Day 17 of 183. 166 Days to go.

I realised that i will have finished my 100 days by the first week in September 2006. LL ask you to commit to 100 days. They also say at the beginning, that you need to pay for the last week along with payment for your first week.

Does this mean that if i leave before the last week then i still have to pay for that last week? The LL counsellor and foodpack dealer said that paying for two weeks at the beginning is so that you don't leave after the first week because doing that would make her out of pocket.

She made no mention of whether leaving after the first four weeks, for example, means that you forfiet your extra £66. I know that one of our group did drop out. She attended the group meeting at week 2, however. But i do not know whether she took away another pack of foodpacks with her. She did stay until the end of the meeting, presumably to talk with the counsellor.

It is not clear to me whether the extra £66 i paid in week 1, is actualy payment for the last of the 14 weeks, or whether it is for payment in advance week by week.

There are a lot of things that i don't like about how this LL counsellor operates. Mainly about being selective with truthful information about what happens to us. I mean, aren't we the customer? It actually doesn't feel like that. It feels more like we are some kind of fools for being fat, and that she doesn't have to consider us as human beings equal to herself. I suspect that our counsellor is, in fact, a woman of good character, because she is already a counsellor (but there can be counsellors with attitude-superior too!). I have a hunch that the 'one-up, one-down' attitude probably runs through the corperation, just like the black strip of spine found in a cold cooked tiger prawn. Just perhaps?

I am now in the habit of taking my LL bag of foodpacks away from the group meetings and, once home, separating them out into 7 piles corresponding to the days on which i am going to consume them. Every day a bar, two shakes and a soup - each pile of different combinations of the variety of flavours that i have.

Then i place each pile into a large brown envelope with the day of the week written on top and then stand them back up in the LL bag.

This way i only have to take the envelope out of the bag every morning and place in in my kitchen drawer. And as the day goes on, i dont have to rummage through the weeks supply every time i want a meal.

I like this system. I don't have to worry about whether i've had two or three packs that day already, and then have to count them to be sure of how many i hav eleft to have that day. I don't need to be concerned that for the last 2 days of the week i shall be left with only chocolate shakes and vegetable soup for both days. Instead i am ensuring that i have a nice selection of flavours on each different day. It does give me something to look forward to.

The vegatable soup is about the worst of all of the flavours in my opinion. So, even though i am a vegetarian, i decided this week to risk having one 'Chicken' soup in my weeks supply along with my mushroom, and Thai Chilli soups and the dreaded vegetable. I suspected that the chicken soup didn't actually have any chicken in at all and i was right.

Here are the ingredients of the dry soup powder contained in one 34g pack of chicken soup sachet, that is taken as one meal.

skimmed milk powder
Maltodextrin
Soya Protein Isolate
Soya Flour
Milk protein
Soya Lecithin
Inulin
Flavouring
Hydrolysed wheat & maize protein
Potassium Chloride
Calcium Phosphate
Satiliser (Xanthan Gum)
Magnesium Oxide
Onion Powder
Calcium carbonate
Parsley (wow a real food!!!!)
Ascorbic Acid
Pepper
Ferrous fumarate
Nicotinamide
Copper gluconate
Zinc Oxide
Vitamin E Acetate
Manganese sulphate
Calcium d pantothenate
Pyridoxine
Vitamin A acetate
Sodium molybdate
Chromic chloride
Folic acid
sodium selenite
Potassium iodate
d-biotin
Vitamin K
Vitamin D3
Vitamin B 12

WOW!

Tonight while watching Big Brother i made up a mousse from my chocolate shake mix - it was absolutely wonderful.
Oh my goodness, to have something to actually eat was marvellous.

I had tried it a couple of times before and it had just turned into a sloppy thick milkshake with 'marshmallow' lumps inside. (the gelatin that had not mixed properly.

Now, thoug, i have mastered how to make the perfect mousse. Its all due to Mikes recipe page which you can find by clicking the link in the blue box below.

Perfect Mousse and other recipes - http://mylighterlife.iblog.com/index.php?op=Default&postCategoryId=1608

My mousse came out perfectly because i did it exactly to Mikes instructions. In my freezer it took 30 mins for the water to have icy bits on top. I haven't got a hand blender yet, so i popped it into the regular blender and then poured it back into the cold glass that the water came from. After mixing it up i then only needed to pop it in the freezer for 5 minutes exactly. (If you do this remember not to hav ethe mixture mixed up for more than 10 mins before you start to eat it, because all the vitamins etc go after 15 mins)

Wow - i was in absolute raptures while spooning it into my mouth and having it melt on my tongue. It was sooooooooooooo yummy :yes:

In order to be able to make the mousse you need to buy a carton of mix-a-mousse from Cambridge Diet. (LL don't sell them).

Perhaps at some point i will attempt the muffin and the crisps, too.

This morning i went out for an hour long walk with my friend, around the lakes nearby. We met at 9-30 am, because i knew that by going out early i could go out without having drunk any water at all that day. The previous day and nights water would hav ecome out during that day and overnight (yes, i am still going to the loo about 10 -15 times per night!!!!) and i wouldn't hav eto worry about the mornings water coming out while we were half way around the lake.

My strategy did work (hurrah!).
There are some public loos half way around one of the lakes and i made it to there quite comfortably, without my friend thinking i was strange for needing to urinate a lot. (She doesn't yet know i am doing this diet - i guess i will have to tell her next time we meet, because she'll guess - sha also knows 'Big Woman').

Apart from being relieved about that, i was also pleased to discover that i managed the walk ok.

For the last couple of days or so i have felt very weak. But actually i can probably start exercising now. I have a selection of work-out videos and DVD's here at home. I shall pick out a couple of easy lightweight ones and have a go.

I don't think it will prevent my skin going baggy though, will it reader? But it may help with toning up the muscles to give a firmer appearance generally.

I have even begun to reserch gyms and health clubs in my area ready for when i am a reasonable size. I used to enjoy weight trainng, and dance classes. Now i can see myself doing that again. Sometime very soon too!

I have felt quite low today.
I enjoyed my walk, and then came home and enjoyed an LL nut bar. ut this afternoon i felt weak and tired and yet restless. Eventually i curled up on the sofa with willing cat for an hour or so, and slept.

It could be tiredness from constantly having disturbed sleep night after night (loo trips).
Or it could be time-of-the-month tiredness.
I don't know.

I do know that i have only been drinking 4 litres of water per day for the last few days. I just can't face having 6 litres. i can't have too much during the day because its better to be with my clients than getting a day-pas to the loo.

so i manage 1.5 or 2 litres throughout the day, and then the remainder has to be taken after 9pm. The thought of having a further 4.5 litres after 9pm is overwhelming. So a further 2 to 2.5 litres goes down after 9pm. Even then, it is 10 - 15 trips to the loo during the night.

Tommorrow I am at the hairdressers for a very long time. I'll be getting my blonde hair re-blonded! Of course it is a morning appointment so that i can go there without first having drunk water.

So this does mean that i can go through meetings and go out to meetings and places without loo-panics. However, last night as i was in bed watching the highlights of the Edinburgh Marathon 2006, i did feel concerned because i did have some mild dehydration symptoms.

So i sipped water as i watched the program. Then the narrator said that during a marathon in hot weather it is absolutely vital that the runners get their water intake just right.

He said, "By the time you feel thirsty - its too late".
I was lying in bed and i was thirsty.
Then i dropped off to sleep.