My Take on the Sirt Diet

Hello and welcome to another blog post from yours truly!  

This is my take on the Sirt food diet, a book by Aiden Goggins and Glen Matten.

It was first brought to my attention by a client when it featured in the Good Housekeeping magazine, and then by a fellow colleague Jane Black.  I consider myself to be fairly fit, and I thought I had a good diet but in the last few months have been really bothered by bloating after eating, despite avoiding gluten in my diet, and cutting down on dairy.  I am the sort of person who cuddles ideas for a while before executing them, so when Jane announced that she had started day one of the Sirt diet, I decided to be a complete copy cat and join her.  My main reasons for doing so were, the bloating, and a desire to lose a couple of pounds at least... whilst I'm at it.

It was really great doing the programme one day behind my colleague as she gave me hints and tips for being organised, and heads up on how we were both feeling doing it.  Jane and I are similar in that we both train really hard, and boy do we love and food.  And peanut butter.

I had a discussion about this plan with my weights coach, and what he said made perfect sense.  All diet plans start with the following advice... 'stop eating rubbish/processed food' and also 'move more'.  This plan is not a quick fix, as with anything, you have to stick at it.  Juicing for 3 days then eating a carryout meal, and drinking heavily all weekend, is not going to cut it.

I'm not going to go through the whole book on here as buying it for yourself is a darn tootin' good idea if you fancy trying different food groups.

The first 3 days consist of your day going like this:

3 green sirt juices

Sirt meal in the evening.  menus and recipes are in the book.

Day 1 wasn't too bad, I had been out for dinner the night before, and it think the energy from that kept me going for most of the day.  Maybe I should have done some kind of pre diet diet but I just got stuck in.  Day 1 was not too bad.

Day 2 woke up feeling lighter in myself, measured out 2 litres of water to drink through the day, and make my juices, got to the end of the day feeling quite chuffed with myself, but I was feeling peckish but I would have done a good bit of self loathing if I had deviated from the plan...

Day 3.  Final day of 3 juices then a meal at night.  Texted Jane.  What a bad mood i was in! Really grumpy, I would say that day 3 was the most difficult of the plan. I did feel quite light headed throughout the day, and I appreciated the fact that I had someone to share how I was feeling with.  

By day 3 I was sliding on my jeans a lot easier would you believe, and my skin looked really bright, despite the fact that I felt like taking hostages. The book says that non of its subjects got any hunger pangs or felt overly hungry during the 7 days, but boy oh boy I really did feel awful.

Day 4 allows you to go onto 2 juices then 2 meals and for the rest of the 7 days it carries on like this...

Staple ingredients for the fridge and cupboard seem to be kale, parsley, celery, rocket, dark chocolate, chilies, walnuts, and garlic.  If you always have these ingredients to hand you can pretty much whip up any of the recipes in the book.

I am so glad that I started this as I feel that I have some kind of control over how my body is reacting to the meals I eat, I love the recipes in this book, and although I think that weighing yourself is never a good idea, and that judging how you feel in your clothes is more important, I have come down 6 lbs since I started following the advice given, and I seriously have no desire to eat cakes, and coming from me that is a big deal!  I don't have the same cravings for sugar that I had before...

So, good idea or bad idea?  I say, good idea!  A best practice from me however would be to start it on a Friday so that Sunday is your 3rd day.  Starting this on a Monday and having your 3rd day half way through a working week, I think, would be a challenge.  It really is like hitting a re set button but in my opinion it is totally worth it.  It depends on what your goals are.  This is not a quick fix, this is a lifestyle change.  My bloating I feel is in check, and I have no stomach pain after meals any more, and my clothes feel a bit loser.  Winner.

All opinions are my own!