And now for a very quick word...

If there's anyone out there reading this, I really hope you'll excuse the radio silence over the past few days. I left for Italy at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and, on my return home last night, discovered I had a shortened deadline for a piece that was due in at the end of the week but ended up having to be submitted today (such are the joys of freelance life).

Anyway, I've been slaving over a hot computer (in a very cold room – I can hardly feel my fingers as I type) and have got the damn thing in on time. I promise that I will devote tomorrow morning to updating this blog with the various accounts of my exploits (culinary, exercise and travel) before I head off to a major tasting of Australian wines in the afternoon.

In the interim, I would just like to announce that my weight is now down to 90.9 kilos. To be totally honest, it was down to that before I left for Italy. However, the fact that it is holding steady at 90.9 kilos is a bit of a personal triumph in the face of onslaughts of ravioli, risottos, polentas, cheeses and charcuterie, not to mention an unending stream of Valpolicella, Amarone and Recioto. But I don't want to spoil a good story, so I'll tell you all about that tomorrow.

Stating the bleeding obvious

At risk of stating what should have already occured to anyone with an ounce of logic, never ever go food shopping when you're hungry and tired.

I didn't have much of a lunch today because all I had in the fridge was some hummous, which I ate with a slice of untoasted wholemeal pitta bread. I was on my way out the door to a tasting, and was running late, so had no time to prepare anything more satisfying and nutritious (although hummous and wholemeal pitta makes a good snack – it keeps you full for a fair while and has lots of fibre).

So – another big tasting. Bibendum, one of the UK's biggest wine merchants, holds an annual tasting – and it's vast. They'd hired out part of the Royal Academy complex off Piccadilly. There must have been several hundred wine producers there – all of them with at least a couple of wines each. Of course I didn't taste everything there. In fact I spent most of the time doing interviews with wine buyers and sommeliers – I'm behind schedule on a couple of deadlines, both of which I need to meet before I head off to Italy early on Friday.

By the time I left, I was feeling tired and emotional, and for once I'm not using those words to mean that I was drunk. But I also knew there was nothing in the house for dinner. So I stopped into an M&S to grab something to cook tonight. But because I was so tired and because I hadn't eaten well, my blood sugar had dipped, and all I wanted to do was to grab one of the delicious-looking pastries. Either that or slump down in a corner and cry.

You'll be glad to know I didn't do either. Mark and I ate tuna with a soy and citrus sauce, egg noodles and stir-fried veg for dinner. And very lovely it was too.

The weekly weigh in

Despite the temptations of the past few days, my weight is down again this week. The scales now read 91.6kg – in old money terms, I've lost nearly half a stone. What's more, people are starting to notice. The start of a diet is tough – you're adjusting your eating patterns and, quite often, feeling deprived – and until the new regime kicks in, there's very little gratification. But when you start to feel your clothes getting looser and people start to notice that the pounds are dropping off, it acts as a positive reinforcement.

At the moment I'm feeling very positive.

Just say no

When I was small, my mum taught me that I should always finish what was on my plate – although I never quite figured out the relationship between my leftovers and the starving children in India, Cambodia or Biafra (or the various other causes célébres of the day). What was true of meals at home was doubly so of special occasion meals, such as those eaten at friends' houses or at restaurants.

Fast forward 30 years or so and the result of this indoctrination is an adult who eats out a lot and still finishes everything on her plate, even if it's the second five-course meal of the day. The consequences have been inevitable.

I'm lucky enough to have a great job that allows me to travel a lot. Furthermore, once I reach my destination, my hosts fall over themselves to show me a good time. I get taken out to great restaurants or get treated to meals en famille with great frequency. Fantastic bottles of wine are unearthed from their resting place in the cellars, the table groans with all kinds of prestige foods and meals last a minimum of two hours, if not well into the night.

