I am thinking of doing the GM diet again. I lost 2 kgs the last time, though I didn’t follow the diet strictly...I didn’t give up the sugar in my tea, I cheated once (had a roomali chicken tikka roll because I was having terrible cravings) & I gorged on Chinese on the last day.
To be honest, I wasn’t mentally completely prepared for the diet. I mean, I was prepared to do it but I wasn’t prepared for the impact...the kind of cravings it gives rise to. Sure, you hear about all that from other people who’ve gone on the diet before you, but you can’t gauge the impact until your system experiences it.
I’m more prepared for it this time around. I know that the first day (fruits only but no bananas or mangoes) will be the toughest as your system receives a shock. Last time, I mixed up all the fruits together and had them for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch & evening snack. By dinner time, I was sick of eating fruits and felt I’d throw up if I ate anymore, so I ended up skipping dinner. Bad idea...it can cause severe gas & acidity.
I also know I’ll get cravings the first 3 days. Your system is still adjusting to the new diet & is missing the things it’s generally used to getting. But I also know that the fourth day, which I thought would be the toughest because the only things you can eat all day are bananas & milk (I can handle the bananas but I can’t get myself to have 4 glasses of milk in a single day!!), will go off quite easily because by then your system has adjusted to the change. And I also know that I will get a major craving towards the end of the week and the prospect of cheating will be very tempting because you’re so close to the finishing line. I know what to expect, so I’ll be able to handle it better this time around I feel.
If you’re planning to go on the GM Diet as well, the thing to remember is that you MUST eat at regular intervals, else you’ll get a major bout of gas & acidity. In fact, people who have gastro-intestinal problems are advised not to follow the diet, I think. The other thing to remember is that this is more of a detox rather than a weight loss diet (weight loss happens as a result of elimination of toxins), so it is recommended you do it only once in two months. One must also remember that the weight loss will start showing only after the first 3-4 days or so, so don’t hop onto the weighing machine after the first or second day expecting to be lighter by 1-2kgs! You will be tempted to, but seeing that your weight hasn’t dropped at the end of Day 1 or Day 2 in spite of the efforts you’ve put in already can be quite de-motivating.
How effective is the diet? From personal experience & watching the results of those around me, I would say it’s pretty effective. You can lost 2-3 kgs in a week (guysenerally lose more than girls...maybe it has something to do with their mass?) Also, the thing about the GM Diet, as with all drastic diets is that once you go back to your normal eating pattern, you will end up gaining most or all of the weight you had lost, back. Some people have told me they gained more! So there are going to be some permanent eating & lifestyle changes that you are going to HAVE to make in order to keep the weight from coming back. For instance, I have stopped eating carbs post 7-8 pm & stopped snacking on junk food.
While not eating carbs (rice/rotis/bread) at dinnertime might not be a practical option for everyone, we can try and make certain changes to our dinner habits, such as eating dinner by 8 pm (we Indians have a nasty habit of eating around 10-11 pm, which is one of the worst disservices we can do to our health) & increasing the non-carb component. Since sugar contains empty calories, we can substitute it with sugar-free sweeteners. Junk food is extremely tempting but it is one of the biggest culprits behind weight-gain. Giving up on these things, and possibly more, sounds tough but then, who said losing weight was going to be easy? One thing I can promise you though (from personal experience)...once you adopt healthy eating, you are not going to want to slip!
