I’ve never lost weight on a diet, because then I can’t stop thinking about food

WARNING: First World Issues ahead. If you want to read something more high brow maybe buy the Telegraph! Don’t say you haven’t been told!

Have you ever hopped on your scales and got such a fright that you leapt off as if it was on fire? Please say that I’m not the only one who does this? Even with one foot dangling slightly off the back, the figure that appeared on the display last week gave me an awful shock.

I don’t know why I was surprised. The auld mid life spread is not, in fact, a myth but a reality and a week in the sun eating and drinking to beat the band hadn’t helped matters. But it’s only when you actually get up on the scales that the truth comes and bites you on your big, fat, a***!

So I got my second in command scales out from under the bed. This only comes into use when the figure on the first one is so horrifying that I convince myself it has to be wrong – hence the second device. It was no better. In fact I weighed half a pound heavier on that one, so back under the bed it went.

Obviously now I’m on a diet! Well what else do you do when the number on the scales frightens the s*** out of you? The thing about me and diets is, as soon as I say I’m on one, I become obsessed with food. I can’t stop thinking about all my favourites – pate, cheese, crusty bread, butter…. did I mention cheese? As a result I’m always hungry. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever lost weight on a diet but given the fact I’m going to have to get into a swimsuit at some stage this summer, something has to give and it can’t be the elastic in my knickers!

I’m an All or Nothing Girl. The first morning I was all gung ho and to be fair it started off well enough. Porridge for the brekkie (bleugh!), soup for lunch, (bleugh again) and I was planning on having a chicken stirfry for dinner. But when you have to cook roast chicken with all the trimmings for everybody else, you can’t sit down and eat plain chicken and vegetables. It’s just wrong. And so I ate the roast chicken...and the roast spuds...and the creamed spuds...and the gravy. I finished it all off with a big glass of wine. And the next morning I weighed myself again, hoping for some sort of miracle. It didn’t happen.

The second night, to try and distract myself from the hunger, I drank two glasses of wine, then got an attack of the munchies and rooted out a bag of hot chilli nuts from the back of the cupboard. The third night, I switched to G & T’s because somebody told me they had less calories and found a Toblerone left over from Easter.

At this stage I’m wondering would somebody wire my gob shut for a few weeks. This would kill two birds with one stone. I’d lose weight and I’d also stop annoying everybody with my non-stop moaning. It can only be win/win!

WHEN YOU COOK ROAST CHICKEN WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS FOR EVERYBODY ELSE, IT’S HARD TO EAT PLAIN CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES