SIXTEEN days today.

.. That’s how long I’ve been on the Slim-Fast plan.

I say plan when what I really mean is hell. OK, that’s a slight over-exaggeration, but when you’re living on 600 calories worth of solids a day, there’s not much to get up for if you’re used to scheduling your days around meal-times.

It’s like being a big baby, in more ways than one.

But I’m sticking to it, I’m (kind of) positive, I’m trying to be good and I’m doing my utmost to try and think of it not as a diet but to bid to try and shrink my expectations as well as my love handles.

And dieting is all about expectations, isn’t it?

It’s about looking at your plate and not getting depressed or think nobody loves you because you’ve only got one potato. Conquer this and you’ve started to live by the most sensible diet solution of all – moderation.

And that translates in the language of sweet and savoury as have what you want, but have way less of it.

Being human and useless, however, I’m not able to do this without the use of strawberry or chocolate flavoured aids.

So I’m taking food away in order to Slim-Fast twice a day then top up the lot with a 600-calorie meal in the night.

That’s the plan at least.

Sundays are the worst, though. Because this is the day I shake-up my shake scheduling because I’m unable to eat in the night.

Normally it’s a shake for breakfast and one for lunch and the thought of food in the night gets me through the day. It’s not a problem during the working week as I’m too busy to think about food (yes, THAT frantic). On a Sunday, it’s a shake for breakfast, dinner up Mam Jones’s, then a shake for tea.

Come 5pm, I start thinking of nibbling on my own arm and start doubting my conviction as my inner cheeky demon, who I’m convinced looks like Dawn French dressed up like a candy box in a bright pink Vivienne Westwood dress, starts jabbering at me and asking what the hell I’m doing.

She appeared on Sunday while I was reading about Claire Richards’ “amazing turnaround” in one of the papers, where the former pop star went from size 20 to a 10, thanks to a strict diet.

I don’t know about you, but when I read what she had before she lost weight, I don’t know where she found the time to chew it all. It’s a million miles from what I normally eat, and I’d say I have serious issues with food and body image.

But by her standards, I ate like a bird with a wasting disease.

HER DIET BEFORE
Breakfast: Nothing.
Lunch: Large McDonalds meal and four large Cokes.
Afternoon: Three or four cakes or Belgian buns washed down with one or two of the Cokes left over from lunch.
Dinner: A three course meal in a restaurant three or four times a week or a takeaway at home. Pudding or a cake or ice cream for dessert.
Evening Snacks: Sweets.
DAILY CALORIES 5,500

HER DIET AFTER
Breakfast: Fruit with yoghurt or muesli with skimmed milk, one cup of coffee.
Lunch: Bowl of soup, home-made sandwich or oatcakes dipped in humus. Bottle of water.
Snacks: Piece of fruit or a once a week treat, diet chocolate bar under 100 calories, bottle of water.
Dinner: Chicken, fish or a piece of steak with loads of dark green veg, sweet potatoes or a calorie controlled ready meal.
DAILY CALORIES 1,500

My turn now.

MY DIET BEFORE
Breakfast: Nothing or skimmed latte and low-fat muffin if I was feeling flushed.
Lunch: Boots Shapers meal.
Snacks: Occasionally, a low fat pack of crisps or bread dipped into the following...
Dinner: Pasta with low-fat sauce, homemade.
DAILY CALORIES 1,500

MY DIET AFTER
Breakfast: Slim-Fast.
Lunch: Slim-Fast.
Snacks: Fresh air, chewed slowly.
Dinner: Chicken and bacon pasta.
DAILY CALORIES: 900.

Suddenly, I’m starving and Dawn is whispering something to me about disparities and how big people are often accused of being gutsy buggers when we’re living it less than large calorifically anyway.

Claire, though, not only cut down, she started exercising, which is the biggest and most serious life change you can make I guess.

But for now, it’s back to Slim-Fast and counting down to that 600 calories in the night.

BREAKFAST:

... “Delicious” strawberry or chocolate milkshake.

Lunch: More of the same.

Tea: Four chips, a chicken breast and pinch of coleslaw.

Welcome to my new Slim-Fast world.

I’ve been driven to yet another extreme form of deprivation all in the name of shopping at Monsoon and stopping my underwear trying to escape up my back and down under, if you know what I mean.

But it’s no New Year’s resolution. I cunningly got around that by starting the Slim-Fast regime on December 28.

I slipped it into my daily routine without much fanfare, not even bothering to tell anyone about it.

I eventually broke the news to my mother on Saturday, warning her that I needed to eat my Sunday dinner on a tea plate and that I intended to put my money where my shake is and cut down “to just the one Yorkshire”.

I’ve even got a brand new flask for work. While others are filling theirs with soup or sugary, sweet tea, mine has frothy pink or brown stuff in it, meal replacements which are intended to convince my belly, deluded beast that it is, that I need less food to survive.

I’ve never really tried Slimfast before, preferring a McDonald’s strawberry milkshake washed down by six chicken nuggets to two spoonfuls of a meal replacement.
But, with my trousers looking shorter and elasticated waistbands digging into my loveless handles, I knew drastic action was needed. And who has the patience for calorie counting?

Not me, which is ironic because you can’t go over 600 calories for your evening meal in case you explode. Or eat your arm off. Or something like that.

I’m trying to tell myself that I’m only doing what I’d be able to manage if I had a gastric band.

On that, you’re only allowed about 500 calories. So in the La La Land of my weight loss story, I figure I’m quids in and 100 calories up.

And two roast potatoes are two roast potatoes when you’re starving.

Ricky Gervais would be so proud of me too. Because he’s branded people who have surgery to lose weight “lazy f****** fat pigs”.

So eloquently put for someone who obviously has never had a weight issue.
Oh, hang on, it’s THAT Ricky Gervais... I take it all back then.

He’s had a right old dig at those who undergo liposuction to shed flab during a rant in his audio book The Ricky Gervais Guide To Medicine.

He said: “I really don’t know why a doctor under a Hippocratic Oath takes the risk
of something going badly wrong, sometimes with general anaesthetic, because someone can’t be bothered to go for a run.

“They have bits sliced off and tied up and sucked out. I want to say to them, ‘You lazy fat pig. Just go for a run and stop eating burgers. You might die’.

“If your a*** is too fat, stop eating and go for a run.”

The Office star also suggests a way to encourage overeaters to slim down.
The wise one said: “In supermarkets, the really fattening stuff should be behind a really thin door.

“Shops should be full of salads, but if you want to get to the pies and cakes, you’ve got to crawl through a little tube.”

Frankly, I’d rather be on Slim-Fast for the next six months.

No degradation or crawling necessary. For now at least...