!
I went for my sorely anticipated health check today. All in all you’re usual 19-year-old, body issues, bad skin and binge drinking.
When I told my local GP that I could drink my weekly alcohol units on an average Monday night he was expectedly, concerned.
While he did explain the affects on binge drinking I was not offered a blood test to check my liver, nor did he ask how regularly I binge drink.
With more than 20 underage teenagers admitted for alcohol related problems everyday, you would expect the NHS to tackle the problem quickly.
Binge drinking is now level par with obesity as one of the main strains on the NHS, and with more teenagers contracting liver diease than ever before I think a blood test should be mandatory in any health check.
Although I may be a healthy teenager, 1 in 4 British teenagers are obese and morbidly unhealthy. It shocked me when there was little healthy lifestyle advice for teenagers, and little literature for teenagers on the whole.
The topping on this beautifully shocking cake is that I was told it was highly irregular to give health check ups to people of my age. But teenagers and young adults are the most at risk, with many students leaving higher education with an alcohol problem.
All this has made me sceptical about the experiment and the governments ability to progress and find solutions to new problems.
Tomorrow I embark on a month long investigation into government health regulations.
Using myself as a human guinea pig I shall stick to all government certified health regulations.
For 1 month I will: -
1. Do 30 minutes of exercise a day
2. Drink 8 pints of water a day
3. Consume no more than 2 units of alcohol a day
4. Eat my 5 fruit and vegetables a day
5. Have at least 8 hours of sleep and no more than 10 hours
6. Stop smoking
And still keep to my regular day-to-day routine.
So join me through the pain and hopeful success of my 1 month of being Mr Blair's perfect citizen.
It's the last day before my health check, so in time honoured fashion I intend on having the last supper.
Consisting of the greasiest pizza I can lay my hands on, copious amount of beer and smoking my lungs black with the last of my tobacco.
Gone are the days of the student union, sitting on my posterior all day and generally being an un-healthy bum (damn ill miss it).