I'm certainly not complaining (although by the time I get home after most trips I crave fresh vegetables and simple dishes – prestige meals don't tend to run to greens and fruit in most cases), but it's very difficult to say no if your hosts are putting on such a show of generosity. And, if everything's laid on (rather than ordering from a restaurant menu), it's difficult to ensure that appropriate food is easy to come by.

I knew well before I got on the plane that last week's trip to the Minervois and St Chinian in southern France would be a test of my resolve. Sure enough, shortly after landing, we were whisked straight to a wine tasting at Homps, once an important loading point for barges travelling along the Canal du Midi. In addition to the wines we were to taste, a table had been set with platefuls of local salamis, olives, cheeses, breads and pastries. Have I mentioned how hungry you can get when you're tasting wine?

Over the course of the next couple of days, we went from one eating opportunity to another, including several lavish meals. But I've learned one vital lesson. Contrary to what I'd been taught to believe, the sky doesn't land on your head if you leave some of the food on your plate. You can ask for the steak to come without the cream and mushroom sauce. And you absolutely must say no to white bread, dessert and other foods laden with simple carbohydrates (see above for the dessert that got away, a parfait flavoured with Muscat de St Jean de Minervois, a dessert wine – sob).

I managed it all last week and, while I regretted saying no to some of the dishes I would have enjoyed, I consoled myself with the fact that I wouldn't have enjoyed them half as much as I'd have regretted eating them by the next day.

A couple of slip-ups – and a test of my willpower to come

Yesterday morning passed in a blur. I had another session with James, then went straight out to Delfina Gallery, where I was helping judge some wines for Imbibe magazine. Somewhere along the way, though, I forgot to organise a packed lunch.

Predictably, come lunchtime, I was ravenous. Lunch had been laid on, of course. You don't invite 25 of London's top sommeliers, plus half a dozen journalists, to a venue, ask them to taste 100 wines each and not feed them. They simply wouldn't turn up. So in came the sandwich platters... There were sarnies with chicken, salad, avocado and mayo; airy ciabattas with parma ham and grilled aubergine; luscious-looking baps with smoked eel and horseradish – and, strictly speaking, I shouldn't have touched them.

I did, though. I looked for brown bread rather than white, and took the top layer of bread off so that it was an open sandwich. Plus, whereas a few weeks ago I'd happily have hoed in to a good sandwich and a half, this time round I went for half a sarnie and some of the fruit platter (which I would previously have ignored). I have to admit that I nearly caved in when, around tea-time, one of the sommeliers walked past and said: 'You absolutely have to try the little chocolate cakes – they're delicious.' But, I'm proud to say, I resisted temptation.

I nearly blew it today, as well. Today's tasting venue was Lords' Cricket Ground, where the annual New Zealand wine tasting was being held. I'll explain about these generic tastings at some later date, but suffice to say there was an awful lot of wine packed into one room. The lunchtime baguettes looked almost as tempting as the Pinot Noir, but I managed to restrain myself, largely thanks to a decent breakfast (a tub of M&S pineapple, mango and passion fruit, with a dollop of my usual Greek yoghurt and a sprinkling of nuts and seeds).

On my way home, I managed to pick up a butterless sandwich with roast beef, tomato and horseradish on multigrain bread from a St John's Wood deli called Panzer's (a favourite of mine, mainly because it sells the best hand-sliced smoked salmon in London).

Tomorrow brings a new challenge. I'm off to the Languedoc in Southern France for my first working wine trip of the year. Not only will I be tasting a lot of wine, I'll also be visiting an olive oil-making co-operative and eating at a number of great restaurants. It'll be interesting to find out how I handle this trip as it will set a precedent for all the other overseas work trips I take this year.

Weigh-hey!

This morning was my second official weigh in (OK, so I've cheated and peeked a couple of times over the course of the past week. Predictable, huh?)

I climbed on the scales, held my breath... A drum roll, please, ladies and gentlemen... My weight is down to 93 kilos exactly – down 1.4 kilos from last week.

