Johnny Ikon teams up with 'Diet Chef': My weight loss mission!

The Problem Johnny Ikon has put on weight - a lot of weight!! These pictures above show I've gone from less than ten stone to around twelve stone in less than six months!! I've just got to fit back into my skinny jeans - I can't afford a whole new wardrobe, and I'm sick of choosing things to cover my fat belly! Putting these photographs side by side has left me well and truly gutted - it's a completely different thing to looking at the picture on its own, seeing them next to each other really hits home how I've gone from a skinny, dancing fun person to a slobby drunk. I blame being 'Johnny Ikon' for my weight loss - there's just too many free drinks, swanky dinners and heavy nights for my waistline to survive! So I'm embarking on a trial in association with Diet Chef, a nationwide diet delivery service that brings nutritionally balanced meals straight to your door with absolutely no effort required by you. They're also super-cheap: it can work out to less than six quid a day! Make sure to keep checking back to hear my thoughts on the food, and check my weight loss progress every day.

Day 1: Friday Right, so here goes nothing!! First up, I had to face the prospect of eating breakfast for the first time in about 15 years. I never eat breakfast usually, in fact to be honest most days I don't eat before 5 or 6pm then I eat a huge meal followed by junk food and sugary boozy drinks all night long. Not a good routine, but it didn't show on my waistline till recently so I thought, why worry? So first up is banana and vanilla porridge, which if I'm honest didn't make the best start to my diet. It was bland compared to any porridge I've eaten before because I wasn't adding any sugar to it, but it really filled me up for hours so at least I wasn't hungry!

Things got much better mid-morning when I tried the chocolate milkshake. It was like taking a break for a cooling ice cream or a McDonalds milkshake - thick, creamy, gorgeous! It also staved off the hunger pangs up until lunchtime, when I tried the delicious mushroom and sherry soup. Another pleasing course, it's balanced just right to stop you feeling hungry.

I had a late dinner so that I didn't feel hungry and tempted to snack late at night, opting for the delicious Thai green curry, which was really tasty and filling although I'd been worried it wouldn't be enough to replace the huge meals I'm used to preparing for myself. I followed it with the chewy apple pie snack bar to replace the creamy desserts i'm used to making for myself, which really filled me up (although it's no replacement for chocolate!).

So overall, at the end of Day One, I'm feeling pretty positive about the prospect of sticking to this diet and losing a stone. I felt full all day and really enjoyed much of what I was eating, just as much as I enjoy the junk I'm used to. Obviously I don't love every choice I ordered, and there are sacrifices to be made, but that's the point of a diet, right??? If I loved everything about it and still lost weight, that wouldn't really be fair, would it?!! Keep checking back over the next few days to see how I get on with the early days of my diet - next Friday will be my first weigh-in. Right, it's time for the weekend, let's hope I can avoid temptation for the next couple of days. Wish me luck!

Day 2: Saturday Right, I'm bang on this diet now - Day 2 flew by without me really feeling hungry, and by the end of the day I was able to have my new version of a binge. I had my yummy milkshake early in the day (banana - it's gonna be a fave I think!), then gorgeous parsnip and honey soup, which was sweet, thick and filling. Dinner was meatballs and some green beans, which tasted fresh and filling, meaty and rich. So far, so impressed with the quality of the food, especially considering it's all longlife and doesn't even have to be refrigerated or anything! By late in the evening, I still had my strawberry porridge and banana bread left, neither of which were particularly exciting prospects given that they'd been my least favourite courses of the day before. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise - the banana bread is a hundred times better than the apple bar, and the strawberry porridge much more flavoursome than the vanilla. All in all, I'm feeling pretty smug for having made it through a Saturday night without cheating!!

