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How to go on holiday and lose weight….

28th July 2009 by Helena 4 Comments  

It was a scene you seldom see. We got back last night from five heavenly days in Lebanon and I had actually LOST a kilo. When did you last lose weight on holiday (unless it was deepest India)? Exactly. Well I have the answer. You go on holiday with my friend Ghada.

Our holiday was not only lovely, but life-changing. The world according to Ghada is very simple. You eat almost exclusively things that are good for you. And you don’t drink. Also, in the same was as you do on the Viva Mayr Diet, you eat a huge breakfast (masses of fruit, cereals, seeds, tomatoes, even heavenly Lebanese bread things stuffed with cheese) a big lunch and you don’t even have dinner. You have a snack around 6pm.

It is the most amazing system. You sleep better, you feel better and you lose weight.

Ghada also uses only natural products on her skin. And when I say natural, I mean things we would normally eat. In other words while I was reaching for my Clarins night cream, she was busy putting mango skin on her face. I have to say her skin looks great; she looks great. But I am too attached to my products to give them up. Having said that I had the BEST exfoliation I have ever had on the beach, using nothing but sand. Here we are (Ghada, me and Leo in a row) rubbing our legs with nature’s own exfoliator.

exfoliating-on-beach.jpg

So this evening I am going home and I don’t even have to think about what to cook for dinner. What a relief. And tomorrow I will wake up slim and energised. What’s not to like?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Travel, blog --> Tagged With: holiday, weight

4 thoughts on How to go on holiday and lose weight....

  • Ghada says:
    28th July 2009 at 2:52 pm

    😉

  • mimi says:
    28th July 2009 at 5:12 pm

    Great! I was just today reading that you shouldn’t eat after 8pm, as it only sits in your stomach!
    Ye olde saying “breakfast like a king..” must be true after all.
    And it certainly makes evening-time easier not to have to cook!
    Re the products, I’m with Ghada too- most of the big-name brands are about packaging and image. I make all my own stuff, learned it in my aromatherapy studies, and beauticians always think I’m about 10 years younger than the reality!
    The beach pic is lovely.

  • Britt says:
    28th July 2009 at 9:23 pm

    Wowza! Lucky you and what a great friend you have. The ultimate holiday. Sounds like you had a really good time with the added bonus of losing weight 🙂 You must feel really good!

    If I ever come back from a holiday and end up losing weight I would be very happy, but it has yet to ever happen! I think I would need to go to one of those ‘health spas’ where they hide all the food from you & make you drink liquids.

    I am definitely going to try that routine, it makes sense and seems easy to follow & easy to WANT to follow. x

  • Cate Dubai says:
    29th July 2009 at 5:04 pm

    Sorry, Helena, but 3 dozen trips to India (at least) and I have only ever put on weight ‘cos the food’s so good and you eat so much of it. Being ill in India is a state of mind and has nothing whatsoever to do with your stomach.
    Would give almost anything to be going with you to Savoie.
    Don’t blame you for giving up vino incidentally in the Emirates in the summer. The hang-overs are a hundred times worse than anywhere else and it’s not worth it anyway. I remember you once so rightly describing wine in the Emirates as tasting just like “liquified fruit drops”. But wait until your have your first glass of chilled white French wine from a bottle that hasn’t travelled thousands of kilometres. It’s like sheer unadultered nectar. Enjoy!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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