Day 15: Live below the poverty line – £1 a day

• Breakfast: porridge + office milk
  
• Lunch: skeleton soup + no bread
• Dinner: remainder of stir fry
• ‘Treat’: value yoghurt, value chipsticks 

Today has been the toughest test of willpower so far with temptation lurking at every corner.

7.30am and I’m off to a breakfast club in Southampton for a spot of networking and training.

One of the perks of this particular business event is both building relationships with the other professionals and the epic breakfast served by the staff in Cargo. As so beautifully modelled above, my fuel of choice is generally the eggs royale in a delicious hollandaise sauce on two pert muffins….

However today I face a bit of a conundrum, I can’t quite reconcile accepting this as being in the spirit of the challenge. Just as the mouth watering smell of breakfast tickles it’s talons around my nostrils and I fear all control will be lost… Jiminy Cricket pops onto my shoulder to give me a sharp little whistle and I am pleased to report I declined the marvellous meal, much to the astonishment of my fellow diners. Instead I watch on as they demolish theirs, savouring what I can from the meagre scraps of moral high ground…

The training today is on ‘networking and working a room’ and debate amongst the group led by business coach, David Adams, is both helpful and insightful. However as the session draws to a close at 10am, the scraps can only provide sustenance for so long and I begin amusing myself by imagining my fellow diners as food. It is at the point when I project a turkey onto David that I decide its just as well it’s time to head off to HQ for a quick no frills porridge before I’m reaching for the cranberry sauce…

The day goes by with my skeleton soup proving to be a tasty and nutritional goldmine. I pop back back to the ranch only to spot there has been a surprise parcel delivered. I am not expecting anything and so with some hesitation I wrip open the parcel to reveal a tuck box from my friend Nicki- full of chocolatey treats, some laxatives and a chorizo!

I’m incredibly touched by the thought that’s gone into compiling this little lot. However Jiminy is back skipping about with his damn whistling and I resolve to allow myself just one item from the box as a treat tomorrow and save the rest until after the challenge. Thank you again though. 

It’s evening time and the night of my second date. It’s been suggested that we do something in Bournemouth as opposed to me cooking, which admittedly seems safer for all concerned (if a little less entertaining for you!) The suggestion of buying me dinner is mooted and I find myself for the third time today politely declining free food. Instead we have a cracking time, chilling in the warm and have a bit of a natter over a glass of wine courtesy of my lovely and sympathetic date! 

Temptation – thrice you’ve tested me and thrice I’ve thwarted you… Ker pow! Will-power in tact and it’s day 15 done!