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or a banana, for instance, so as far as I’m concerned there’s absolutely
no need to purchase a raft of overpriced and needless snacks.
     
    My initial worry about the Special K
diet is that there seems to be a lot of focus on the Special K element of the
diet and very little guidance on the content or size of the third meal. If it’s
loaded with fat then there’s every chance that the calorie savings from the
rest of the day could be negated, and it stands to reason therefore that you
won’t lose any weight. The positives however are that the Special K diet is
only supposed to be a quick fix and is not a viable long-term weight-loss
programme. This means that it fits perfectly into my 50-day challenge and is
well suited to what I want to achieve. I get the feeling that a lot of people
having succeeded in losing weight using the Special K diet, will proceed to put
the weight back on as there’s a lack of long-term vision (especially for those
who have taken it leading up to a holiday) When I think of those people, I find
myself wondering about my own 50-day challenge and whether I have actually
stumbled upon something that could conceivably be followed by others as a
viable longer-term plan. I suppose the next few chapters will answer that
question for me.
     
    Louis, my nutritionist, has warned that
Special K products lack essential vitamins, minerals and fibre, so there’s an
obvious reason why it’s only recommended people do it for a maximum of two
weeks. He’s warned me that I will be hungry, mainly due to the high
carbohydrate content and the lack of fat, protein and fibre. I was okay with
that in truth. There’s nothing wrong with feeling hungry from time to time and,
if anything, it makes you appreciate the food more when it does come along. It
also makes it tastier too. I remember my wife telling me about the time that
she completed a field day with the Combined Cadet Force (a Ministry of
Defence-sponsored youth organisation) at school and, having hiked tens of
miles, they finally settled down to eat the poor excuse for food that was
waiting for them in their ration packs. She said that she was blown away by how
good they tasted and so got her mum to order some when she got home. Needless
to say, when they arrived they were awful and only tasted the way they did
because she was so tired and hungry. Have you seen the way the celebrities act
when they win their challenges on I’m a Celebrity Get Me of Here ? It’s
like they’ve just experienced a gastronomical feast from the kitchen of a
Michelin-starred chef, whereas they have in fact just eaten half a digestive
biscuit.
     
    The only problem with feeling hungry is
that it reduces concentration, something which is an absolute necessity for
writing a book. I struggle to concentrate at the best of times, so the last
thing I need is a diet which is going to exacerbate this, because when I
struggle to concentrate I end up Googling things like ‘The top ten moustaches
of all time’.
     
    Louis advised that the benefits of the
Special K diet are that it’s very simple to follow, it’s higher in protein than
most other cereals, and that it takes all of the guesswork out of
calorie-counting (although he does like to point out that calorie-counting is
not something we should be doing anyway).
     
    The last thing that Louis warns me about
is the very real possibility that I will be constipated. In his exact words, he
said that "Constipation may (will!) be an issue". If this is the case
then how come so many people have ended up losing so much weight? If everybody
is holding onto everything and unable to get rid of anything, then surely we should
all be getting heavier on the Special K diet. As much as I want to give you my
full experience of each diet, I’ll do my very best to limit the toilet-talk.
     
    It’s day 6 of the challenge and day one
of the Special K diet, and the main thing I’ve struggled with today is the fact
that it’s a Saturday. Everyone