DAY 3

I wake up to find that a) somehow during the night I have been run over by seven ten-tonne trucks and b) I am definitely about to die. The drama queen in my brain is screaming “this is it! You have the shakes, you feel sick, you’re weak, you can’t move – YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!”

I quickly check that my arms, legs and head are actually attached and then flop my head back down into the pillow, influenza-style. My skin is clammy and I can smell meat oozing from my pores – I’m sure of it. The image of a block of cheese flashes into my brain and I heave, I have to think of jam on toast to stop the nausea.

When the doorbell goes, it’s the postman (who else would it be?!) and he looks at me strangely. I try not to breathe on him as I sign the electronic hand-held thing, and my hands are really shaking. Time for my first emergency call to Zana the Fitness Warrior!

“Hello Zana, I think I may be about to die. I’m shaking and nauseous and I feel absolutely floored.”

Although Zana had warned me about ‘day 3’, I didn’t think that it would affect me quite so badly. Really, I should have been prepared because I’m actually quite terrible if my blood sugar drops too low – tantrums, confusion, shaking – I’ve always had to keep my levels relatively stable and it’s the same for my siblings and my Mum too…

“A glass of orange juice,” says Zana, “lots of lemon juice to make it as acidic as possible”. I have no orange juice, so I hobble down to the fridge and pour a glass of apple and elderflower, add the juice of half a lemon and down it. The juice has to be taken with breakfast so I prepare, shakily, two plates of smoked salmon (60g) with cream cheese (85g) and try as best as I can to eat my serving. After 48 hours of eating all of this fat and protein, I can hardly even look at what I’m eating, so I hope it gets better for the remaining 10 days! The sugary fruit juice kicks in about twenty minutes later and I feel able to sit upright and concentrate on light conversation with Spousal Support; namely the cost of buying a new Hasselblad camera ‘body’. Thrilling!

(Spousal Support is much perkier than I – he came down the stairs post-emergency-juice and declared that he has already lost seven pounds.)

Between days two and four (usually on day three, so I’m bang on target!) some people have problems with energy levels and low blood sugar. Perhaps because I’m quite slim already and have less of a ‘reserve tank’ I have felt it more than Spousal Support. Zana says that this is the crucial period when the body cannot find any more sugars to use up and instead searches for the fat to burn. This is what the whole programme is really geared to – burning off the fat whilst re-stocking the body with proteins. I have been doing a little bit of research on the whole thing and apparently, as collagen is a protein, this whole process can make your skin look amazing. Young and plump and fresh. Then there’s the whole thing about human growth hormone (something we stop producing so abundantly from around 27/28 which is why we see a ‘downhill’ turn in our bodies and appearances) and how we can produce it later on in life but only if our bodies are working properly. That means keeping a good amount of muscle and not doing any silly fad-diets that simply remove fat.

DAY 4

I wake up feeling AMAZING! I seriously can’t work out why this is, after the terrible energy slump of the day before. Yesterday I made it to Harley Street to do my session, but I felt awful. It was agreed that if I ever have a seriously weak moment again, I can sip some grapefruit juice to increase my sugar levels, but actually, it’s very unlikely that it will happen again. The weird jitters come when the body has run out of sugars to burn and is ‘looking for’ fat – there’s a dip whilst the body adapts. I don’t have a lot of fat to lose – I’m more on a ‘sculpting’ programme – so that’s maybe why I felt so low yesterday.

Anyway, day 4 feels great. I’m up and out of bed reasonably early and have loads of focus and concentration as I’m writing things up on the computer. Woohoo!  My muscles ache quite nicely and satisfyingly from yesterday’s ‘chest and back’ session at Educogym and I have had some excellent suggestions from readers on how to incorporate my fat portions (UGH!) into my food. Homemade peanut butter and pesto here I come!

Spousal Support is working away for two nights and he packs himself a load of little tupperware boxes filled with weighed-out nuts and cheese and avocado! How did I manage to find such an amazing man? I would definitely have caved in by now had he not been fully committed to the same regime!

The gym sessions have gone full circle (Day 1 legs, Day 2 arms, Day 3 back and chest – every day a load of KILLER abs!) and I’m back to legs. It hurts this time round – the weights have been increased a lot and I find it very hard going. But everything’s so short and sharp that you don’t have time to even start feeling fatigued or disheartened; it’s on to the next exercise and away we go!

I pop in to see the lovely girls at Clarins around the corner from Educogym and they are munching on gingerbread Christmas Trees. Willpower. Willpower.

Back home (alone!) I eat dinner at 6pm – a first for me. Usually it’s 8 or 9 o’ clock before I feel properly hungry. I have a salmon Caesar salad with pan-fried wild red salmon, baby gem lettuce, anchovies and pine nuts. I swear to God, I never want to see another pine nut in my LIFE after this is over.

Before bed I almost choke on my huge amino-energise tablets and then have a slight panic attack that I’m home alone and I might die. I flail around the kitchen for a few minutes prancing about like an idiot typing 999 into my iPhone but then manage to clear the blockage. There’s nothing odd about this situation though – if it hadn’t been the tablets, it would have been something else. Chocolate or cheese. I’m just a girl with an overactive, slightly morbid, imagination.

Over and out lucky carb eaters!

xxx