Last week, and yesterday, when I was on the verge of exploding from eating so much, all the time and soaking the lot up with inhuman quantities of alcohol, I promised myself to go back to low-carb this week.

Then immediately I started inventing excuses of why I did not need to do this:

1. I'm not that fat. True, an extra three or five (or seven) kilos over and above what fits into my clothing is not that big a deal. Yet it is, if it starts to feel really uncomfortable, if I actually start to consider buying clothes simply because the ones I own do not fit.
2. I can exercise. True as well. I have calculated that in order to shift these few extra kilos I would need to run for forty five minutes a day. The problem with exercise is twofold: it gives me the impression that I can eat to make up for what I'm burning. So I eat more. After a few days of it I start finding excuses for not going out to do it: it's too cold, the quilt is too fabulous, it's raining. That's the mornings. In the evening I always have too many other things to do. Walking is fine and calms you down but it does not burn the amount I need to burn in order to shift the extra weight. And I stopped buying gym memberships years ago, specifically when I realised that I was paying for a whole year and then using six weeks of them at the most (not to mention the kerfuffle of preparing clothing, driving up, driving down and the whole shebang).
3. Being 'on a diet' simple makes me want to eat. This is true. The discipline process leads to craving more food. All I can think of is all those cakes and uneaten hampers of food. Pah.

The only way I can do this is by going back to my low-carb regime and that entails eating. Yes, you read right. I need to stock up on a good amount of meat, eggs and lentils. If I eat enough during the day, my sugar levels will not plummet and I will not destroy the contents of my fridge the moment I return home. Or snack on crackers during the day. Or sneak those bits of pan pepato every time I feel like.

I kicked off with the simplest of meals: the omelette. A 2-egg one keeps me ticking over for quite a while. Although low-carb means that I can eat as much cream and butter as I feel like, in the beginning I need to avoid dairy. Somehow the body starts to burn its own fat very quickly if I manage to do that, so I will try.

I am not saying it is easy, especially in the first two weeks. After that, everything becomes much easier as, weaning itself off the sugar in carbohydrates, your body stops craving it. Yet sugar is extremely addictive and it is in everything. The lower the fat content, the higher the carbohydrate content.

The most difficult thing for those who have never been on low-carb (or those who tried it and gave up) is purely psychological: most will never admit it but years of marketing about how 'good' low-fat is (oddly, most emanating from huge multinationals whose main aim in life is to sell more) have made people highly resistant to a natural diet. They know they need to lose weight but keep grabbing on to their old methods: those methods which have never worked until now and will not start working just because one tries them yet again.

Stick to genuine foods; you'd be surprised at how easy it is to go on low-carb if your food does not come out of a packet. Do not focus on vegetables: they do not fill you up and you will find yourself eating a hell of a lot more if you think that 'cutting down' means going semi-vegetarian. Protein fills you up so focus on it - that includes fish, all of it.

At work, stock up on walnuts, which are very filling and great for snacking on. Take an omelette with you in a container - it tastes good reheated for a few seconds in a microwave or even cold. Frozen salmon and any other kind of steak fish is also great for work: you will stink the place up but it only takes 2 minutes in a microwave to heat up a slab.

If you are joining me (and admit it, you need to) I suggest you get a  copy of Mona's Meals: The Foodbook, available from Merlin and Agenda bookshops. In it, there is a whole explanation, in very simple terms, of how to do it, as well as fantastic recipes and Mr. Alex Manche's introduction: if a cardiac surgeon has been on a low-carb regime for more than ten years now, it can only bode well for the rest of us.

Let me know if I can help, post your comments and testimonials below and please try not to cheat. Do not attempt to do a 'low-fat' version of the low-carb diet as it is not only impossible but also bad for you. If you find yourself going back to 'low-fat' remember that most of the western world has been on this for the past twenty years or so and all it has helped us do is become fatter. The body has not evolved that quickly to put up with 'modern' foods such as wheat: the closer you can eat to a primordial diet, the slimmer you will become and the quicker you can slide back into the jeans of your dreams.