The DietChef Thing: Day 0

Ok. So this is day 0. With my increasing health problems and decreasing mobility due to a degenerating bone disease, I finally finally have to get to grips with my weight. I've always accepted my size, I've always carried far too much weight and worn larger size clothes, never envying others their slim figures, but now there's a problem. Clothes that should fit are getting tight. More upsettingly, my rings don't fit anymore, including my wedding set on my left hand. I feel ungainly and horrible and it's time to act. I need hardly say I've tried everything, pills, weight watchers, herbal, juice, you name it. What I haven't tried is being sent a month's supply of easy, microwavable food, breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. No working out portion sizes or cooking, which I can't do anyway, no choice, except there's plenty of choice in the meals you can have, but what I mean is, you stick to it or you don't. There's no room for quibble. Yes, I'm doing the Diet Chef thing.

Now I need to vent, tell someone, something, anything about what's happening to me or I'll burst. I don't want to become a weight loss bore on Twitter, which is my normal outlet, so I've decided to do it here. This blog has covered many things, but it's my little personal space and it's there to be used and no one has to read it. If you click, you're fairly warned. I'm not going to pull any punches here. I might use words I don't use on Twitter. You might see a side of me I usually try to keep hidden, we'll see how it goes. As I say, Caveat emptor. Conversely, if my experiences and journey can help anyone, then it will have done some good to more than just me. OH, one more thing. I don't know how much I weigh, although I have a horrible feeling it's over 200 pounds, and I'm not weighing myself, I don't need that added stress. I'll know if it's working by measuring myself and if I can fit into things again. This is as much about being able to stay on a strictly controlled eating plan as the weight I hope to lose from it. Enough already, let's get this show on the road.

So, today. The website filled me with qualms, I really hate satisfied testemonies from customers, they always sound bogus. Of course there were claims all over the place of staggering successes, well there would be. So I read up on what info I could, there isn't really a heck of a lot, when you come down to it. All right, die is cast, I chose a two month plan, the one month is way too expensive and anyway, one month won't get me anywhere. Put it in my basket.

First problem. They added all the meals to my plan, instead of me being able to choose what to put in, and I then had to go edit them and remove what I didn't like, substituting what I wanted to add more of. I am, for anyone who doesn't know, blind, I use the screenreading software Jaws for Windows. Of course I know most people know that, but in case anyone stumbles on this by accident, let's just make it clear. So I'm on the site, trying to work it out, not very successfully, and I'm an experienced computer user/geek. This website would win no damn prizes for accessibility let me tell you! Finding how to add and remove items from the meal plans nearly defeated me, and in the end it doesn't look as if what I did worked, but more of that anon. Before taking the next step I Checked carefully, everything looked all right. You have to check every single item in every single category to make sure you haven't been given the ones you don't want. Um, seriously?

Ok, took a deep breath, gave my soon to be depleted wallet a comforting pat to brace us both and clicked the Paypal button. All ok. Got my order confirmation and: shock horror! There was the porridge that will make me sick. There was the buttermilk pancake mix I can't stand for long enough to cook. What the, well hell, I'll say it, what the actual fuck?

So now I'm on a deadline, if there's one thing Diet Chef is prompt about it's taking your money and sending the goods, and try canceling the order once you've clicked that confirm button. You have more of a chance of converting Donald Trump to the cause of feminism!

So now what? I need help. Ok, so I call them, right? Wrong! Oh, so, so wrong! These people do not have any kind of way to call them, nada, zilch, zip, diddly squat! You have to send an Email or Facebook message, which they'll reply to, they say, within one working day. No earthly good to me. They also say they have a live chat facility if you need urgent help. Ah, but where? Where and oh where can it be? I looked and my husband, even more experience computer user and geek looked, do you think we could find it?

Well, I found out in the end that if you got sent incorrect items you could return and exchange them, at your own cost of course, but by this time I was pretty depressed. I've spent years ignoring the lures of the lose weight easily and effortlessly things. To be fair I have no illusions that this is going to be easy or effortless, but all the same, I got desperate enough to give some eager waiting hands my money, and this had to happen.

Ok, so, with half an hour till closing time, I did, by dint of combing every single line of every page of the website, find the button to start a live chat. It's tucked right at the bottom, beyond the copyright info and all that, inside a completely inaccessible help frame thing, how I got it to work I'll still never know. Once I'd started the chat it was doable enough, thank heaven, and, once I had them understanding the problem and had given them my order number, they were on the ball and quick about finding a solution. But it shouldn't have happened in the first place, and getting help was made incredibly complicated and stressful.

So, at the end of day zero:
I've got my box of food arriving tomorrow.
I've ordered fresh veg, fat free yogurt and milk, part of your daily allowance, also arriving tomorrow.
I significantly decreased my food intake today in preparation for smaller portions in days to come.

Let's see where we go from here.

Mood: hungry and unsure but hoping.
Music: Edith Backlund: Skinny.