I’m going to let you in on a little secret: sitting on your sofa for 12 months straight and eating chocolate like it’s going out of style actually might make you put on a bit of extra weight.
I know right? Who knew?!
(I kid.)
On my massive fail of a ‘gap year’ (I visited cultural sites such as Primark and the Job Centre) I started to put weight on.
I was bored and miserable -I’d gone through a breakup and I had hated college, and the fridge was within easy walking distance.
By no means would I consider myself fat now – although I’m short (5″2), I’m naturally pretty curvy (I could destroy small planets if I sat on them), so I don’t mind a bit of extra weight coming from the chest/bum region.
It’s now getting to the stage where I have to do some pretty ambitious contemporary dance to get my favourite jeans on, and I have to run extra bathwater to cover my stomach. Oops.
When SlimFast offered me the opportunity to take part in their 2-week SlimFast Challenge (which even has it’s own hashtag to see how everyone else is getting on – #SlimFastChallenge), I was pretty excited.
I’m doing the 3.2.1 plan – you get to choose 3 healthy snacks a day, 2 meal replacement shakes or bars, and 1 healthy main meal.
So far I’m finding the snacks to be… well, just like snacks. I had visions of glorified cereal bars and stuff with sunflower seeds in (side note – why does everyone assume that vegetarians like sunflower seeds?).
Instead, I get to eat sour cream and chive pretzels and chocolate caramel bars – specially made, of course, to provide limited calories and all the goodness you need every day.
I’m excited to start the plan. It’s giving me a much-needed kick up the backside to have a bit of a change and start taking care of myself again. Also, that time when a 6-year-old at work asked if I was “getting a baby” was a bit mortifying.
I’ll be updating you after the first week, and at the end of the challenge, so if you’d like to catch those updates, make sure you follow me on Twitter @little_budget.
Images from slimfast.co.uk.