Cook a little: the 17 day diet, day 4

Day 4 and I've run into a few problems with the diet.

1 I am utterly bored. What can I say? I like my food. After 4 days of fruit, steamed veggies and fish, there's only one thing on my mind. How does Posh Spice do it? She supposedly lives off this stuff.

breakfast: scrambled eggs with veggies and cottage cheese (no toast, then)

2 I have a load of recipes to test for various jobs, and they all contain carbohydrates. Of course they do, it's what normal people eat. What do I do? Do I test them then chuck the food? Do I try one bite (which I should really, I have to TEST it for god's sake)? Do I tell my employers to shove it?

3 I think about food all the time.

4 I talk about food even more than usual.

On the up side:

1 My time spent in supermarkets is greatly reduced. I'm not allowed any bread, pasta, wheat, meat, sugary food/drinks or alcohol, so all I need to look at are the fruit/veggies and the dairy section. I buy eggs in bulk and - with reluctance - some cut poultry. I walk past whole supermarket sections with my head held high. No thanks. Feelings of superiority ensue.

2 I get creative with the loopholes. I decide red wine is ok (something about nutrients in the grape skins) and for some reason, Parmesan is considered a low fat cheese by Dr. Mike. I suspect, however, that the phrase 'fat free' has gotten lost in translation somewhere. I'm not questioning Dr. Mike though. No way. I eat the cheese. Bliss.

3 Am fascinated how easy it is to greatly reduce my sugar and carb intake. I don't get withdrawal symptoms. I don't crave sugary stuff. The only thing I really miss, is something salty and crunchy. Like roasted nuts. Now there's a thought.

More about the book itself (as opposed to my diet miseries) to follow.

Cook a little: the 17 day diet, day 1

My next book review is on a diet book. Following my own rules-of-the-reviewer (with 'don't review a cookbook you haven't cooked from' being the one and only rule), this means I have to go on said diet. That's a first.

Well actually, I did follow a diet once. All I remember is that it was four days of tuna steaks for lunch, spoonfuls of peanut butter as a snack and lots of beets. As random as the famous Beyoncé 'maple syrup and cayenne pepper' diet then. I was supposed to lose four kilos in those four days, just like my assistant-at-the-time Rosie's mother did. I lost nothing. I'm still eating peanut butter straight from the jar though.

The book is The 17 Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno, who thankfully is a real doctor - a GP. (He comes with recommendations from Dr. Phil. Who came on a wave of Oprah Winfrey fame. It's all in the networking.) Dr Mike is not as shouty as I had expected: leafing through the book I only see a few exclamation marks. Good.

It's translated into Dutch by a lady who used to write for 'the glossies' and now writes her own books. You can tell she's not a translator. Some sentences are appalling. You can just hear Dr. Mike in the background, saying it in English with his (or so I imagine) American twang and big white smile. Be warned, I will not be able to stop myself from giving examples (in Dutch) of the odd odd sentence. (Yes, it is supposed to say 'odd' twice. Speaking of appalling sentences.)