I'm now five weeks into the programme, so I think it's time for a progress report. As of today I have lost 5.3lbs of fat and gained 0.3lbs of lean body mass. That's a great result and it's an early sign that this process really does work. The important thing is it's fat that is being lost. With conventional diets you lose the pounds, but a substantial part of that will come from a reduction in lean body mass, in other words muscle wastage and water elimination.

The only slight caveat is that the use of the skinfold calipers takes a bit of practice and it's possible that my initial readings were a bit overstated. But whatever, things are definitely heading in the right direction.

There's some visual improvement as well, my stomach doesn't seem to be quite as protuberant as it was. Interestingly, I just put the word 'protuberant' into the Google Toolbar in order to check the spelling and the first search term suggestion it came up with was 'protuberant abdomen'. Those two words obviously go together quite strongly.