Day 3: Sunday Ok, I'll keep today's entry pretty brief - enjoyed really rich and tasty red pepper and goat's cheese soup, and loved loved loved beef stew, but had a bit of an epic fail with the pink apple and cinnamon granola. I've ordered 12 of them and just didn't feel like it today, so substituted 2 slices of toast instead. I'm not certain it's a massive disaster, as the granola is 250 calories (before adding milk) so therefore probably the same number of calories as the toast, but I could just be trying to justify it to myself there! The good thing about this diet is that I didn't feel at all hungry, and haven't eaten the snack bar as I just didn't need it. I'll save that for one of my really, really hungry days this week I guess! My favourite part of the day is definitely milkshake time - it's my McDonalds substitute, and a damn good one!

Day 4: Monday Just a short entry about Monday, as the diet is all going pretty smoothly. I don't feel hungry, and I'm starting to feel genuinely "re-educated" about portion sizes. Even if I were cooking my own food now instead of having pre-prepared stuff, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't be creating the massive portions I was just a week ago. I'm trying to resist weighing myself too much, but I have a feeling my first week will see a big weight loss too!

Day 5: Tuesday I was trying to resist weighing myself until Thursday or Friday, but I took a sneaky peek and my weight loss so far is B-I-G!!!! I'll keep you in suspense until my official weigh-in, but I'm feeling happy. Oh, and I have a new favourite - the three bean and chorizo soup is delish!! Yum......

Day 8: Friday - THE WEIGH-IN!!!!! The big day has arrived, and I knew already it was going to be big!! My tummy feels and looks (almost) flat and I haven't cheated on the diet at all (any non-Diet Chef food I had was substituted calories-wise so I stuck to my limit, eg. swapping the granola for toast some days). Oh, and fellas - I will now reveal the big weight loss secret that you all NEED to know! When you lose weight, your willy looks bigger!!!!! How great is that?!?!! 

Ok, so here's the result.... Get ready! I've gone from 12 stone 2 pounds to 11 stone 3.

Yes, I've dropped almost a whole STONE in just over a week!!!!!!! Get in! Here's to the next 3 weeks of completing my goal and getting down below the 11 stone mark. I know my weight loss is going to slow down dramatically now, so I need to stay motivated for next week and not let the fact that my weight loss is smaller unmotivate me. But tonight, I will celebrate!

Day 10: Sunday Well, post weigh-in I was quite concerned about getting through a big weekend with "planned cheating", as I knew I'd be going off-Diet Chef for a couple of days. I made sure to choose options that kept me under 1,500 calories for the day though so I don't think any harm has been done, and I should still be on course for another good week!

Day 11: Monday Ok, so it's days yet till my next weigh-in, but I can still feel the weight coming off and I've been weighing myself and it's still going down much more rapidly than I thought. I guess I'm the opposite of most people - it took months to gain and only weeks to lose!! I must be a genetic freak?!?!! I'm still totally hooked on the Diet Chef milkshakes (the only disappointment is that I can't neck half a dozen of them a day!), particularly the latte coffee flavoured one. Mmmmm hmmm!! And the beef casserole and pea and ham soup kept me so full yesterday I was practically running out of time for anything else. Yum yum!

I can't wait for my weigh-in on Friday, I know I'm going to be well below the 11 stone mark which gives me a confidence in the diet and determination not to cheat and to stick to it. There's no way you can cheat when you can feel and see the difference Diet Chef is making, unless you have completely self-destructive tendencies!! I will be 'cheating' in the sense I'll have some nights out, but I'll be counting the calories VERY STRICTLY. I might even get back down to 10 stone with this diet if I really, really stick to it and work hard. I'm even exercising again!!

Day 12: Tuesday Ok, so I found something I didn't like! The chickpea and apricot tagine is tasty, ever so sweet, and it might appeal to vegetarians but it wasn't my cup of tea. Thank god I had the pea and ham soup yesterday too, which is my favourite, and of course the lovely milkshakes. To be honest, most days I feel so full I often miss something off my allowance, such as the snack bar or morning porridge. I try not to because I know that if you eat too little your body goes into 'starvation mode' and it's much harder to lose weight, but sometimes the time just runs away with me!! Looking forward to Thai curry again tomorrow....

