Frenemies, cash droughts and ex factors - How to fight flab the non-fun way

by Charlotte Kymberley

It's January and people worldwide are making the bleakest month of the year even worse by comfort-eating away the guilt of ballsing up their NY resolutions already. Want to lose weight? Our Char has an innovative new diet plan. But you won't like it. And if you do, it probably won't work...

There was a fat slice of chocolate cake eyeing me up in Sainsbury's this week. As I write, some crisps whisper my name from across the office. Last night there were free sandwiches left over from a work meeting doing a little dance of temptation just for me. I moved a little closer to the edible lovelies and grimaced. No, naughty food, stop teasing me!

And yet... I have found an ingenious way to lose weight. I have scoffed my face... Then worried incessantly. I have gone to eat junk... Then thought about my ex and how he broke my heart. I've realised that with so many painful recent events to choose from this past few months - from having my heart broken to losing my job and finding out that the ex moved on with lightening speed to someone he works with - I could join ranks with emotional over / under eaters and claim my free membership.

I have eaten pizza, drank my own body weight in alcohol, scoffed kebabs, chips and cheese, garlic cheesy pizza bread, chocolate, wine gums, curries and super noodles. And yet... I'm losing weight. Yes, I am!

I only have to think about something unpleasant and my adrenaline shoots up. I feel anxious and the pounds melt away! The moment I think of the ex with his super-duper posh new media girlfriend (which I always predicted)... Urghghghggh. I can't eat.

Oh, go on then... But although I'm eating regularly, I'm super-stressed with high blood pressure and it's burning the pounds off, even if it isn't doing wonders for my health and well-being.

If slenderness means more to you than happiness, I recommend the high-stress diet to anyone. The first thing you need to do in order to bring sadness and stress (which will hopefully equal magnificent weight loss) into your life is to make completely unsuitable friends. Foolishly tell them your secrets and ignore all forewarnings from your intuition which tells you that you really ought to break all emotional ties.

Next, get yourself a boyfriend who treats you like crap. Not one who beats you or mops the floor with your face. Just one who uses you for his own ego boost until he's strong enough to go meet someone who he actually wants to build something special with. Completely ignore that part of yourself which says "Never make someone a priority in your life if you're only an option in theirs".

Step three: If you enter a phase of temporary depression from the anxiety caused by your social circle and ex, make sure you go and see your doctor for some lovely antidepressant medication. Pick a brand that causes temporary psychosis and go have yourself a nervous breakdown.

Ooh, get you! By this point you should have lost a couple of pounds.

A one week stay in a mental hospital recovering from said breakdown will mean you are too wired to eat. When you do, it's hospital food. Go figure.

Once you're out, you need to take up a 20 a day Marlborough Light habit and couple this with extreme coffee drinking. You need to be heartbroken, stressed out to the max and possibly have a strong supply of Valium. You will be half a stone lighter at this point.

Once you've spent a good five weeks being ripped apart on a mundane and emotional level you are a stone thinner, you have a new and better job and you are getting back on your size smaller than they were before feet.

The thing you now miss the most isn't your ex lover, it's your appetite.

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