Here nutritionist Zoe Harcombe explains how to eat your way to a body like Jess:
The Rules
Eat as much as you need, you should not feel hungry.
Salads and vegetables (not potatoes) are ‘free foods’.
Drink as much water as you like, as well as herbal/fruit teas, decaffeinated tea and coffee (no milk or sugar.
Food can be cooked in any of the following ways – roasted, fried (in a dash of olive oil or a knob of butter), grilled, baked, poached, steamed etc.
You can snack between meals on crudités (sticks of carrots, celery, peppers etc), Natural Live Yoghurt and/or hard boiled eggs/cold meat, but try to get used to eating only three big main meals a day.
Replace any meal that you don’t like with any other meal. Have the same breakfast and main meals every day, if this works for you. But only have one rice/porridge meal a day). This is a really useful rule – you don’t have to do any fancy recipes if you don’t want to – have tuna salad for lunch and chicken stir fry for dinner every day if you want to.
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THE 7 DAY PLAN
Day 1
Breakfast: Bacon & Eggs
Lunch: Salad Niçoise (a tin of tuna or a tuna steak on a bed of salad – hard boiled eggs and anchovies optional); Natural Live (Bio) Yoghurt
Dinner: Stir-fry vegetables & brown rice. Put 50-75g (dry weight) brown rice on to boil (takes 30 mins) - chop up loads of vegetables into batons/strips (carrots, courgettes, onions, peppers, green beans, baby sweet corn etc). Stir-fry them in olive oil on a high heat for 5-10 mins - just in time for the rice.
Day 2
Breakfast: Porridge made from up to 75g porridge oats (just pour boiling water from the kettle on the dry oats, until it's the consistency you like!)
Lunch: Plain or ham omelette & mixed salad. (2-3 eggs, knob of butter, ½ teaspoon mixed herbs, ground black pepper, chopped ham (optional) – whisk the eggs until fluffy, add the herbs and pepper, melt the butter in an omelette pan and add the eggs (and ham), cook slowly until it becomes firm. If you stir it you will end up with scrambled eggs – see day 3!).
Dinner: Pork or lamb chops with a selection of vegetables
Day 3
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs
Lunch: Brown rice salad. Pre-cook 50-75g dry weight brown rice. Leave to chill. Add finely chopped salad ingredients (cucumber, spring onions, pepper, celery, crushed garlic clove). Use olive oil & black pepper as a dressing.
Dinner: Steak & a selection of vegetables
Day 4
Breakfast: 50-75g brown rice cereal (available from the gluten free section in most supermarkets).
Lunch: Chef’s salad (a bed of salad with hard boiled eggs and cold cuts of meat); Natural Live Yoghurt
Dinner: Salmon steaks & a selection of vegetables
Day 5
Breakfast: Plain or ham omelette
Lunch: Chicken with vegetables or salad; Natural Live Yoghurt
Dinner: Paella (brown rice, Mediterranean vegetables & seafood)
Day 6
Breakfast: Porridge made from up to 75g porridge oats (just pour boiling water from the kettle on the dry oats, until it's the consistency you like!)
Lunch: A fish and vegetable feast with our Cajun Seasoning (Recipe at end): Fish steaks (like salmon/tuna) or a whole fish (like trout/mackerel) – anything you like served with a selection of vegetables and a side salad, if you fancy one. Natural Live Yoghurt.
Dinner: Beef or chicken stir-fry – as with day 1 dinner but add strips of beef or chicken for protein.
Day 7
Breakfast: Natural Live Yoghurt
Lunch: Roast leg of lamb with rosemary and chargrilled vegetables. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius. Place leg of lamb in large roasting dish and sprinkle with fresh rosemary. Add handful of garlic cloves and cook until meat done to your liking. Brush a baking tray with olive oil and chargrill the veg at the same time.
Dinner: Stuffed peppers. Boil 50-75g (dry weight) brown rice, stir-fry chopped, mixed, vegetables in olive oil and then mix the rice & veg and fill a de-seeded pepper shell. Bake in a medium oven for 20-30 mins, until the pepper is soft to a fork touch.
The small print
You may feel unwell during the five days. You are coming off caffeine and sugar – two addictive substances – so you should expect withdrawal symptoms (headaches and irritability, for example). Cravings could increase for a couple of days before they then subside. When Candida is attacked in the body, the ‘die-off’ of the parasite is so well documented that it has been named “Herxheimers reaction” after the person who discovered it. In the extreme, this could even give mild flu-like symptoms (rare). Drink plenty to minimise these very short term problems. Try to see any unpleasant reactions in Phase 1 positively – this is confirmation that one, or more, of the conditions has been a problem for you and you are seeing evidence that you are making a difference. Stick with it – you’ll lose weight and feel so much better at the same time!