Holy smokes.

Pounds lost: 4/62

Ladies and gents, this cleanse thing works like crazy time. That's four pounds gone in three days! The book does say that it's typical to lose 2-5 pounds during the cleanse, so maybe I'll lose another pound today. At four pounds down, though, I'm 1/17th of the way there! Sorry. I like math.

I solved the apple cinnamon problem, sort of. I put my apple slices in the food processor with the cinnamon and a couple of tablespoons of water, and voila! Applesauce. You should try it. It's not bad.

For dinner, I've been doing the salad just like the book says, plus I'll make myself a 4 oz 96% lean hamburger with a teaspoon of oregano mixed in. I'm basically eating a dry, flat meatball. Ryan's been broiling my asparagus, which tastes more special than eating it steamed.

And then, there are the blueberries. By the end of the day, this feels like a HUGE treat. In an odd way, I really like the restrictive nature of the cleanse, and I'm almost a little sad that it's going to be over tomorrow. Any thoughts from you guys?

On another note, I feel like dieting is sort of a full time job. It takes so long to make everything and shop for everything... I'm a freelancer, and I don't happen to be working at the moment, so I have time to do all of this, but what about the nine-to-fivers? How do you have time to diet?

Sliced Granny Smith Apple + One Teaspoon Cinnamon = Gross.

And so it begins...

Pounds lost: 0/62

Notice my new weight tracker! My goal is to make that armadillo very, very happy. Like, yellow happy.

So I suppose I should post some "before" photos. Here you go:

Oh man. I have those crazy underarm fat pockets. Good thing I'm doing this.

So I started the cleanse today, as promised. Here's how I feel about it so far:

• Breakfast is enjoyable. I thought I would miss salt on my eggs, and I do, but it's not as bad as I thought with the basil.

• Drinking tea is fun. I feel like an accomplished adult when I drink tea by myself in my kitchen. Totally one of those "I'm pretending to be someone else, and it's sort of fun" moments, like the first time you went to the grocery store in college and suddenly realized that you were buying food for just yourself and no one else.

• Apples? Delicious. A teaspoon of cinnamon on/near those apples? Gross. Try eating cinnamon by dipping your apple slices in it, and you will want to commit diet suicide. I have an idea that will hopefully get me past this tomorrow. There's a reason why cinnamon challenges exist on youtube, and that it's funny to watch them. Watch these.

• I'm enjoying the lemon water. It's like lemonade with no sweetener, which is like another cinnamon challenge, except it's actually doable and sort of fun.

• I decided not to do the salmon. I was too scared. My husband Ryan will eat anything on the planet except for salmon, so I wussed out and bought albacore tuna steaks instead. I never ever cook fish, so I had to figure out how to make it so that I could actually eat it. I decided to consult the master of all things home-economist: Lady Martha Stewart (I know she's not really a Lady, I just like how that sounds). Adjusting one of her recipes a bit, I seared the tuna steak over medium-high heat in one teaspoon of olive oil for 5 minutes. While this was happening, I coated the top of the steak with 2 teaspoons of oregano. I then flipped it and cooked it for another 2 minutes. It was freakin' delicious. Good show, Jacqui. :)

• Trader Joe's makes this Orange Champagne vinegar that I used to dress my spinach. AMAZING delicious. Get some right now.

• Pecans were tasty as expected.

• Steamed artichokes are slimy and weird. I've only ever had them in delicious and fattening dips that usually involve cheese, so I didn't know about how weird they really are until today. I choked them down and serenely sipped my second cup of green tea, pretending I was a super skinny yogi or something.

• Did some interval running/walking on the treadmill at the gym for 45 minutes.

I got up late today, so I haven't eaten dinner yet. I'll let you know how it goes.

Questions? Concerns? Advice? Hit me up in the comments, yo.

Four day cleanse is a-comin'!

So! I have a few minutes before I have to go to bed (call time is 4:30am tomorrow in Foxboro, which is an hour away. Ick.), and I wanted to share a bit about the cleanse that's going down on Thursday for those of you who are doing it with me. It consists of a very basic but specific menu. We're going to drink A LOT of lemon water. It's very good for your skin, I'm told. Actually, I wasn't told that, I read it in the book. You know what I mean.

BREAKFAST
• Scrambled eggs (1 whole omega-3-enriched egg, plus 3 additional egg whites and 1 teaspoon of dried basil)
• 1 cup of green tea
• 1 cup of water with 1 ounce (2 Tbsp) of lemon juice.

