I am not a resilient person, spiritually or physically. I become distressed when I don’t get my 5+ a day and I cried the other day because I remembered the time six months ago that an old lady was mean to me.
So, I thought that doing this objectively bad diet would be great. You know, for Critic.
If you don’t know what the diet is, it’s a strict three-day regimen from a Vogue ‘Body and Beauty’ issue in 1977 that went viral early August-ish because it doesn’t make sense and is a very bad idea.
The diet promised to make me lose 2.5 kg and magically become "sexy, exuberant, and full of the joie de vivre". Fuck yes; it’s about time.
It feels like the kind of thing that you can’t picture whether it’s actually dangerous or really easy without going ahead and doing it. Before starting the experiment, my shifting confidence levels were ranging from “what if I actually die” to “YEAAAHHH I’m gonna do it for a week, guys, no worries!!! FUCK ME UP”.
I have the body type of a humanoid koala, so I’m fine in terms of not starving. My alcohol tolerance isn’t tops though.
I went and bought seven days worth of ingredients at once, so I had to commit.
The flat celebrated my new life with a bottle of Bernadino, which I reluctantly had a glass of, knowing what was to come. They were rude about how long they thought I would last. I was determined that I was going to prove them wrong.
I didn’t.
Day 1. (Saturday):
Weight (morning): 65 kg
Breakfast:
- 1 cup black coffee.
- 1 glass white wine.
- 1 egg, hard boiled.
Before I’d even started, I woke up with a headache. I knocked back a couple Panadols and made my breakfast. It was a lovely day. I sat on the porch and ate my single egg. As I left the house, my mum turned up with a carton of eggs. I knew this was a good sign.
Lunch:
- 1 jar black coffee.
- 1 small drink bottle white wine.
- 2 eggs, hard boiled.
I don’t have a picture of me eating lunch, so here’s one I took as soon as I got home, a bit dronk.
I was going on a picnic, so I lovingly prepared a plastic pottle containing two hard boiled eggs, a jam jar full of coffee (I need to buy a thermos) and a perfectly sized little drink bottle for my two glasses of wine allowance. As we sat there and everyone else took out their normal people food and started eating, I had to build up the courage to explain why I was about to bring out my sad little personal lunch and get mildly drunk, while they shared a wholesome meal of bread, hummus and side salads.
I contemplated my next fad diet. Only eat seagulls for a week? I was informed that seagulls are endangered. Whoops, never mind.
Bugs? It would take a lot of scavenging, but could be keen.
It was fun, walking through the gardens in the sunlight, feeling too drunk for the amount of alcohol I had consumed. Caffeine and alcohol was a mix I at that point appreciated, considering I usually just want to fall asleep after a couple wines.
Dinner:
- 1 cup black coffee.
- Rest of wine bottle.
- 150g steak.
I have oily hands in this picture from overhandling my dinner.
After a long nap, which I never do, I got up and ravaged my steak after cooking it extra bloody rare. Not because I became a Neanderthal after a day of only eggs, but because I already was one, and steak is a rare pleasure these days.
I went to a friend’s place for pre-drinks for a gig I wasn’t going to attend, so I did save up the rest of my wine allowance until I got there.
Eventually it was time to walk home from Stafford Street to Pine Hill. It’s long in that it’s boring, but I do similar trips all the time.
I started feeling the weakness just before I split off from everyone else at the Octy. By the time I got to the Meridian, I was feeling the tell-tale physical symptoms of your average panic attack, but I wasn’t feeling any sort of upsetting emotion, so I couldn’t tell if it was just panic from overthinking and being around scary drunk people, or me actually becoming stupidly unwell already on the first day. I considered calling a taxi, but I realised that at that time I didn’t know any 0800 taxi numbers, had no data to find out, and too little energy to go find some free Wi-Fi to scab. I told myself that calling a taxi would be pathetic and got back up.