I don't expect to keep on losing weight at the same rate, but it's certainly a good start.

Breakfast

A mate of mine lost loads of weight last year, and when I asked her what her secret was, she recited the old saw about eating breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

The cliché may well have made me want to roll my eyes to the ceiling. In fact, that's probably what I did (a poker face has never been my forte). But, reluctant as I am to admit it, she's got a point. A good breakfast is absolutely vital if you're dieting. The question is, what kind of thing should I be eating every morning? I need something to give me enough of a boost to my metabolism to see me through the next few hours – without weighing me down and making me feel queasy.

I'll 'fess up now. Breakfast has never really been my thang (apart from the cornbread, bacon and maple syrup I used to serve up on morning afters, back in my single days – never failed to impress, I'm proud to say). I'd rather have the extra 20 minutes in bed, to be quite honest, so most mornings, I start the day with a strong cup of coffee, then find myself grabbing something delicious and totally inappropriate on the way to a tasting or a meeting. Something like a muffin or a croissant. Mmmmm, muffins... At the weekend or on holiday, I've been known to be partial to a kipper or a full English, if I've got time. Sadly, all these options are now out of the question. (My greedy subconscious actually sparked a dream about bacon and sausages last night. How totally tragic is that?)

But there are plenty of options open to me. To start with there's scrambled (or poached or boiled) eggs, served with a slice of toast (toast is just fine – as long as it's wholegrain or multigrain. White is off the menu, and I'd strongly recommend buying a quality loaf rather than a pre-sliced job as the latter are loaded with sugar). If you're going to scramble your eggs, just whisk them gently with some salt and pepper – not milk or cream – then fry them with the merest skerrick of butter.

Most days, though, I've been enjoying a home-made muesli (the commercial ones are too full of sugar, not to mention dried fruit – not a good idea). It's simplicity itself to make, and once you've prepared the basic cereal it'll last for days – you only need a double handful each morning. You can douse your muesli with semi-skimmed milk, of course, but I'm particularly enjoying mine mixed in with a couple of tablespoons of 0% fat Greek yoghurt – and sometimes I add a bit of sliced fresh fruit.

Enough muesli for 10 days or so

200g rolled oats
200g rye flakes
40g sesame seeds
60g almonds, roughly chopped
60g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
200g sugar-free fruit spread
100g All Bran

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark6.

Mix the oats, rye flakes, sesame seeds and nuts in a bowl.

Stir 100ml of boiling water into the fruit spread, then mix it thoroughly with the cereals and nuts.

Spread the mixture evenly out over two roasting tins, then place in oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, stir again, then place in oven for a further 10 minutes. Remove from oven and, if the cereal is evenly toasted, allow to cool. If not, stir once again, and leave in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Once the cereal is cool, stir in the bran flakes, then store in an airtight container.

Last Sunday I decided I'd had enough muesli, delicious as it is, so Mark and I opted for corn fritters, served with ham, crème fraiche and tomatoes. These little fritters are a really nice way of starting the day, especially when you serve them with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. The batter mix is enough to make three fairly substantial fritters – Mark had two and I had one.

This is a good general principle: if you're dieting, but your partner isn't, there's nothing to stop them from having an extra helping of whatever you're eating. There are also ways in which you can add simple 'extras' to a dish for your non-dieting partner – I'll flag these up when and where it's appropriate.
Corn fritters with ham, crème fraiche and tomatoes – makes three

50g polenta
50g plain flour
1 egg (preferably free range or organic)
1 tbsp olive oil, then a scant tbsp for frying
100-125ml semi-skimmed milk
70g canned sweetcorn, drained
1 tsp carraway seeds
3 tbsp crème fraiche
6 slices of parma ham or speck, cut into strips
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pour the polenta and flour into a bowl, then whisk in the egg and 1 tbsp olive oil. Whisk in the milk bit by bit until you end up with a thick, sticky batter. Season well (the fritters can be bland otherwise), then stir in the sweetcorn kernels and carraway seeds.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a non-stick frying pan, then pour in a third of the batter. Flatten it out with the back of a wooden spoon and fry until brown. Flip the fritter over and fry on the other side until brown.

