Not a Reset. A Chain: The 90 Days I'm Doing in Public, and Why the Whole Day Gets Built at Once

Every September my feed fills with resets. A new routine, a new planner, 12 things at once, and a promise. I've made a few of those myself. By the second Tuesday most of them have gone, and the reason is always the same: the plan needed a perfect week, and there wasn't one.

So this year I'm doing something quieter, and I'm doing it in public. 90 days, from Monday 14 September to Saturday 12 December. One thing a week. And instead of a reset, a chain.

Why a chain

Here's the thing I keep seeing in women in their thirties, forties and fifties, and in myself. It's hard to wake up at the same time if you don't go to sleep at the same time. It's hard to go to sleep at the same time if you don't eat earlier, move a bit, and wind down. And it's hard to eat early and move if dinner wasn't a proper dinner, because the cravings arrive at 9pm and the evening goes.

Every link holds up the next one. So the whole day gets built at once in Week 1, and then it gets fitted to you in Week 2, and then one area at a time goes deeper: the gut in Week 3, weight and muscle in Week 4, hormones and energy in Week 5, skin and hair in Week 6. From Week 7 the base holds and one extra thing is added each week until Day 90.

That's not a reset. A reset asks you to change everything and hope. A chain asks you to do the links in order, because each one makes the next one easier.

Week 1, as a clock

This is the standard day. There's a late-shift version further down, because I work 3 evening shifts a week and a plan that only works for people who are home by 6pm is not a plan.

06:30. Same wake time, 6 days out of 7. The advice says get up early. What I see is that the wake time which matters is the same one, not the early one. Your wake time sets your body clock; your bedtime is the part you can actually control tonight. Fix the end you control and the sleepy feeling arrives on its own, usually within a week.

06:32. 500ml of water before anything else, with a pinch of sea salt or an electrolyte sachet. Then 2 to 2.5 litres across the day, between meals rather than with them. Overnight fluid loss reads as tiredness, and most of us start the day already behind.

06:45 to 07:05. 20 minutes outside in daylight, no sunglasses for the first 10. Inside that 20 minutes, 10 minutes of movement: 3 stretches for a minute each side, then what I call the 5-minute muscle minimum. 3 rounds of 8 chair sit-to-stands with no hands, 6 press-ups against the kitchen counter, and a 30-second hold of a heavy shopping bag in each hand. Daylight before midday is what puts your sleep at 10:30 rather than 1am. The muscle minimum is there because muscle is the room the food goes into, and if it isn't asked to work, your body has no reason to keep it.

07:10. 5 minutes, pen and paper, before the phone. The day starts on your agenda, not everyone else's.

07:15. Skin, 3 steps and nothing else for 7 days. A gentle cleanse, a ceramide moisturiser, and SPF 50: 2 finger-lengths for face and neck, last step, every day including December. Every acid, retinoid, vitamin C, scrub, brush, mask and fragranced product goes in a drawer for the week. Most "sensitive skin" I see is an over-treated barrier, not a skin type, and stinging is not the same as working.

07:30. Breakfast within an hour of waking, 30 grams of protein. Vegetables and protein before any starch, at every meal, and never a naked carbohydrate on its own. Coffee after food, not before. Gluten and dairy stay in this week; if you're thinking of removing either, that's a Week 2 conversation and the coeliac blood test comes first.

All day, the bloating reset. For 7 days, out go the sugar alcohols (sorbitol, xylitol and mannitol, in sugar-free gum, mints, "diet" drinks and most protein bars), all fizzy drinks including sparkling water, chewing gum, alcohol, and raw salad after 4pm; cooked vegetables instead. Fibre is deliberately not increased this week, because raising fibre fast in a bloated gut is the commonest reason women give up in the first week. One fermented food a day, a tablespoon of sauerkraut or kimchi or 100ml of kefir, with lunch.

12:00. Last caffeine of the day. Caffeine's half-life is 5 to 6 hours, which means a 3pm coffee is still about half-active at bedtime. That's the pharmacist reason for the midday cut-off, and it's not a preference.

13:00. The biggest meal of the day, before 3pm. Protein and vegetables first, a cupped handful of a slow carbohydrate last. Eat a small lunch and you'll be hungry and reaching for sugar at 9pm.

18:30 to 19:00. Dinner finished, 3 hours before bed. 1 palm of protein, 2 fists of non-starchy vegetables, 1 cupped handful of a slow carbohydrate. The dinner time decides the cravings. A carbohydrate-only dinner is what makes the 9pm cravings arrive.

