Ok so last night I confirmed my re-initiation to Herbalife and that I would diarise my progress with you guys.  I always like to hear how other people manage their diets, for me it has been a constant struggle over the years with my clothes size ranging from an 8 to a 14. So here goes my kick start figures:

Current weight: 9 stone (ideal weight 8 stone).  For my wedding I was 7.5 stone, which I had gone down to from 9.8 stone, but this was too skinny for my shape – let’s face it no one likes a bony decolletage. 8 stone therefore is my optimum weight for all-round body confidence and my hope is that I can drop 2 pounds per week, which is apparently a healthy weight-loss.  Please note that I am not for a second suggesting that 9 stone is too heavy, as everyone’s shapes differ based on their height and limb length, for me at just over 5 foot at this weight my muffin top is seriously back in full force.

Size: 10/ 12 (the dream is 8 on top and 10 on bottom, but I have an exceptionally large inner thigh situ, which makes this a struggle – at my heaviest, I never used to wear trousers and so you can imagine how many pairs of tights I went through.  My logic was if my thighs were covered with a skirt or dress, I felt slimmer…

Current exercise regime: Absolutely niente, with the exception of a short daily walk for Haggis (when I previously did this diet on the run up to the wedding, I did the same amount of exercise I do now (nothing) which really does prove the ‘you are what you eat’ theory).  This time around however, I want to better my health with exercise and so plan to include running (oh god), yoga for strength and all round spiritual health (I tend to suffer from quite bad anxiety at times and so hope this will also help with this) and then I will also join the dreaded gym (dun, dun, can’t be arsed dun).

For the basics on the Herbalife diet itself, you can go back to an old post of mine which lists these here.  Essentially however, the pretense is that you seriously calm it on the carbs and increase your protein intake in doing so.  The daily calorie intake on the diet is 1200-1400, which is a healthy amount of calories to consume so your body doesn’t go into ‘starvation’ mode. So what is the logic in this mode for the body:

“(It) means your body realizes it is not getting enough food – calories-, thinks that you are starving, and slows down your metabolism to a crawl to conserve energy. Because it thinks you are starving, when you do feed yourself, your body will try to store more of your calories as fat, because those are your long-term energy deposits..”

The above information came from a very interesting blog post, which focuses on the importance of not going under 1200 calories each day and you can read the full article here. I’d recommend that you have a gander, it is the most refreshing post I have read when it comes to dieting and exercise in a while.

So calorie-wise what have I ingested today?

2 x Herbalife Shakes – 400kcals

1 x packet of Thai Massaman curry flavoured crisps(have to try get curry in there by any means possible) – 92kcals

1 x chicken breast cooked in Campbells Mushroom soup, vegetables, 1 potato croquette (yep just one – that’s how I calm it on the carbs 😉 ) and a medium baked potato (em, not so calm I guess!) – 550kcal

1 x full mango – 135kcals (remember don’t eat the skin…)

Total – 1,177kcals

And exercise-wise, I went on 1 x 30 minute average paced walk with wee Haggis, which would have burned about 100kcals. So all in all not a bad day…although now that we are into the night time which is always my grazing time, I can feel the willpower subsiding…for me there has never been a truer statement than…

Diet statement