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.