Sunday. In just seven days' time, I am due to fl y off on holiday and, although I never feel more hungry than in the days before I get my bikini on, help is at hand in the form of the miraculously quick fi xes that shout at me every time I visit the newsagent. Leaving that crucial bottom-shrink until the last minute is, as usual, no problem at all. 'Forty eight hours to a cover girl body,' yells Zest. 'Summer thighs and butt: a 15-minute plan,' says Self. Meanwhile, that ubiquitous trainer to the stars, Josh Salzmann, promises that I can be 'fi t by Friday'. (Hmm. What happens if you only start on a Thursday?)
In this context, the fact that I have a whole seven days to go is a bonus. In fact, I can probably aff ord to waste at least two days - which is good news, as my fridge is full of delicious leftovers from a dinner last week , including eight tons of buff alo mozzarella and a raspberry trifl e as big as a small wagon wheel. Then again, my boyfriend recently likened my bum to a 'really big peach'. Having a bottom like a peach is defi - nitely a good thing. But I'd be lying if I told you that I do not fi nd the words 'really' and 'big' troubling. No, I must choose a plan, and stick to it. Small peach here I come.
Monday. I'm going with Josh 'I've-wrestled- with-Angelina-Jolie' Salzmann. But there is still the question of what to do with the mozzarella and trifl e. I could throw them away. But a) I'm from Yorkshire, where almost anything 'fries up nice in the morning', and b) 40 per cent of food is wasted in the UK. I make the mozzarella into a salad with rocket and peaches - yum - and have trifl e for pudding. Oh, come on. I'll have an egg-white omelette tomorrow.
Tuesday. OK, so Salzmann's plan was supposed to start on a Monday. Never mind. Tuesday's regime looks austere enough to me. For lunch, I am supposed to have a turkey sandwich; for dinner pasta (brown) with bolognese sauce. I do both. Trouble is, that trifl e is still hanging around.
Wednesday. The trifle has gone (not saying where). I look at Josh's plan. Lunch should be a jacket potato with tuna. But it is a hot day; I can't bear to put on the oven. Also, I've just got my hands on the new Magnum Sixth Sense, an absurd fi ve quid's worth of chocolate and nuts and an 'intimate journey of sensual pleasure'. I still have more than 48 hours left in which to achieve bum-shrinkage, so where's the harm in a little treat? Dinner is to be haddock with wild rice. I take some salmon out of the freezer - don't be such a pedant - and eat it with buttered new potatoes.
Thursday. God, is it Thursday already? I seem to have funked Josh's plan. Time for extreme measures. I turn to Zest, where David Kirsch, the man responsible for the diets of both Sophie Dahl and Heidi Klum, has laid out his 48-hour attack. I am not allowed alcohol, bread, starchy carbohydrates, dairy, fruit or fat. Salt and caff eine are also a no-no. That leaves... what, precisely? Soy milk and Gummi Bears. But I must be strong. It's only for 48 hours, after all. And I quite like Gummi Bears.
Friday morning. Yesterday, at about 10pm, I cracked. I was peckish. David's plan informed me that I was allowed to snack on two celery sticks, half a red pepper, plus some chopped hard-boiled egg white - whereupon I told David to stuff it, and ate a bowl of Frosties and three marshmallows . I now have about eight hours in which to achieve my perfect body. There is only one thing for it: I will fast till tea time, and do sit-ups on the hour. Nil desperandum.
Friday afternoon. Well, the sand has fi nally run through the hourglass and, now that I have broken my fast with this biscuit, I dig out my bikini. I put it on, and gaze at myself in the mirror. I am overcome with a sense of déjà vu. It looks exactly the same as it did last year. I glance at my watch. There are 48 hours until take-off - and in diet world, 48 hours is a very long time.
