I have not so much fallen off the wagon ...

... as broken the floor on the way down and cracked a few ribs.

Metaphorically speaking of course.

Like every other diet I’ve been on, I was doing so damn well before I forgot to be good when the stresses and strains of life got in the way.

And now I can’t see the way back to the path of fat-free self-righteousness.

It’s such hard work, isn’t it? Watching what you eat and therefore think all the time. And I’ve had a belly full.

What happens then is that I start to eat ice-cream with such a ferocity I can’t help but think I’m being liberated and resigned and tough and grown-up about beating myself up in this way.

I’ll go through maybe a week of thinking I’ve finally emancipated myself until I see someone who looks happy in their skin and I start comparing myself with them. I always lose that battle.

The other day, while being unwittingly caught up in a fancy wedding in Llandeilo, I got so depressed by the sheer slim-line beauty and happiness of it all that I told my ever-suffering fiancee that I wasn’t going to get married.

It was pointless, I reasoned, because I’d never look as nice as a “normal” bride.

At that moment I had visions of me looking like a dumpling in a hanky.

We’ll have to cancel it, I moaned, as I can’t wear high heels for two minutes let alone all day. Phone the caterer, I demanded, and tell them we don’t want pasties and pies and big rolls with bits in because that’s what a FAT BRIDE would want.

Just take the ring back, I cried, because it’s lost on my eclair like, pudgy finger anyway.

I was in a right state, I can tell you – and the fact I was having an emotional meltdown while stuffing a two scoop ice-cream cone from the choc/cake shop Heavenly (perfect name, that) wasn’t lost on me either.

If anything, it made me loathe my shape even more.

I wish, wish, wish I was someone who didn’t compare myself to other women.

It’s an occupational hazard, and one that’s compounded by the fact that I really go to town on my perceived short-comings when diets fail. It’s 10 times worse then, a troublesomeness which eats at me.

I have to wonder, though, if my psychological makeup would still be prone to such weighty musings, even if I was a “normal” size.

Honestly, I think I’d be exactly the same. Me being me I’m bound to find something to pick up, some fantasy itch to scratch.

The irony, of course, is that I’m largely a contented soul, but one who is plagued with insecurities about how I look and how I should feel.

And I’m not the only one.

How food shapes and affects our lives, and how what we eat affects our sense of identity, our self-image and feelings about ourselves, is investigated in a new Radio Four show called Food For
Thought fronted by journalist Nina Myskow.

Over tea and chocolate tart in a suite at the Ritz, comedian Joan Rivers last weekend recounted a lifetime of self-loathing and fear of being fat.

She talked about the shock of discovering she wasn’t beautiful, her mother’s advice on dinner parties and an extraordinary daily diet of vitamin pills, low-calorie ice cream sandwiches and cereal with whipped cream. It was in turns hilarious, sad and insightful.

The next one is on at 2.45pm on Sunday. Food for thought at dinner time indeed.

AM I ever going to reach ..

... that properly grown-up idea of thinking life is too short to worry about my weight?

When I’m stressed out, it’s all I seem to think about and that’s because, in this one area of my life, I can’t multi-task.

I mean that I can’t deal with my stress and watch my weight/be good because I’m too busy trying to swallow down worry. While I’m doing that, I can’t concentrate on calorie counting and exercising or whatever else I need to do to keep losing weight. Following?

When things are more in balance, it’s loads easier. Well, when I say loads I actually mean slightly, as in a little bit – totally opposite to the size of my portions during sour times.

I anticipate being stressed for four more weeks, because that’s how long I’ve got left recording a radio show for BBC Wales called What’s The Story?

I love doing it; I appreciate the opportunity, the team members are delightful company and I still can’t quite believe that me, little old me from the Rassau with a cupboard full of insecurities and dropped aitches when I speak, was asked in the first place.

But it doesn’t come without a significant level of panic because it’s recorded in front of a live audience (as opposed to a dead one I guess), it’s a fast turnaround, I’m doing it while hammers continue to pound out each of the 10 long hours of my day job, and I’m attempting to drop 76 dress sizes before my wedding next year.

So what gives? As ever, food and exercise.

Doing the show is fraught, fabulous and frantic fun and, increased stress levels excepted, one of the reasons I signed on in the first place was that it was a chance to do something which has nothing at all to do with how I look.

You don’t have to do your hair for radio, in case you hadn’t noticed, or wear a girdle. Hey, take your bra off in the studio if you want – it’s that much of a marvellously freeing medium.

Up until now, most of the non-newspaper stuff I’ve been doing has involved me talking about being fat, my struggles with weight and self-acceptance, chatting about the diets I’ve loved to hate and not lost anything on.

I have a considered and sometimes quirky view on it, and I’m often asked to share my thoughts on the obesity debate which I’m happy to do – spreading the fat as liberally as I do butter when I’m too busy to think about what I’m actually doing and take decisive action to the contrary.

So although I’m eating more because I’m frantic, I’m happier in my unease because I’m doing a project which isn’t fat related. So I’m equally cursed and blessed, an irony not lost on me or my belly.

Maybe a better woman would be able to do it all – work, successfully diet and try to be funny for the nation.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad for me. For now…

What’s The Story? is on BBC Radio Wales every Saturday at 1pm. It is recorded at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff each Thursday night prior to broadcast. Tickets are free and to be part of the audience call the box office on 029 2039 1391