I made it all the way to Rob Roy. I felt like I was going to faint. I sat down for another while. Luckily, my flatmate Charlie ‘Scoop’ O’Mannin was right at the Critic office getting wasted with his cool extra-curricular friends, so he could scoop me up and help me get home in his walking home-bus. On the way to the Critic office I was legitimately chased by a person and had to muster up all the rest of my energy to run away from him, like some sort of shitty Dunedin based thriller. I had a three second cry about that before other people came in the room and I put on my cool face. Anyway, we walked home, it was fine.
Here’s a snippet that I wrote that night, which is lucky because I wouldn’t have remembered otherwise:
“Where’s my joie de vivre? I feel sick and weak and there’s a panicky, painful feeling in my chest. I’m just trying to convince myself it’s fine and all in my head and I’m not going to wake up dead like that kid who mixed red bull and vodka. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner. I’m gonna smash back that small portion of steak like a real winner.
Bring on day 2.
p.s. if I die, don’t take it too seriously, it could have been worse. xxx”
Day 2. (Sunday):
Weight (morning): 64 kg
Breakfast:
- One cup black coffee.
- One glass white wine.
- One egg, soft boiled.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I got to bed around 3am and woke up every couple hours feeling all hot and freaked out. When I got up around 9:30am I was already dizzy and found it a little hard to get to the toilet, which is right beside my bedroom. The pressure in my chest was still there. I sat on the kitchen floor once again worrying out loud to my flatmates, who had already heard enough.
I accidentally didn’t leave the egg cooking long enough, meaning it was perfectly soft boiled. Is that cheating?
After brekky I calmed down and told myself that frailty and anxiety don’t equate to imminent death. I’d be fine.
Lunch:
- One cup black coffee.
- Two glasses white wine.
- Two eggs, hard boiled.
By lunch I was actually feeling good! Positive! I could definitely make it through. I mean, I didn’t have the strength to do anything but sit in my room all day, but I was feeling ok!
I spent the entire day drawing sloths and watching cartoons like the child I am.
Eventually, the ‘it’s gonna be ok’ feeling from lunch went away, and I started becoming more aware of the sick feeling and chest pains again.
Dinner:
- 1 cup black coffee.
- Rest of wine bottle.
- 150g steak.
The temperature got a little bit lower and I started violently shivering, so I ate my dinner in front of the heater. The thought of drinking more wine repulsed me. My serving sizes must have been smaller today because I was left with so much more by the end.
I really didn’t feel like drinking alone, so I found some friends that happened to be having drinks. We played card games and I spent a lot of time smelling a box of onion rings.
It was a hard walk up the hill home (which I do every day usually), what a scary feeling. I really don’t like feeling weak.
Day 3 (Monday):
Weight (morning): 63 kg
So I woke up shivering and shaking, but also really warm, my breathing felt weird and I felt so weak and horrible and my throat was sore too. The pressure in my chest felt worse. I felt scared to the point where I started crying and then just sat for a good hour considering whether or not it was safe to continue.
I looked at myself in the mirror; I looked pretty unwell, but the weird thing was that there was dried blood on the inside of my lips, like I was trying to eat them in my sleep?!?! Creepy, man.
I could feel my heartbeat so I timed it and my heart rate was 110bpm. That’s what you’re meant to get from ‘a 10-15 minute brisk walk’. I had moved from the bathroom to the couch. (For comparison, I checked my heart rate a couple weeks later; it was 73bpm.)
That was kind of the last straw. I’m sorry, I gave up. On day 3.
I made a big ol’ vegetable stir fry and for some reason I was craving cornflakes, and for the rest of the day I stayed in bed and got sicker.
I remained pretty sick for the next few days and stayed in my room mainly. My heart still felt a bit messed up for those days too.
So I lost 2kg in 2 days as well as a full week of uni. I couldn’t even complete the diet and I’m still not sure whether it’s due to how terrible it is, or just that I’m pathetic.
It’s like a sure-fire way to get as much alcohol poisoning as you can from one bottle of wine. There’s nothing in that diet to absorb the alcohol or let you poop it out either. Of course, heart failure was my main concern in the end, because a cocktail of coffee and alcohol turns out to be bad for you when you only eat about a quarter of your recommended daily intake in real food.
Turns out I don’t have the fortitude to be a housewife in the late ‘70s. Shout out to those dudes.