Day 15: Friday - The Second WEIGH-IN!!!!! Well, the second weigh-in has come around already and I have to admit to having been nervous about this week. Having lost so much weight the first week I expected a rapid slow-down, and to find it hard to stay motivated. But I just got on with it, the great thing about Diet Chef is that you basically don't have to think too much about it. The concept is basically nicked from Hollywood celebrities who get a chef to prepare all their meals - if it's all done for you and delivered ready-to-eat, how can you go wrong? Anyway, the weigh-in..... Get ready......

This week I've gone from 11 stone 3 to 10 stone 8!!! That's another 9 pounds!

Add to the original 13 pounds and I've lost an incredible 22 pounds in two weeks!!

I think my results are pretty unusual - as Diet Chef only predict a stone in a month, but I'm not gonna complain if it works so much better for me than everyone else! Time to celebrate!!!

Day 18: Monday I feel like I'm definitely into my stride with Diet Chef now, I've developed certain tricks to make sure I never get hungry too. I have a rule, for instance, that I never eat anything each day until I've drunk at least 1 litre of water. I'm surprised how often I don't want anything to eat after I've had lots of water. I'm drinking so much water over the course of each day too, but that's normal for me. I've always drunk far more than the required 2 litres! It does the trick of filling you up a bit, and combined with the low-GI foods on Diet Chef it makes sure I haven't run out of food by early evening and start cheating. In fact, often I get to about 10pm and realise I've only had one or two of my courses and need to catch up!

Day 21: Thursday This is a momentous day - I've achieved the aim I had at the start now by fitting back into my 26-inch waist jeans. I can squeeze into them and do them up, but 3 weeks ago they didn't go past my thights. The weight has literally dropped off with these Diet Chef meals and a little bit of exercise. I'm so, so, so excited now!!!!!!!

Day 22: Friday You know what today is - WEIGH-IN DAY!!!!!! Now, you know it's gonna be another good week (I'm so surprised that my weight loss hasn't slowed down after 3 weeks) and my weight has gone from 10 stone 8 to 10 stone 3!! So, in total, I've now lost a monster 27 POUNDS!!!! Yes, in 3 weeks! That's crazy, isn't it?!! I have less than a week to go now, and it would be really, really nice to be 10 stone on my final weigh-in. Although I need to be thinking over the next 5 or 6 days about how i'm going to maintain this weight after my time on Diet Chef finishes. I didn't anticipate losing weight so quickly, so didn't consider it but I'm hoping that having pre-controlled meals has taught me portion control and I won't splurge!!

Day 25: Monday The diet is so close to being over now, and as the weekend has just finished I thought I'd share one of my most important diet rules. I've really stuck to this over the last month and (if I do say so myself) the weight has dropped off!

Ok, so here it is: it's ok to cheat!! But cheating has to be QUALIFIED - ie. if I decide I'm going to have a McDonald's cheeseburger that's 500 calories, then I can only have 1,000 calories for the rest of the day. That basically translates to a small breakfast, small dinner and a LOT of fruit!! Some days I've even pigged out and ordered 1,200 calories worth of food at one meal out and then stuck to fruit for the rest of the day.

In other words, I have gone off Diet Chef sometimes but I've stuck to the calories rule. Those days are much harder actually, because I have to count the calories and think about it. It made me realise how great Diet Chef was, because if i had simply embarked on my own diet then I'd have been going through that counting rigmarole every single day. No thanks!!

So, in summary - if you're gonna have that slice of cake or that burger, DON'T see it as cheating because you can accommodate almost anything into your calories for the day. But DO NOT go over them because your hard work for the next week will only be making up for that one day, and you won't be actually losing anything from your start weight.

DAY 28: THE FINAL RECKONING Wow, it's all over!! A whole month of Diet Chef and I've lost an absolutely remarkable 2 stone and 2 pounds to take me to EXACTLY 10 stone, which is the lightest I've been in a long time! It's also a really healthy BMI/weight for me, and I look better in both my face and body, and have more energy. I don't need afternoon naps anymore, or find myself getting grumpy. Let's hope I can keep all the weight off now! Eek!!!!

For more information on Diet Chef, and to order your own food, visit their website here now.