Was it Kate Moss who declared that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’?

Because its that sort of comment that makes one want to invite someone outside and deck them.

Here’s a list of things that taste better than skinny feels: cheese and onion hand cooked crisps; home-made victoria sponge; chips; snickers bars; I could go on for some time.

And when the going gets tough, a certain sector of the tough  population get eating, including me.

When stress hits, something happens inside my brain. I come home from work and instead of that smug control freak who puts on vegetables to make a healthy stew, I become a one-woman exocet  heading for the cupboard filled with crisps. It’s a short circuit: that step where I visualise a size zero me seems to vapourise pathetically in the face of something I call Real Need.

Of course, it is nothing of the sort and need is something other people far away have. I am priveliged and probably rather spoilt.  Struggling to justify my actions, I might ramble on for a while about the Amygdala, that place at the back of the brain where the ‘gut reaction’ and the ‘fight or flight response ‘ comes from. It’s a place, I dream, where consequences (including Size 35) don’t count, because there’s an emergency, and in this case that emergency is my peace of mind.

However consequences do, regrettably count. It’s how the world turns. A simple act like putting on a pair of trousers can be filled with foreboding in case that waistband has rebelled once again. Feeling uncomfortable the whole time is rubbish.

On the other hand, lasagne with lashings of mature cheddar cheese is pretty cool.

What I have given you here is yo-yo dieting all encapsulated in a little blog. The warring factions within so many of us. Life is just too busy and too scary to cut cake out of our lives forever.

Come the Summer Holidays, when the stress goes away, I’ll be running daily with the Mutt, eating well and doing those cool ‘toning’ exercises. Cake will be eaten, in moderation. My waistbands will love me once more. For a short time at least.