Place on a plate and top with crème fraiche, ham and tomato halves.

Eyes wide shut..

This picture just about sums up my attitude to exercise: if I close my eyes and ignore it, maybe it will go away. Sadly, my ostrich days are over. If I want to lose weight, raising my metabolic rate by means of physical exertion is part and parcel of the deal.

Yes, I could do it all through dieting, but a) it would take longer and b) there'd be all kinds of floppy bits left over after I'd shed the pounds. So, in the interests of getting the weight off quicker and looking taut and trim once I've done so (not to mention improving my health), I'm biting the exercise bullet.

I've explained before that working on a cardio machine in the gym doesn't really do it for me. Nor am I much of a team player, so games like football, basketball and netball are out. My hand to eye co-ordination is, to put it bluntly, crap – in four years of playing school tennis (way back in the Jurassic era), I think I only connected racket and ball a dozen times. In fact the only sports I've got any enthusiasm for are horse riding, particularly hunter trials (I must have had a death wish as a teenager because I got a huge thrill out of riding half a ton of unsteerable pony towards railway sleepers fixed about three feet off the ground) and skiing (much more cowardly about this – I've snow-ploughed down some of the steepest black runs in Europe). I'm also pretty keen on scuba diving, too. Now, given that I don't have a small fortune to spend on such sports (and in fact haven't since my dad blew the family dosh on a losing investment at Lloyds some 20 years ago), the options have been somewhat restricted.

I knew that one thing that would motivate me would be working out with a personal trainer. The combination of being guided by someone who would know my limits – and when to push me right up against them; someone who could devise an ever-changing programme of routines that would prevent me from getting bored; someone who could come up with exercises that would help target the specific bits of my body that need most help and, perhaps most importantly, someone who would turn up at the door so that I couldn't make any excuses to stay home and carry on working at the computer pushes all the right buttons for me. After two sessions with the fabulous James (toned body, sympathetic smile and a sadistic streak two miles wide), I'm in a position to say that I'm hopeful that PT may well be the way forward for someone as intrinsically lazy as me.

At the moment, I've got two sessions with James each week – the idea being to get the exercise program off to a racing start. In time this will go down to one session a week (which will be a bit easier on the pocket – training doesn't come cheap). It's down to me to supplement the sessions with at least one more exercise outing a week (and walking the dog doesn't count – sorry Laszlo).

The first couple of sessions have included some pretty basic exercises – squat thrusts; holding a heavy bottle of water out to the side, the front and above my head; brisk walking and knee raises, among others – along with some basic boxing moves (jabs, upper cuts, etc) and some stretches. It may be baby steps as far as James is concerned, but given how unfit I am it's already pushing me a fair bit.

I'm enjoying the boxing bit – there's something about the rhythm of it and the way I need to co-ordinate all my body to get the moves right that I enjoy (not to mention the opportunity to take out any aggressive tendencies I might feel – did anyone say John Torode?). Some of the exercises that foccus on one specific group of muscles are tough, though – I've noticed my shoulder muscles are particularly weak. Trouble is, James has noticed that too. Have I mentioned his sadistic streak?

Real life starts to intervene

It was easy eating little and often in the aftermath of the New Year's festivities. I was based at home, with only Laszlo and my computer for company, but this week has seen the start of the tasting season.

There are two main tasting seasons in each year of a wine writer's life: Winter/Spring, which runs from the second week of January pretty much up until the London Wine and Spirits Fair, which is in mid-May. Then you get a breather for the summer holidays and by early September, the whole circus kicks off again, grinding to a halt earlyish in December.

