Day 5 - The Cabbage Soup Diet

Bruno

“Meat.”

It is a testament to the mind-numbing nature of this diet that I had, really honestly, not even realised that I’ve been a vegetarian for the past four days. And not one of the good vegetarians, who might share a bucket of fried chicken with you when they’re drunk, or aren’t too fussed it you pour beef-stock gravy all over their precious alfalfa sprouts and splash their favourite ethically-dyed smock. No, by today I’m so herbivorous that I am more likely to be up a tree picking the sunniest leaves for supper than shaking it to make the baby quails fall out.

Now, I think about meat all the time. I love it so much, that I don’t even care how the previous sentence could be interpreted. Sometimes I make mental lists of my favourite porcine portions. I daydream about how awesome it would be if Buffalo wings were actually the wings of buffalos, and you had to straddle them to sink your teeth in. I consider foie gras a basic human right, and Peking duck a better invention than the internet. Now I’m standing in front of countless supermarket steaks, and am overcome with joy. Meat day has arrived, and I’m in the mood for a food party.

Can there be a more regal re-introduction to beef than the fillet steak? Soft, buttery forkfuls of flesh, cooked so rare the thing practically tip-toes itself to my plate. The accompanying tomatoes are frankly an embarrassment to themselves, rather like your younger, one-armed sister trying to serve drinks at a Poker night for the lads. But then I have had quite enough of fruit and vegetables this week.

And may we take a brief bow for the mighty sirloin? I could marvel at that fat for hours, indeed often do, though today the journey time from pan to stomach was less than the average calf takes to open its eyes.

To eat both in one day was pure luxury. The expensive beef demotes the cabbage soup to its proper position- a sad little prelude which even a homeless person would think about twice.

My temporary protein-high leads to a night at the theatre and some light bar-hopping. But of course, it is not the meat that fills you up, it’s the pommes dauphinoise. Without carbohydrate I am once again starving in a few short hours. Are McNuggets allowed? Doner kebab meat? Of course not. By bedtime I am the same curt nuisance as I was this morning. I’ve had my holiday fling, now it’s back to reality. At least there’s a photograph to fantasise over later.

Rigamoon

‘My wrist bones are protruding more, why am I losing weight from my wrists?’

After feeling really quite sleepy and devoid of vitality this week I found the energy to go to the gym and do 40 minutes of fairly hardcore swimming and then 100 sit ups before bed.  This makes me feel good, like a fat busting queen.  Eating two steaks was a bizarre experience and I have to admit not one that, on the whole, I enjoyed.  Don’t get me wrong, the first steak was delicious, tender, rare and melted in my mouth like a smooth, rich honeypot of gold.   The tomatoes were sweet and tasty and for 20 minutes I was in food heaven.  Fillet steak on a diet?  I could get used to this.  Until I had to eat it again for dinner.  I got three quarters of the way through and suddenly became overwhelmed by a sinful guilt about what I was doing.  What was I doing?  Who eats two steaks in one day?

Quite how this diet works baffles me.  I am very interested to see the results after a week.  Obviously, if I’ve not lost any weight I will be furious.  But who do I direct my anger at?  Who created this ‘diet’?  I love Bruno’s theory about two stoned dieticians coming up with this as a joke.  I do slightly feel like I’m the subject of a practical joke.  I am told with passion by successful cabbage soup dieters that ‘it works!!  It really does!!’  I am yet to be convinced.

So looking to tomorrow, more meat but with vegetables.  Oh .. and don’t forget the compulsory minimum on one bowl of cabbage soup …