Weight to go with mmmmmmmm-maple syrup…

I’ve known about the Maple Syrup Diet for years. The product’s PR has tirelessly tried to sell me stories about how you can live on its key ingredient Madal Bal Natural Tree Syrup (a form of palm tree syrup) for five days while detoxing and losing weight. And I have equally tirelessly resisted her efforts.

But, two weeks ago, when I was desperate to find a case study who’d lost weight on the 5.2 diet (not as easy as you would imagine, considering half the population seem to be doing it), Kate came up with a lovely lady who has used her Maple Syrup cocktail on the fasting days – and lost two stone since July.

That simultaneously struck me as A) a great idea and B) an extremely scary idea. Scary because I couldn’t get my mind around going through a whole day without any solid food, which is what the case study has done.

But she promised me the drink satisfied her appetite and kept cravings under control. So I decided to give it a whirl. I had my first cup instead of breakfast this morning, with a second cup two hours later. Following my case study’s advice, I made it into a hot drink – 20ml of syrup + 300ml hot water + juice of ½ a lemon + pinch of ginger – and I have to say it is delicious!

There are 70 calories in a cup. And, if I was doing this properly, I would have had nothing solid to eat all day, and just seven cups of the drink.

But I had a nasty shock at lunch time – a traffic fine for straying into a yellow junction, and this on top of the news last night that the car in which I’d strayed was going to cost me £1300 to repair after its gearbox had broken the day after the offence.

I needed comfort food! There was leftover ratatouille in the fridge, and I’d just been sent a batch of reformulated Slim Pastas to try. So – olive oil aside – this seemed like a justifiable 5.2 meal.

The new pasta still has a texture that is hard to compare to anything I’ve ever eaten, but the penne that I had today were not totally inedible.

Did my comfort meal cure my blues? No. There is probably no substitute for genuine carbs when you want a pick-me-up. (Though I have just read that big eaters of pasta are more likely to develop depression further down the line – we will explore this another time).

Do I think Slim Pasta and Madal Bal Syrup are sensible weight loss products? Not entirely – but there’s a lot worse out there.

Will I try them again? Yes. In fact I can see the syrup becoming quite addictive…