I’ve cooked mountains of chips for people in lockdown but I didn’t eat one!

declares, laughing: “I’ve not cheated once. Not one chip. I’ve not had a chip despite cooking mountains of them.

“You see how much you’ve lost, then think is it really worth backtracking for a chocolate or a biscuit. Often I thought I’d have a cup of tea with a Kit-kat but then thought, no, I’d be forever upset with myself.

“It’s so easy to slip back into bad habits so I don’t allow myself a cheat.”

The bundle of energy’s love of politics won her respect from MPS in all parties – but she found her weight was weakening her.

She began to wonder if a meeting was too far away to walk to and she was always looking for a chair.

Carolyn said: “I woke up one day and I couldn’t even be bothered to run the Hoover around and I thought this has got ridiculous. It was all down to the fact I allowed myself to put so much weight on. I never lost my enthusiasm and energy for work and I’ll never lose that but I was losing my physical energy, feeling tired and quite depressed.” A chat with Labour’s ex-deputy leader Tom Watson, who shed eight stone, helped. “He said about the keto diet [low carb, high fat]. I thought I’m never going to do this, it’s too stressful. Now I can’t imagine not doing it. “Your tastes change, your body changes and your mind changes. You get a phenomenal amount of energy from the inside out so physically you’re not tired and mentally you’re not tired.

“I’d eat anything before. I loved mash and crisps and chocolate, pasties, and a cream tea,” she recalls. “Now I predominantly

ENERGETIC In Parliament