SNACK
• Sliced Granny Smith apple with 1 tsp cinnamon

LUNCH
• As much Spinach (cooked or raw) as you want, and you can dress it with flavored vinegar or balsamic vinegar 
• 4 ounces of salmon or halibut (grilled, baked, or broiled) with 1 teaspoon of oregano
• 8 pecan halves
• 1 cup of water with 1 ounce of lemon juice

SNACK
• Steamed artichoke or 1/2 cup artichoke hearts in water
• 1 cup of green tea

DINNER
• Large romaine lettuce salad with carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers (dress with 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice to taste)
• Steamed asparagus
• 4 ounces of lean protein (grilled, baked, or broiled with 1 tsp of oregano)
• 1 cup of water with 1 ounce of lemon juice
• 1 cup of blueberries

(Lean protein is basically chicken breast, turkey breast, or 95% lean ground beef. There are lots of other options too. Buy the book,or ask me.)

Sleep, wake, repeat x4.

During the four day cleanse, you are also asked to:

DRINK
• 8 total glasses of water (bonus points if each glass contains an ounce of lemon juice, but the bare minimum is the three glasses of water with lemon juice that you drink during your meals)
• 2 cups of green tea

SLEEP (and HAVE SEX)
• Sleep 7 or 8 hours per night. This is mandatory.
• Try to have sex. If it doesn't happen, no big deal. (Mom, if you're reading this, I love you and I'm sorry.)

PAMPER
• Spend some time babying yourself.
• Cleanse your face twice daily.
• Use a face and body scrub on day 1 and 4.

DE-STRESS
• When you drink a cup of green tea, savor it in quiet, taking some time for yourself.
• Take 15 minutes to do something just for you. It should be something that you normally don't have time for, but that you enjoy doing (like taking a bath, maybe?)

IMPROVE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
 • Try to make one additional improvement to your home or another environment that you often frequent, like your office.

EXERCISE
• Each day of the cleanse, do 45 minutes of any cardio activity you love. This could be walking, swimming, biking, dancing... whatever.
• Stretch 5 minutes in at a.m. and 5 minutes in the p.m.

That's it, basically. The book does a great job of motivating you to start the cleanse, and I definitely recommend that you read it.

What am I excited about? Pecans, apples, green tea. Not so excited about? Fish. I don't eat a lot of fish. Also, this artichoke business is weird to me. I don't usually think of artichoke as a mobile snack food.

Comments? Thoughts? Great fish preparation advice for someone who doesn't really like fish? Lay 'em on me.

Get your shopping done tomorrow, and find those running shoes in the back of your closet now! Let's do this thing!

This is me.

And this is me.

This is also me.

My name is Jacqui Baker, and I'm a foodaholic.

People make all kinds of New Year resolutions. Some people try to lose weight, others try to reconnect with friends and family. Some try to learn a new language or simply watch more foreign films (you know who you are). I'm going to try something a little bit different this year.

First, a little more about me:

Remember the BMI scale? It's that thing that tells you whether your weight is healthy for your height. I took a gander at it a couple of days ago and was SHOCKED to discover that I'm considered to be obese. Now, I don't feel obese, and I don't think that I look obese (overweight, sure). But the proof is in the proverbial pudding, folks. It's about that time again: Diet time.

I've been in various states of "overweight" for a while, but I weigh more now than I ever have in my life. I'm not going to go into a bunch of sob stories or anything. No more excuses. I'm fat, and I'm going to change it.

Why? Well, for one, it's just plain unhealthy. But more importantly, it's because I'm vain. Very very vain. I also happen to work in the fashion industry, and fatties just aren't tolerated in the world of fashion (I'm beginning to think that stylists keep me around because I'm funny).

So let's fix it! I'm a practical person. If stuff needs fixing, I'm gonna fix it.

On the flip side, I also get bored very, very easily.

So what's the solution? It's the Diet of the Month Blog.

Most diet books have some sort of 4, 6, or 8-week program, and I'm going to do them all. I have roughly 60 pounds to lose, which should take me about a year. I'm also going to blog about my findings, of course. And I'll try to keep it as entertaining, honest, and picture-filled as possible.

So I've chosen the first diet, and I encourage anyone reading to do it with me at the same time and comment on your results. I'm starting with...

The O2 Diet: The Cutting Edge Antioxidant-Based Program That Will Make You Healthy, Thin, and Beautiful

The O2 Diet program consists of a four day cleanse and a 28-day diet. I already have the book, and I'm going to do my best to follow it to the letter. I'll be starting Thursday, January 28, 2010.

Hopefully, you've read through this post and you feel inspired enough to join me. Or if you've already done the O2 Diet, do you have any tips or tricks? Leave me a comment.

Through my experience, I want you to think of this as your real world guide to some of the most popular diets around. Come on ladies and gents! Let's get skinny one diet at a time.