Diet (con)fusion

So, dear Reader, let’s get this out of the way first: I put on 2lbs.  Yes, I’m heading in the wrong direction fast.  It’s not going well and I’m trying not to panic but to get a (preferably foolproof) strategy.
 
Over the weekend I decided that maybe the problem was that the ‘starvation’ days were just not, well, starvy enough.  I had a look at the serialisation in the Sunday Times and decided to use their recipes.  A starvation day is around 500calories and I was working from the Cancer Relief milk-based diet which came in too high I think.  So I had my two starvation days on Sunday and Tuesday.  Tuesday this was my menu:
 
Breakfast – a pureed Bramley apple with 100g of plain Greek yoghurt
Lunch – a salad of leaves, beans, peas, tomato and cucumber with parma ham and some vinaigrette
Dinner – a clear spiced vegetable soup.
 
It was enjoyable – and I’d say I was less hungry going to bed than when I have a vegetable stir-fry although the soup didn’t look much.
 
Two problems.
 
One – I weighed this morning POST my two starvation days.  Next week I would normally weigh on a Tuesday but will only have had one starvation day between now and then.  So, I’m wary of a third bad result.
 
Two – I think maybe I’m making things complicated by trying to adhere to two sets of diet rules simultaneously.  The thing is that the starvation diet is obviously about calorie restriction – there are mentions of low fat products, of artificial sweeteners.  But I really do believe in the carb-free, paleo-light way of eating that I discovered alongside the Harcombe Diet and Dr John Briffa’s diet last year.  Okay it’s not working for me in terms of weight loss but I feel tonnes healthier.  Even though I’m tonnes heavier.  Well, not quite but you know what I mean. 
 
So I’m trying to stick to that principle – no Muller lights for me.  It’s kind of doing my head in: having to recalculate.  And then, because I’m a scaredy-cat with a maths affliction, I check it a few more times.  And worry about it.
 
Still, I’ve ordered the Dr Michael Mosley book and I’m hoping to find a way to make this work for me.  He advocates 2 starvation days but I’m hoping to do three, being as I’m not normal, or at least most weeks.  Next week I want it to be Monday, Wednesday and Friday but Friday I am having a second interview so not sure this is the best day to be very hungry.  He also suggests two meals of 250 calories but I would rather have three smaller meals so again, it’s going to take a bit of working out.  I may just duplicate my menu above – although there were clearly errors there as they reckoned that two pureed apples, a 170g tub of 0% Total and a tsp of honey was 100 cals – and I reckon the apples alone hit that.  This is what I mean about worrying.
 
Since Tuesday I haven’t eaten very well – in that I had 3 gin and diet tonics on Wednesday night, a glass of wine and a pizza (someone’s leaving do), last night I had 3 glasses of champagne and today I’ve eaten appallingly.  Starvation days don’t balance out gorging days, only temperate ones.  I need to give it a proper go and that means eating wisely but not too well on non-starve days.
 
This week I’ve mostly been in one stage or other of applying for new jobs.  It’s not left me much time to blog and it’s definitely meant the sort of emotional turmoil that has encouraged lax eating.  Next week isn’t looking good either but I have another post burning away at me and I do want to do better.  I don’t have long til the honeymoon and we have a wedding at the beginning of April that I have no idea what I can wear to.