I read once that Monday is the worst day to try to start changing your eating, or dieting, so therefore Friday must be the best, right? Either way I'm starting today. I weighed myself this morning and I'm 9 stone 9.6lbs. My ultimate goal is about 8 stone 3lbs, but that won't be achieved in this week, unless I chop off a foot.

My main sticking point will be the water in take I think. I'm pretty good at sticking to restrictive diets when I want to, but even as a kid my Mum used to be tortured trying to get me to drink enough water. I don't even like dilute, so I can't fancy up my water and trick myself that it's juice.

I reckon the best way to get the 3 to 5 litres a day they suggest through me, is to buy 4 litres of water and use that as a visual guide to see how far I am along every day. I got eight 500ml bottles in the pound shop for £2, and I'll just refill them from the tap every morning, but they should help me see how far I have to go each day.

With the whole week's meals, shakes and bars in front of me it was tricky to pick which four products I was going to use today. For breakfast I picked the lemon meal replacement bar, which is really chewy and more like a treat than a traditional cereal bar. It's the sort of thing I'd eat even off a diet if it were a snack choice. It's a bit like a Boots Shapers Bar if you've had them? Only a bit bigger. It looks tiny in that photo, but it was quite filling.

I also tried one of the pineapple fat burning powders in water. It contains calcium, chromium (which regulates glucose levels) and green tea leaf extract which increases fat burning. You can take up to three of these fat burner sachets a day to help increase your metabolism naturally. I love pineapple so for a dilute type product, it's not too bad!

Breakfast: pineapple fat burner, lemon meal replacement bar, water water water!

As mentioned in my little disclaimer at the bottom of each post, this week's whole plan has been provided complimentary by The New You Plan, but I've gone ahead and placed an order for a second week. Once my package arrived & I got a feel for the products I knew the plan was ideal for me, so I decided to go ahead and stock up. You only enter the state of ketosis, which promotes quick weight loss, after a few days, and as I was only doing seven days, I wouldn't get the maximum benefit of my hard work!

The offer I went for is another whole week's worth of products, four a day, for £38.99 (plus £3.99 shipping within NI). What I liked about it is you can literally choose all shakes, all soups, all meals, all bars, and any combination in between. So if you try the shakes and you don't like them, you can just order meals and bars and the program will still work for you.

If you do place an order I'd really appreciate if you used my referral code VdxfiJV2 as it helps me save points to get discounts on my own ongoing purchases.

I picked only three shakes for the second week, as I imagine when I'm drinking so much water daily, I won't want even more liquid as a meal. However, thanks to the Secret Slimmers New You Facebook I read tips from other Slimmers who suggest using the shake mix as either mousses, by adding less water, or turning them into ice lollies with a mould. In fact you can buy a lolly mould on the site if you like this idea, as I do. So I've ordered mint chocolate shake to make into lollies. They also say you can make up a vanilla, chocolate or hazelnut shake, heat it, and add a scoop of coffee granules to make a flavoured latte. The Secret Slimmers group is packed with lots of little ideas like this to tweak the products without losing the benefit of them.

1:30pm Lunch time! My first trial of one of the low calorie meals. This was a bit of a shock to the system! The little packages are small, but just how small was a surprise. The broccoli pasta pack is akin to a child's portion, but it IS a very low calorie diet, so if you're going to do these things, they have to be done right. Positively, the meal is super easy to make up. There are instructions for hob or microwave, the later which just takes two 90 second spins and you're good to go. It's the sort of thing you could prepare in an office without fuss, or without anyone knowing it's a diet product, if you want to keep it quiet. Also it TASTES GOOD! It may be a small meal, but it isn't wasted calories because I actually enjoyed it.

It's not pretty, but it's tasty! This is the full portion.

Again the wealth of tools and resources on the New You Plan website come in to play here. The Secret Slimmers Facebook Page has recipes that customers have invented using the prepackaged meals, or you can check out slimmer Dawn's amazing recipe ideas here. There are hints how to bulk up the meals without effecting ketosis, and ideas for long term users of the plan to vary the meals with spices to give them a new kick.

As I predicted, the water drinking is still tough for me. I've only reached my fourth 500ml bottle by lunch. Yet again Secret Slimmers comes into play as I've asked them how they found the new intake of loads of water when they started. Long term & super successful slimmer Dawn Pratt tells me it gets easier as the days go on, and she now manages eight litres between 2.30pm and 9pm daily! That's good going!

I'm feeling quite bloated from all the water that I'm not used to, but I know this will pass and I'll actually lose more water weight by keeping my intake up, rather than it making me heavier. I chose to add one of the water flavourings to bottle number four. Unfortunately my dislike of dilute juices extends to this product, but for anyone else who likes juice I'm sure they'd find it a great alternative to regular flavourings.

5:30pm I made the chicken soup as my third out of four product choice. Directions advise to use the fancy shaker, but I want to keep it for the shakes only, so I made the soup up with boiling water from the kettle and whisked it with a fork. This did the trick. The soup tastes good and is just like a regular cup a soup in flavour and texture.