My Diet Story for NYPost

I didn't think I should blog about it, so I just sent a million secret emails to all my buddies and top-shelf bitches while I was on this mission. I participated in a six-week diet review for the New York Post.
I was assigned - Christine Avanti's Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food. I LOVE THIS BOOK!

I fell in love immediately. My mother-in-law got Christine's first book, which sounds a lot more strict than the diet book I just lived-by and reviewed.

Here's the text of the NYPost article:

The Dieter
Julie Hardee, 31

The Diet: “Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food” ($26.99) by Christine Avanti, shuns processed, chemical-laden foods in favor of more wholesome (and even full-fat) meals.

The Results: Hardee, a receptionist who lives on the Upper East Side, was slim to start, but wanted to tighten up a few problem areas and rid herself of bad habits, such as midnight snacking on Fire Cheetos and indulging in the office candy bowl.

Within the first week of reading Avanti’s book, Hardee was singing the author’s praises. “I am in love with my book,” she says. “She talks about how you should only eat things [when] you understand what the ingredients are — and try to keep it to five ingredients or less on the label. In short, don’t eat stuff you don’t understand, because it’s probably bad for you.” (Which delighted Hardee, because locally made organic beer was green-lighted.)

Not only did Hardee kick her Diet Coke habit — “Everything in Diet Coke is basically poison,” she says — she took to the health-food store with gusto. “The book didn’t have any specific exercise — it was more about label reading and enhancing your diet with flax meal and coconut oil or drinking a fermented food every day I had a kefir [a yogurt-like dairy beverage].”

Hardee even managed to put aside her fear of full-fat products. “I learned that it’s better to eat a pure-fat sour cream that comes from well-treated, lovely animals than to eat some reduced-fat sour cream fakeness,” she says.

Before
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 143.4 pounds
After
Weight: 141.2 pounds

Book: Skinny chicks eat real food

The Grade: A
“Amazing . . . [but] if you can’t go a health-food store, or if you were on a really tight budget, it’d be really hard.”

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/totally_waisted_Hi2mLFEM2PZbPAuXmpGXcP/1

And screen shots! I need to run out and get this in print.

I had airbrush face make-up for the first time in my life, and I Loved the hair & make-up girls. 

I thought my hair looked amazing at the time, but now I think it looks flat. And my tricep looks like a roll of dough but I'm critical. 

I also got styled, as in, these were not my clothes. I worked for a fashion stylist for a few years and never got styled from scratch like this. It was weird being on the other side. I also felt really awkward in the photo-shoot because I'm standing here on the seamless (backdrop) by myself and all these people who organized this were on the other side chatting and what-not. 

I was pretty nervous in the last 72 hours that I might not have lost any weight and would my story would be headlined under "Failure" but I lost 2* pounds and 1.5" from my hips. 

However, I've been "free" from this for a few days and I ate a pretty gnarly cheeseburger, and some delicious jell-o desserts and jell-o is not in the plan. 

While I was on the "Diet" - I didn't even feel like it was a diet, it felt like a Healthy eating plan, I ate one cheeseburger. The most amazing thing is I learned how to really read lables and I QUIT DIET COKE. 

I've quit Diet Coke before, after reading "Skinny Bitch" the scariest diet book in the world, which really just tells you to be vegan. I haven't had a diet coke since October and I'm very happy and not craving it at all. Now when I need a quick drink on the go, I grab a coconut water. 

I did have sprite twice during the 6 week diet phase, but I don't think sprite is as evil as Diet Coke. 

I kept a tiny food journal in my purse and I love chatting with Weight Watchers participants. Journaling is a major key to success.