Magimixing Magic: A Kitchen Appliance Unholy Alliance
Selecting Week 4's Forfeit in the Get Lean and Loopyliscious Challenge
As you all are aware by now, despite some Herculean caloric burning efforts by yours truly last week, I once again failed to hit my (newly-revealed and shouldn't be ALL that hard to achieve) weight loss goal of 1.5lb a week by losing a miserly 0.3lb!  Ridiculousity.

So, even before any forfeits are drawn this week, I decided to follow my trainer Natalie's advice and give the Paleo diet a go for two weeks.  I'll go into the Paleo diet in much more detail in subsequent blogs (I'm sure i will be bitching about it endlessly for the next 14 days) but it essentially means you eat like a caveman (or, I guess, cavelady) and eliminate dairy and grains from your diet.   OK, I thought.  I can do that.  And, if it means getting to my goal next week so I can just once not be in the forfeit zone, it would all be worth it.  Now, I'm not sure whether this shows up in the fossil record or not, but I think i'm pretty sure that all cavemen in Britain still took milk in their tea (they're cavemen, for gods sake, not animals!), so that will be my only exception to the no dairy rule.  With no cereal and no milk to put in smoothies, breakfast should be interesting.

Anyhoo, off I went shopping to stock up on Paleo-compliant supplies - I can tell you this, from just one observation so far - the Paleo diet is a hellava lot more expensive than the Kitchen Store Cupboard Challenge Diet.  $160!!!  My fridge is now stocked with more cow than a Manhattan bar on singles night.  Anyway, I will keep you posted as to my dietary progress - I had a very lovely chopped salad with chicken tonight.  I think I will be having quite a few of those in the next couple of weeks.

But, down to business.  For those of you tuning in for the 1st International Duck Day update, I'm afraid it suffered a set-quack today.  I was waiting for some essential duck-themed items to be delivered today but, alas, they are still en route, apparently somewhere in Ohio.  Duck Day just wouldn't be the same without them, so instead the 1st International Duck Day will now be held this Sunday.   Unfortunately, however, this left me in a bit of a pickle this evening, as the Duck Boat Captain was going to have picked a forfeit out of the Potato of Destiny and Despair for me.  Without said aquatic assistant to do the deed, it was time for plan B.

Activate Plan Blender.

Yes, it was time to see just how far the unholy conspiracy of small domestic appliances had infiltrated the household, and to see if the evil triumvirate of microwave, upstairs scales AND downstairs scales had spread further.  So, tonight, the Magimix blender was called into service (the cats were not available - what did you think - that they were working cats or something???) and asked to join the newly politically active Potato Heads in an exciting photo shoot to select the next forfeit.  Obviously this was a photo shoot fraught with potential dangers and hazards to life and plastic limbs, so all due precautions were taken.   No vegetables were harmed in the making of this photo montage.

The post-it notes, not quite so much....

Setting up the studio for the photo-shoot

Mr PH reassures a nervous Mrs PH that there is nothing
to be afraid of and that its quite safe to approach The Blender

Safety specs in hand, Mr Potato Head explains the inner
workings of the Magimix to an impressed Mrs PH

The Talent is Brought in - Mr and Mrs PH greet the P of Double D
 and introduce him to T.Blender at the pre photo-shoot mixer

P of Double D showing his true political colors
 as Mr and Mrs PH get frisky

After all the preliminaries are over, its time to
 unload the P of Double D into T.Blender

Wearing safety specs for protection, Mr and Mrs PH
watch nervously from the sidelines as the forfeits
 tumble forth into T.Blender 

Finally, the P of Double D is empty, Mr PH puts
 his safety arms on and is ready for action 

He reaches for the Pulse switch.....

And POW!!!  Forfeits are catapulted into the air the
 instant he presses the PULSE button 

About 10 forfeits lie scattered around T.Blender and Mr PH
retrieves the one that traveled the furthest

He hands it to Mrs PH where it is revealed to be.....

ROLLER DISCO FORFEIT!!!

So there you have it.   Loopy's forfeit leapt the furthest out of the blender and into the awaiting plastic green arms of Mr PH.  Well done, Loopy.  Nice to see one of the original forfeits making it through.  And even nicer to see some of the newer ones NOT making it through.  You know who you are...

In summary, another exciting week's forfeit selection process completed without a hitch.  Other than (obviously) the prospect of broken bones, twisted ankles and looking completely like a knob on wheels, I actually don't mind the roller-disco forfeit too much.  I might potentially possibly maybe even have a teeny tiny smidge of fun.   I think the biggest challenge is going to be finding one to go to but I'm sure I'll come up with something.  Even if it means setting up my own roller disco somewhere in town.....

So, onwards and duckwards into Week 5.  Highlights for the coming week to look forward to are a grown-up Penguins and Pyjamas adult sleepover at the California Academy of Science on Friday night,  a terrarium workshop, a Pole Dancing Exhibition (no - not me), the 1st International Duck Day plus a full week of eating like a caveman and exercising like a lunatic.  Just another regular week in San Francisco.....