How Many People Useed and Tried the Baby Food Diet

Cheryl Cole's baby food diet? You'll lose weight - but it'll send you goo-goo ga-ga!

Sunday afternoon and my husband and I are having lunch in the garden. He is brushing the falling wisteria blossom from his fillet mignon and I am picking it out of my swede puree.

That'll be the swede puree that I've mixed with the spinach puree in order to make it taste slightly different from the swede and apple puree I consumed an hour ago.

Could this be a religious observance or maybe the latest trend in starters? Have I had some kind of gastric by-pass or lost all my teeth in a terrible accident? No, this is the baby food diet — and Hollywood stars swear by it.

Hard to stomach: Anna and her pureed rations

Reports of the diet began to circulate a year ago when Jennifer Aniston was said to be using it to get in shape for her rom-com Just Go With It.

Jen, it was reported, was eating 14 portions of baby food purees a day followed by a grown-up dinner of grilled fish and green vegetables in the evening and had managed to lose 7lbs in a week. Pictures of her with co-star Brooklyn Decker showed 41-year-old Aniston looking every bit as toned as the Sports Illustrated model, 18 years her junior. The baby food craze had begun.

Riding the crest of the publicity wave created by the 'bikini off' between Aniston and Decker, the diet's creator Tracy Anderson (the personal trainer also credited with sculpting the figures of Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow) stepped into the spotlight. She described her invention as 'a cleanse where you still eat'. Rumours that both Lady Gaga and Reese Witherspoon had also tried it out began to circulate.

And it seems that Cheryl Cole, in preparation for her appearance as a judge on the U.S. version of the X Factor, has turned to Anderson and her diet to give her the kind of physical definition she feels U.S. audiences demand. At 5ft 3in Cheryl is apparently worried about looking stumpy and wants, in particular, to improve her legs.

At 5ft 4in, I do have a certain degree of sympathy for Cheryl's stumpy leg concerns (although she patently doesn't need to lose half an ounce, let alone half a stone). At 10 stone 4lbs, however, I reckon I could stand to lose a bit and, like so many British women, dream of dropping that magic dress size. So I figured that if Cheryl can put up with baby gloop, then I can too.

Now, it is an oft-repeated piece of weight-loss wisdom that the devil lies in the operational detail. With a regime that involves eating so frequently, forward planning must be king.

Celeb followers: Cheryl Cole, left and Jennifer Aniston are said to have done the baby food diet to stay slim

After all, even though my two young children wake me up at 6.30am, I'll need to be eating every hour in order to fit the prescribed 14 portions of puree in before 'enjoying' my grilled fish and green vegetables.

I toy with the idea of drawing up a puree spreadsheet but decide this will take up valuable pulping time. And what exactly to pulp? As Tracy Anderson has never published her baby food diet, the plan is open to interpretation. Tracy counsels against salt, spices and sugars and would, I'm sure, advocate doing the pureeing yourself — although reports continue to circulate that some celebrities have taken to eating baby food from jars.

I take inspiration from the organic baby puree ranges in my local supermarket and spend a significant portion of Saturday creating such treats as butternut squash with carrots, apples and prunes.

Watching me go ten rounds with a blender, which refuses to pulp parsnips to my satisfaction, my husband observes that I might like to try mixing up some wallpaper paste instead. The diet begins in earnest at 6.30am on Monday morning and by 9am things are going badly.

My 7.30am 'feed' goes fine (apple and pear puree: baby jar size portion of) but how to consume a bowl of peach and banana puree on the school run? I end up tucking it inside the hood of my toddler's buggy hoping that I might snatch a minute behind the bike sheds to consume it in private.

I completely forget that it's there, however, and lose most of it while negotiating a high curb, arriving at school with pale pink gloop dripping off the shoes of a very disgruntled two-year-old. By lunchtime, I am already heartily sick of purees. I'm no longer particularly hungry, but this may well be due to an intense wave of nausea that strikes as I try to consume 12.30pm's broccoli and sweet potato puree.

Faintly concerned that I am doing myself harm, I decide to consult nutritional therapist Janine Fahri, founder of London's NutriLife clinic. Her snort of derision when I tell her that I'm on the baby food diet indicates she is not a fan.

'What's going to be next — the cat food diet?' is her opening comment. 'The reason it's called baby food is because it's for babies! They have small stomachs, no teeth and less sophisticated digestive systems than adults, which is why purees are appropriate.

Fitness guru: The diet is the brainchild of Tracy Anderson, personal trainer to stars including Madonna

'I'm an advocate of eating a little and often, but 14 times a day? Ludicrous. By all means, let's adopt diets that are nutrient-rich and take some of the strain off our digestive systems, as this does, but we really don't have to pretend to be six months old in order to do that.'

By Wednesday, puree is taking over my life. My freezer is rammed with small pots of frozen gunk and my husband is threatening to take the blender to the tip if I do not desist.

When not downing multi-coloured purees, I am furiously blending things, but absolutely failing to judge how much gloop will be liberated from any given vegetable. Parsnips, for example, are reluctant to give up more than a tablespoon, while a butternut squash will happily yield enough puree to fill a paddling pool.

I should also mention at this point that, in addition to feeding purees to her clients, Tracy Anderson also advocates a strict regime of cardiovascular exercise.

On Thursday morning, therefore, I attempt a spin class. It is an ill-advised move and I am forced to stop for fear that my banana and red berry puree will re-emerge on the down hill sprint.

Apologies to the faint-hearted but anyone contemplating this diet should also know that there is a side effect of the baby food 'cleanse' which you won't hear the Hollywood A-list discussing around the pools of Beverly Hills — namely, raging constipation.

By Friday, I am eyeing up the Fruit 'n' Fibre and have had an extremely bizarre dream involving me and Cheryl Cole arguing over a jacket potato while Jennifer Aniston does press ups beside us. I am beginning to fear for my sanity.

The final weekend of the diet is fraught. A day out at Legoland with the children presents an impossible set of logistical problems. I cannot carry ten tubs of defrosting puree around all day - neither can I carry ten jars of baby food.

I opt to put the diet on hold for a day and simply eat the nearest thing to puree that I can find at a theme park. I would advise Jen, Reese, Cheryl and the rest of the Hollywood elite against availing themselves of the Jolly Rocker swinging pirate ship after consuming a bowl of cold mash and a fruit lolly melted into a yoghurt pot.

But you want to know how much weight I lost, right? The answer is five pounds. Not bad in a week, I guess, but absolutely not worth the man hours, blender blades and freezer space involved.

I don't mind if I never see another puree again and have developed a strong aversion to anything with even faintly puree-ish credentials - my relationship with houmous may have been tarnished for life.

Meanwhile the blender finally gave up the ghost on Saturday night, midway through a batch of prune and pumpkin. Husband has been given green light to take it to the tip.

How Many People Useed and Tried the Baby Food Diet

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1386075/Cheryl-Coles-baby-food-diet-Youll-lose-weight-itll-send-goo-goo-ga-ga.html

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