I bought bad things, and ate them.

Max seems to have given up on trying to get me to follow a diet. He's given me a chart to fill in counting my resistance to temptation. This is not being particularly successful. That is to say, I can fill in the chart, no problem, but it is not increasing my ability to not eat stuff.

Over the past few weeks, Max has systematically worked his way through his repertoire. He has sent me to Weight Watchers. He has given me diagrams of a 'healthy eating plate' and got me to tally my food groups. Now, he's trying to get me to note when I succeed in avoiding temptation.

The trouble is, on the whole, I don't. If I am tempted by it, I eat it. The only way I can avoid eating stuff, is by not seeing it in the first place. Consequently, the tally marks on my chart are mostly of the 'Whoops, I ate it' and not the 'Hurray, I didn't eat it' type.

It doesn't matter that I can sit outside a friend's house thinking: "I will not eat any biscuits. I will just have a cup of tea," because as soon as I am presented with the option of eating a biscuit or flapjack I reach out for it regardless.

I was trying to avoid raiding the biscuit drawer at Mum's last week. I thought I would have a bowl of cereal to head off the temptation. Unfortunately, the kids had left the jaffa cakes on the side and I'd stuffed four in before I could get the packet back into the drawer.

Why? I wasn't even that hungry. It is like a reflex.

I read a piece on binge eating in the Observer last week. It was about how these poor benighted souls find a time when no-one is around, to consume high calorie, forbidden foods. They can manage up to 10,000 calories in a sitting, apparently. Well, I know, for all my sins that I can't manage anything like that amount, (probably 7 or 800 is the max), but I am guilty of hiding away so no-one can see me eat bad things.

Does that mean I have an eating disorder? The article went on to say that it is treated by Behavioural Cognitive Therapy. The only time I've tried that, was to sort out a phobia. The therapist suggested that everytime I thought of someone being hanged (one particular phobia) I should change the image to one of a bunch of bananas. The result of this 'therapy' was that I couldn't touch bananas for months! The phobia eventually went away on its own.

So, I guess, everytime I see naughty food I want to eat, I should imagine something horrible so it puts me off eating it. This doesn't sound like a happy way to live. Besides, I can't imagine this lemon drizzle cake I'm savouring, being anything other than light, sweet and delicious.

Maybe I should download a whole bunch of photos of fat-encrusted inner organs and Cellotape them to my fridge. Max tells me he's not allowed to shock me like that, which is a bit of a shame, because it might just work. I'm not sure what my visitors would think, though, and my kids would probably start having nightmares and stop eating altogether.

I am at a loss. It is hard to get the width of something as amorphous as 'temptation'. It is as long as a piece of string. Max said that the last person he tried the Temptation Chart with failed because they just made excuses. I would hate to think that I fall into the same category, but without any significant progress, I can see that that is what people must think.

Obviously, I am just not trying hard enough. I want it to happen, without any real effort on my part. I want to wake up, never be tempted by illicit food again. I want to slim down to a gorgeous size 14 in a matter of weeks. And while I'm at it, can I lose 15 years off my age, too?


Nope, it looks like the pictures of lardy internal organs is the way forward. I wonder what my therapist would make of that?