19:15. A 10 to 15 minute walk, started within half an hour of putting the fork down, brisk enough to talk but not sing. Walking straight after eating takes glucose into working muscle and moves gas through the gut instead of leaving it sitting there.

20:30 to 21:00. Warm shower, 1 to 2 hours before bed. Body moisturiser on damp skin. Warm then cool is the oldest reliable sleep trick there is.

22:00. Television and laptop off. Phone charging outside the bedroom. Skin: cleanse, moisturise, nothing else. A brain dump on paper, a 10-minute stretch on the floor. Magnesium glycinate an hour before bed if you take it.

22:30. Lights out. Room cool and dark, about 18 degrees.

That looks like a lot written down. Most of it is things you already do, in the right order and at the right time. And when a day collapses, and some will, the floor is 3 links: the wake time, daylight before midday, the phone out of the bedroom. Everything else comes back tomorrow.

The late-shift day

A different chain, not the same one shrunk. Wake 1 hour later, no more. A 15-minute daylight walk before midday, non-negotiable on these days. Caffeine cut-off moves to 2pm, never later. A real dinner before the shift at 4:30pm, not after it; that's the whole trick of a late day. Home at 9:25pm: a protein snack of 20 to 25 grams and a slow lap of the block, not a second dinner. The wind-down compressed to 45 minutes: warm shower, lights low, phone out of the room. Lights out at 11:15pm, the same time on every late day.

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The Week 1 pair, and one for later

Any pharmacy vitamin D3 or magnesium glycinate at the same amounts does the same job, and the programme is free with either. Food supplements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition.

The 2 supplements in Week 1, and only 2

2 supplements in the first week is the foundation and it's all you need.

Vitamin D3, 10 to 25 micrograms a day with the fattiest meal, from 1 October. UK sunlight is too weak from October to March for your skin to make any. Up to 100 micrograms a day is the safe upper level for adults; above 25 makes most sense on a blood result. If your product includes vitamin K2 and you take warfarin or another anticoagulant, check with a pharmacist first.

Magnesium glycinate, 300mg of elemental magnesium an hour before bed, up to 400mg at most. Start at 300; loose stools mean too much. Check the label for the elemental amount, because 400mg of the compound is not 400mg of magnesium. Not with kidney disease without a GP check, and 4 hours away from thyroid medication.

Both are in my clinic shop in the liposomal form I chose for the clinic, and any pharmacy vitamin D3 or magnesium glycinate at those amounts does the same job. The programme is free with either. The habit is what changes things, not the brand.

What Week 1 should show

Many women notice less evening bloating and a flatter morning tummy by day 3 to 5, fewer cravings at 11am and 9pm by day 4 to 7, falling asleep faster by day 4 to 7, skin stinging settling by day 3 to 5, and stairs feeling easier by day 10 to 14. Individual response varies, and the scorecard is how you see your own. Weight is not a Week 1 measure. Muscle changes take 6 to 12 weeks, and I'd rather say that on Day 1 than have you weigh yourself on Day 8.

Before Day 1, check with your GP first if

You take a diabetes medicine that can lower blood sugar. You have kidney disease. You're pregnant, breastfeeding or under 12 weeks after a birth. You take thyroid medication or a blood thinner. You think you might be coeliac, in which case the blood test comes before any gluten change. You have or have had an eating disorder, in which case skip the food thread and keep the rest. You snore loudly with pauses, or fall asleep in the day. And the thyroid check comes first for anyone who is cold all the time, constipated, losing hair, exhausted, with weight that will not move despite doing everything, because none of this works properly on top of an untreated thyroid.

How to join

The 90 Days Restored Community is a channel on my Instagram. Every Monday at 7am, the week's one thing. Wednesday, a poll. Friday, what I noticed in my own week. Saturday at 9am, 20 minutes live to talk through the coming week and take questions. Sunday, the weekly newsletter with a women's health lesson.

The scorecard is free from the shop: fill it in on Day 1, Day 28, Day 63 and Day 90, keep it on your own phone, and the only thing it will ever tell you is which way each number moved.

And if at any point you'd rather have your own numbers looked at than the general version, that's what a Women's Health Consultation is for. 30 minutes, your symptoms and your history, and the next step. No pressure and no deadline on that. The free version is the whole thing on its own.

Day 1 is Monday. I'll be there at 6:30, same as every day.

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I write the Beyond Prescriptions newsletter every Sunday. You can sign up here. Education, not medical advice. It does not replace your GP.