My dream diet: No counting, no cabbage soup, and no cutting back

Two weeks in, and three pounds down, Christine Manby has decided intermittent fasting might be the solution she needs to get back in shape

Illustration by Tom Ford

I know I’ve been lucky. Until fairly recently I was the kind of annoying person who could eat anything and not put on an ounce. Since leaving home at 18, I’ve eaten more than my fair share of toast and baked goods. I have introduced several people to the joy of a chip-butty breakfast. But the years catch up with all of us in the end and it turned out that the older friends who blamed their expanding waistlines on the passage of time weren’t making excuses. It really is harder to keep the weight off after 40.

Back in the day when I never had to think about my weight, I found it incredible that anyone ever got sucked in by fad diets. It seemed obvious that a diet which, say, involved eating nothing but cabbage soup for a week would be effective but that it could never be sustainable in the long term. Likewise a diet which cut out all carbs. For a while I shared a flat with someone devoted to the Atkins Diet. He lost weight but he was rarely out of the bathroom. Eggs, bacon and a double-dose of Dulcolax? No thanks.

But now it’s my turn. Since I’ve decided not to buy any new clothes this year, I’ve got to be able to wear the old ones. The seam allowances in most shop-bought clothes – and my sewing skills – don’t allow for any wiggle room. My skirts aren’t going to get any bigger so I’m going to have to take myself in at the sides. The question is, which hideous regime will do the job for this diet sceptic with negligible willpower.