Sunday, August 05, 2007

Die't' Hard 7.0

Maybe it was a bolt of lightning or maybe someone broke a flower vase on my head or maybe it was one of those days when I was thinking weird…well I decided to go on a diet! I came across GM diet few months back and found it very interesting, now I decided to give it a shot.

On one hand, I decided to bring down my weight and on the other wanted to test my self control. I went a got a whole lot of snacks for my bro to eat and wanted to see if I can abstain myself from eating any of those. For a guy who fantasizes about food, it was a difficult task but then wanted to test myself!

DAY 1
It was all fruits day. All I could eat was fruits. The best part of this diet is that it doesn’t restrict you on quantity. I had a full water melon, mangoes, apple, chiku and pear all day and it wasn’t very difficult. My will was strong and even though my bro was enticing me with chocolates and all sorts of snacks, I was happy to eat fruits.

DAY 2
It was all vegetables day. No fruits at all. I didn’t have a problem with breakfast. Potatoes are my favorite and the diet prescribed 2 boiled potatoes for breakfast. The mashed potatoes, cauliflower, beans, corn and peas for lunch were kinda tasty.

DAY 3
It was all fruits and vegetables. If I could pass the first 2 days, I thought this was a cake walk… the challenging part, it was Monday and work day. Well my friends did raise their eyebrows seeing my finger-licking and lip-smacking emotions, especially for the vegetable paste I was eating and were trying to allure me to their chappatis and sambar saadam, but the headstrong boy didn’t budge. The evening snack consisting of apples, guava and pear was received with a greeting and was cheerfully consumed by all. A wonderful night’s sleep followed the vegetable slush with mango dinner.

DAY 4
I knew this was the best day of the diet. All I had to take was 8 bananas and 3 glasses of milk. Enthusiastically, I bought a dozen huge bananas the previous day and filled my lunch case with 5 of them. 2 bananas and a large glass of milk was breakfast. People did freak out a bit when I opened my lunch case to see 5 big bananas instead of my Tiffin box. I ate the bananas to my hearts content… I should say the onlookers should have had a hilarious time watching me slurping and eating. We did have a great time after that, with all kind of weird pictures of ‘man from mars’ made of banana peels and ‘mars’ chocolate… a personification of the phrase ‘going bananas’.

DAY 5
The best day was followed by the worst day. It was time for beef and tomatoes. Being vegetarian, I could substitute beef with a cup of rice. But tomatoes … poor me, I had to go through it. Every hero has to face the dragon and only if he kills it, will he reach the princess… I had no choice but to fight the dragon. I tried everything possible to negate my taste buds, but the tomatoes were too strong, they too were fighting me. Thanks to my ‘Water’ shield, which was used in large portions after every swallow of boiled tomato, victory was mine. I successfully won the battle against the evil tyrannical tomatoes.

DAY6
The battle though won, made me weak. The temptation to eat sweet, spice and everything nice crept in. I could eat rice and boiled vegetables but my craving for other food was budding, nevertheless I held on. To worsen the situation, my neighbor brought in a bowl full of ‘Tirupati Prasadam’ or simply ladoo. I considered this as a literal ‘blessing in disguise’ and with auspicious emotion, savored a petite piece of the Tirupati ladoo. That was it for the day.

DAY 7
Now the temptation took a different turn, I spent the day thinking about the last 6 days and what all I could eat the next day. And yeah it was Feast day. One spoon of oil was allowed, I could have fruit juices, rice and vegetables. And even before I could realize, the day was over and so was the ‘diet’.

I was proud of myself, being strong and willful to avoid all the goodies and stick to the plan. What did I gain – self confidence. What did I lose – 3 kgs, lots of toxins, money (buying fruits and vegetables), chocolates (somehow I felt everyone were eating more than ever!) and a good chunk of flesh from my cheeks. You know sometimes it’s better to lose more than you gain.

Next day, I started by biting myself into a big chunk of chocolate and that’s exactly what I am doing right now… so diet hard … eat harder!