Day 2: Dr Perricone 3 day programme

I woke up without my caffeine withdrawal headache feeling refreshed after 10 hours' sleep. I went and looked in the mirror and was surprised and thrilled to see that my skin already looked significantly better - after one day! It looked smooth and glowing. I put on some sunscreen and strolled off to get a Starbucks spearmint green tea before returning home to cook my epic 3 course breakfast (the meal plan is identical for all three days, so see yesterday's post for details).  Throughout the day I drank the essential still spring water, with extra sparkling water and fresh mint tea.

As I had struggled with the salmon yesterday, I decided to make salmon tartare today. I used the ingredients of Dr P's salad dressing: a tbsp of olive oil and fresh lemon juice, to marinate it plus the usual diced shallot/pickled cucumber/capers. As olives are allowed on the plan (as an alternative to almonds in the evening snack) I figured these salty/preserved items aren't too far off the programme.

Again I merged lunch and dinner due to the fact that I'm a bum on weekends and had breakfast at 11.30, but I made sure I ate an extra large portion of salmon and incorporated the green vegetables from dinner. I treated myself to an antoxidant-rich glass of red wine. It's the Sicilian red Nero d'Avola which is a full-bodied red bursting with antioxidants! I appreciated it to wash down my bland veggies and oily salmon.

I've skipped the afternoon snack and will shortly be munching on my green apple + 4 almonds + 50g of quorn before bed! Back to work tomorrow so will be interesting to see how this plan fits into my work routine.

Here's a no-makeup pic of my noticeably smoother and radiant skin at the end of day 2:

I took it on my Camera+ app and it looks like I've used a filter, but I haven't! My skin actually looks this nice :)

Day 1: Dr Perricone 3 day programme

I have very mixed feelings as to how this diet is going. It's easy in that I have found the food very filling and haven't been tempted to eat anything else, and hard in that I haven't been able to eat all the meals on the plan - aaand I have a banging detox headache right now, I often get it when I give up caffeine. I allowed myself some green tea (antioxidants!) but it's still really painful. Of the three meals and two snacks, I've only managed two meals and one snack - partly because I overslept till 11am, and partly because my hunger is totally gone.

Breakfast

Breakfast was an omelette made with one whole egg plus two whites, oatmeal (which I made with water and a splash of almond milk), cantaloupe melon and blueberries. It was kind of bland but yummy. It definitely kept me full and satisfied.

Lunch

I ended up eating lunch at 4pm due to my late breakfast. The romaine lettuce is dressed with extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice. I added a little bit of soy for dipping the salmon, it isn't in the prescribed plan probably because of the salt content, so I used it very minimally. I found the meal with the salad dressing and the fatty salmon very oily; my mouth felt oily towards the end of the meal. Again I felt very full after this meal. I usually like regular snacks but I didn't want anything for hours after this.

Dinner

I wasn't hungry for dinner but it SHOULD have been the same as lunch with the addition of steamed green veg. I've probably committed the ultimate Perricone sin by skipping a serving of salmon, I just can't face it tonight!

Evening Snack

As I couldn't face dinner I merged the two snacks in the diet plan. I had a green apple, 4 hazelnuts, 4 almonds and 100g of quorn (my preferred substitute for chicken). I felt a little nuts (hehe) counting out the tiny servings of nuts, 4 is quite specific. I enjoyed this meal a lot more than the lunch and felt extremely full after. Also pictured is the spearmint green tea I grabbed from Starbucks to combat my splitting headache when I was on the way home.

Exercise

In addition to the diet plan I did about 45 minutes of brisk walking.

If I have any readers yet, or if anyone reading about the Perricone diet finds this page, please say hi! Let me know if you have any questions or anything you'd like to know about the plan, and let me know how it went for you!

FIRST DIET: Dr Nicolas Perricone's Programme

This isn’t a diet primarily for weightloss. This diet is about the skin and as it claims there will be visible results in 3 days. I thought this would be a nice starter for my blog (and me), because it offers the instant gratification without simply losing a few pounds - the downside  of that is if you lose weight in such a short time period, it’s likely to reappear very rapidly. There’s also an option in the book for a 28 day wrinkle-free diet.

Dr Perricone wants us to eat a lot of fish. A LOT of fish, salmon in particular. Salmon contains DMAE, a wonder ingredient that improves skintone and firmness. Dr P recommends his clients eat at least four servings of salmon a week, and on the three day diet there are two servings a day.

Reading this book made me feel like I was reading a biology textbook, which is actually kind of cool. I would really recommend it: he explained a lot of things that I’d heard about, from free radicals and antioxidants, to skincare ingredients like alpha lipoic acid and vitamin C serums, and now I actually understand what they do and why.

There are a few case studies in the book which highlight how bad the modern diet in particular high GI foods are for our health and specifically our skin. All sugars and processed foods are out; some fruit and vegetables are better than others - carrots, for example, are persona non grata due to their high GI. Extra virgin olive oil gets a lot of love, (and ‘good fats’/fatty acids generally, as they help metabolise fat and encourage our bodies to burn it off), as does (thank God!) wine. We’ve all heard about the antioxidants in red wine, and luckily, Dr Perricone is all about antioxidants. Sadly coffee doesn’t fare as well, as apparently it stresses the body, making us produce cortisol and cling onto fat.

There is a comprehensive chapter on supplements which helpfully outlines important vitamins and minerals, where they are found and how much you should take. Less helpfully for those of us who don’t live in chemists, he lists the supplements he recommends be taken together every day - there are about thirty on the list. He also has a chapter on topical treatment of aging, which was really fascinating. It seems like just a few wonder ingredients - DMAE, vitamin C ester, and PPC - actually make a huge difference. I’ll definitely be looking out for them when buying skincare in future. 

There’s also a chapter on exercise, which looks pleasingly calm and easy. Dr P doesn’t recommend highly intensive exercise - a brisk 30 minute walk three times a week is a good starting point. I will try some of the exercises out in the next 3 days.

There’s a handy shopping list for the 3 day plan, which I took along to Waitrose.

(I was more conservative than the amounts he recommended, because it’s better to buy more than end up wasting groceries, which I find happens quite often). I will also buy the salmon daily from my top-quality local fishmonger as I prefer to eat it raw. The total for this lot, excluding salmon, came to £32. Note the Spanish olive oil - the polyphenols, the good antioxidants in  olive oil, are strongest in spanish olives. (I also bought Quorn instead of chicken as I'm a vegetarian - and part-time pescatarian, which means all the salmon will be interesting for me)

I just broke the sensible diet rules and ate minstrels and m&ms with a can of diet coke as my 'last supper', because the next 3 days are going to be a whole lot of fish and greens. We start at dawn.