Waist not want not….

I ended 2012 about half a stone heavier than I began it – which, when I was tucked up on the sofa with a tin of Quality Street and a smile, was neither here nor there. It was when I was trying to squeeze into a work skirt a few days later that the full impact of a month of hibernation finally hit me. Now instead of the curvaceous Jessica Rabbit silhouette I fondly remembered from before Christmas, the reflection that greeted me when I turned sideways was an almost perfect S bend. Every Christmas tipple, mince pie, slab of pavlova and “oh go on then” chocolate was there, still in my tummy apparently, creeping over the top of my not so magic knickers.

The answer, as always, is obvious, eat less and move more, but knowing is not the same as doing is it? I needed motivation. I reached for the phone and dialled Lee Janogly’s number. Now Lee is a diet counsellor and fitness instructor who is a walking advertisement for the wisdom of her own words. She looks like a Barbie doll, but bendier. And when I told her my battle with a pencil skirt she was sympathetic, but no nonsense.

“The first thing to do is to decide what you can live without. Do you want to be slim or do you want to eat cake? You can’t do both. And if you want to be slim stop eating food that contains sugar and eat lots of everything else.”

It sounds simple, she said, because it is simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. The hard work, she said, doesn’t begin on the treadmill or the running track it begins inside your head. “Once you work out what is important to you you can choose to do it,” she said, “Then it’s not about deprivation, it’s about freedom.”

She advises her clients to get rid of temptation and clear their cupboards and fridges of everything that is standing between them and the shape they would like to be. And that means ditching the junk. “Just get it out of the house – give it away or bin it and replace it with the good stuff – the fruit the vegetables the salad and the protein – it’s as simple and boring as that!”

So that’s the fridge emptied – tomorrow she’s going to show me how to get into exercise – again!

Posted by Amanda Blinkhorn