healthy habits | trying the exante diet

ok, ok. we all know i'm a freeeeak for the fad meal-replacement diets. first i tried herbalife on the consultation of a friend - where i subbed food for smoothies twice a day, and chucked a couple of tablets in me to keep the hunger pangs at bay. did it work? who could say. it was blody expensive, and i still have tons of the junk laying around (handy on the odd weekend when i forget to buy food, but that's not the point). then there was the ilumi diet that i managed to stick to almost a whole month (bar weekends when all i wanted was bacon, and eggs, and carbs, oh my!); the food there was all pre-prepared and totally processed, and claimed to be dairy and gluten free, and rather than take stuff out of my diet that actually wasn't really doing any harm, it put a shit ton of bad stuff into me (preservatives) that i wasn't used to eating, and so was ill for most of that month. but hey, at least i did lose some weight on that one.

so, when i heard folks twittering on about the exante diet, i had to see what the big deal was. in fact, melanie tells me that her long suffering dave lost an entire human being doing this diet - but then did go on to clarify that he has no palette (and, to be fair, did have an entire human to lose if an 11 stone loss is anything to go by), so found it a lot easier than she did. i was intrigued, to say the least, so when the lovely tezza came calling with exante wares for sampling, i was quick to wave virtually and frantically in her 'face', until she sent me some to try. those such samples arrived, and... well, apple crumble and custard powder that you just whip up and cook quickly then eat? thai chicken cup-a-soup what just required hot water and a blender? deliciously different shake-and-go bottles that only require water and your own personal man power? sounded simple.

on my way out of the house on saturday, i grabbed the velvety chocolate shake-and-go to keep me going until i made my way to costa for the coffee i'd so earned after a billion hours of sleep the day/night before. i read the instructions to "add 200/250ml of cold water and shake well", and my first thought was - "how much is 200ml of water?" as there was no line on the bottle to advise just how much to fill it up to, and - being that i was on-the-go, didn't have time to find a measuring jug to do all the thinking for me. i ran the cold tap, filled it up to a point i thought would be sufficient, screwed the lid back on, shooooook it like a polaroid picture (side note: you shouldn't actually shake polaroid pictures, it makes the ink run), and then assessed for taste.

you guys. it was so damn lumpy still - despite me shaking it so much that i gave myself tennis elbow, there was still powder un-mixed and evident at the bottom of the bottle. i gave it a couple of hard bashes against fences and walls as i walked, trying to dislodge the unmixed powder, but it was no good. i tried to take a mouthful of the drink, and instead got this unpleasant, multi-textural, liquid offence in my mouth. i couldn't swallow it, so spat it back into the bottle, and promptly threw it away. take note: a blender is most definitely required for the powder samples - no question about it. the flavour was on point; chocolatey goodness, but there was nothing velvety about it.

on sunday, after i came back from my mini-adventure around the local parks and rec department (omg not really, i've just basically watched the entire series this weekend and it's on my mind)(a lot), i thought i'd try one of the soup options. again, all powdered and ready to go with water, this time i knew better and prepared the blender for action. i measured out 200ml of boiling water, and added the thai chicken soup powder to the blender, and whizzed that for a couple of minutes until i was suuuure there were noooo lummmmps lefffft, then moved to a mug. it was frothy, and smelt pretty tasty, but did not even make up half a mug of soup... so i made some toast for the side. hahaha. because that's what you do when you're on a meal-replacement diet, you add carbs as a side dish.

in all honesty... i ate the toast and poured the soup down the drain. this diet plan is just not for me, ok. the soup was really creamy and full of flavour, but not in a very tasty way, if that makes any sense (it doesn't to me either, don't worry). it was really fluffy and creamy like a hot drink should be, but tasted like chicken, which is weird for a hot drink. plus. it was suuuuper salty, and just wasn't really what i wanted to be (not) eating, and so...

i have a lot of hope riding on the apple crumble and the lentil daal pots, so keep your eyes peeled on part two of the review over the next week or so... have you tried the exante diet? tell me your woes!