The really tough truth is that it’s so much harder to lose weight when you’re older

There are many ways to convince yourself that your later midlife (62, if you must know) weight is just fine, thank you. One is to have a set of scales that shows your heftage only in kilos, or pounds – 143 pounds sounds rather glamorous and American, while the more exotic 64 kilos must be featherweight, it’s not even three figures.

It’s only when you check the conversion to pounds and stones, the only body-weight language you truly speak, that the reality sinks in: 143 pounds is 10st 2lb, and a bit. Or to put it another way, exactly a stone more than I weighed on March 23, 2020 – lockdown day. And I’m only 5ft 2in.

So why have I allowed this to go on? Well, I’ve been able to kid myself about it by only wearing two kinds of trousers for the whole of lockdown.

When your whole life consists of being at home – be it in the context of desk, sofa, or dinner table – or shuffling around the immediate neighbourhood, occasionally venturing into the homes of good friends, you really don’t need any others.

Trouser one: Juicy Couture track pants, which are marvellously forgiving, while also feeling rather luxe. Trouser two: skinny jeans, deliberately bought three sizes too big and held up with a belt. This creates a look akin to the belted vintage Levi 501s, which Banarama made famous in the ’80s, but hung coolly lower on the hips.

So, the real moment of truth came for me when I was getting dressed recently and realised that these once hilariously oversized jeans now stay up quite happily on their own.

They used to drop straight to my ankles if not firmly secured. And the hole I’m now using on the belt is two on from where I used to fix it.

In fact, I’m at the last-hole saloon. I’ve had that belt for 25 years and I’ve worn it most days since. I wouldn’t feel like myself without that belt, so this has to be a turning point.

Or, so you’d think, but being happily married (so far) is another contributing factor. Perhaps my husband can’t see any difference in me and really does still think I’m gorgeous – or maybe he’s just a wiley old coyote who knows how to keep life easy.

Either way, I’ve been happy to cling to his compliments like floating debris in the shipwreck of my weight gain. Whilst also using some mental effort not to remember that he weighs only four kilos more than I do, and is eight inches taller.

But the really tough truth is that it’s so much harder to lose weight when you’re old – and I say this as a weightloss expert. A keen dieter from the age of 12, I must have lost the equivalent of my entire current body weight over the years.

I really put the yo into yo-yo dieter. From Scarsdale, through F-Plan, cabbage soup and Atkins, there isn’t a fad diet I haven’t tried – until a few years ago, via Amelia Freer, I did find the actual answer: a low-carb, intermittent fasting combo.

I lost weight on that and kept it off easily, until lockdown messed with my brain and self-discipline.

Even doing resistance training at the gym regularly I haven’t lost flab, just firmed it up a bit (although I do feel exponentially better in so many other ways).

But it can’t go on. Tough though later-life weight loss may be, I have to find a way. I’ve bought Dr Mosley’s new book…