As this is the last week of the #HerFamBodyProject I thought it was time to reflect on what I've learned over the last few weeks.
Gillian's plan certainly helped me to eat better and get some exercise in but more importantly it taught me to never, EVER embark on a diet in tandem again.
The Man and I have been doing the #HerFamBodyProject together, and it’s been going well. At least, in that we are looking marginally better than before. This is good because I have my doubts as to whether our relationship is actually going to survive the rest of the challenge. In less than a week, our new improved, fitter, finer physiques may be called into service when setting up Tinder accounts to search for a new mate.
At first when The Man expressed an interest in joining me in the #HFBP I was amazed. At no point in the decade that I have known him has he ever ONCE given an ounce of consideration to what he put in his mouth. On our first date I suggested we share a main course dish that I knew to be huge. He shared this with me and then ordered an ENTIRE second main course after consuming the first.
He is a big person. He has to order his shoes from a special shop on the Internet called Magnus (no joke). He weighs fully one and a half times what I weigh and I am not a small woman. He no longer possesses the lightening fast metabolism of his youth though his brain seems slow to grasp this fact. And so I was initially happy that he was taking control of his health destiny.
I had anticipated that a bit of nagging would be required when he came on board, what I didn’t anticipate was what a little diet-Nazi he would become.
Everything started reasonably well. We were a team, we were in this together. All that solidarity rapidly devolved into intense competition however and now our house has become a claustrophobic environment of fork-watching not unlike the house in
America’s Next Top Model, though with considerably less attractive, fatter occupants.
Here’s my 8 pretty solid arguments for NEVER dieting in conjunction with your other half:
1. A little healthy competition
The first few days of a joint dieting enterprise is often punctuated by a little good-natured smack talk. As the days pass and you both start to feel the physical effects of sugar withdrawal this banter can start to feel a little more personal. By day two or three, the atmosphere is as tense as two people each pretending that they don’t want the last piece of cake.
2. Mutual monitoring
When co-dieting the mutual monitoring gets completely out of control and instead of paying any heed to what you’re eating, you are just mentally cataloguing the other person’s every transgression to throw back at them at some later (and most likely, hungry) moment.
3. Secret eating
The direct result of all the monitoring is the unproductive response of making your entire diet a “show diet”. Meal times become a test of wills to see who can consume the least, after which you each retire to secret locations to stealth-eat an entire packet of Cadbury’s Fingers.
4. Exercise cheating
Three simple steps to exercise cheating: Leave house wearing lycra; jog to nearby location and pass an hour consuming whatever food and beverages are available there; return fatigued and out of breath which indeed you are from speed eating 1500 calories.
5. Dieting dysmorphia
This is an unfortunate symptom of the competitive mania and occurs when you wrongly believe that you are dong great in spite of averaging roughly a pack a day of the aforementioned secret Cadbury’s Fingers.
6. Enabling
When you spot that through some miracle your co-dieter is actually doing quite well and ‘glowing’, this is the time to suggest the idea of a cheat night in a blatant attempt to sabotage them.
7. Hunger-induced psychosis
When you have an over powering desire to attack your co-dieter who has, after achieving a modicum of success in their health quest, started to lecture you about how much sugar there is in the fruit that you are consuming.
8. Rewarding little to no progress
When the joint dieting has become too unpleasant to tolerate, admit defeat and celebrate accordingly with carbs, carbs and more carbs. When that sugar hits your bloodstream, you'll never feel more in love.
"Let's never diet again."
Did you have more success than me and The Man?
At the start of the plan, our trainer, Gillian, offered a prize of five personal training sessions at her studio
Body Project for the best success story and we're throwing in a voucher for €200 worth of skin rejuvenation at
Malahide Laser and Skincare too. To be in with a chance to win, send us your stories or pics of your progress or the finished NEW YOU to: editorial@HerFamily.ie.