Now as work goes, tasting wine isn't a bad way to spend your day, but contrary to the opinion of those of my friends who don't work in the wine trade, it really is work. This week, for instance, has seen most of the big wine merchants hold their Burgundy 2006 En Primeur tastings (all the En Primeur bit means is that it's the first chance anyone has had to taste and buy the wines from the 2006 vintage). There have been over a dozen tastings in London, each of which has featured at least 80 wines, both reds and whites.

By the end of today I will have been to about eight of these tastings over the course of four days, and will have tasted around 50 wines at each in order to write up some recommendations for www.wine-pages.com, a specialist wine website for which I write on a semi-regular basis. And wine tasting makes you hungry. Starving, in fact.

In the normal course of events, this wouldn't be a problem – I'd grab my lunch at whichever tasting I happen to be at round about lunchtime and that would be that. (Most of them generously provide sandwiches, at the very least, and sometimes a full three-course buffet, in the understanding that an army of wine tasters marches on its stomach.)

At the moment, though, I can't just chow down on a sarnie – the combination of mayo, white bread, rich fillings and an inappropriate balance of protein and complex carbs would scupper me. Nor can I count on being able to find a mid-morning or afternoon snack to keep my blood sugar levels from dipping dangerously low.

My solution is to take a bit more time about things so that I can stop somewhere and buy myself a lunchtime salad – I even went to a kaiten sushi place on Tuesday and had some salmon and tuna sashimi and a seaweed and cucumber salad. Alternatively, I pack a small tub of something nutritious and a plastic fork and find a convenient corner to sit and grab my lunch. I also take a couple of pieces of fruit or a small bag of raw, unsalted nuts along with me to fill the snack gap.

So far so good, but it's all taking a bit more planning and preparation than I'd otherwise have to put into my food. Other than that, the diet seems to be going quite well. I'm not feeling atrociously hungry in between meals, thanks to the snacks – although I have been peckish on the odd occasion. And I'm finding that the smaller portions that I'm eating seem to be satisfying enough – in fact I'm quite enjoying the fact that I get up from the table without feeling like I've stuffed myself. The question is – is it having any impact on my waistline or am I going to have to take more extreme steps? My weekly weigh-in isn't for another few days yet, so I can't really answer that yet.

Life is a minestrone...

According to 10cc (a 70s pop group for those of you not old enough to remember them), life is a minestrone, topped off with Parmesan cheese. I'm not entirely sure that my own life is a minestrone (whatever that means), but I've certainly been eating enough of the stuff over the past few days. It's the kind of recipe you need to cook in large quantities, and you can either do what I did, and have a bowlful a day for a few days, or you can freeze some and save it for later.

I spent a happy 40 minutes or so in the kitchen on Saturday cooking a large vat of soup (see recipe below) and it's done sterling duty over the course of four meals (three of which have been shared with Mark). The combination of cannelini beans, loads of veg and a thick tomatoey broth makes it the ideal dieter's lunch on a cold winter's day. I found that a bowlful of the stuff kept my appetite at bay for most of the afternoon – just what the nutritionist ordered (or what the nutritionist would have ordered if I was going to see one).

The first time round I sprinkled about a tablespoon full of Parmesan on the top, but to be honest it was a waste of time. The cheese just vanished into the soup and was pretty much undetectable. Far better, I think, if you're craving that hit of cheese, to cut off a small lump – about the amount that, grated, would give you a tablespoon's worth – and nibble it in between mouthfuls of soup. If you get bored with basic minestrone, you can jazz it up by adding a teaspoonful of pesto to the soup as you're reheating it – the basil flavour works really well in the tomatoey soup.

Pesto was also a key component in our Monday-night dinner of pesto-marinated chicken and ratatouille ( see recipe below). The chicken is one of the world's simplest dishes to prepare: all you do is take a breast fillet of chicken (without skin, alas) and make three or four deep slashes into the flesh. Mix a heaped teaspoon of shop-bought pesto (or home-made, even better, yum) with a couple of tablespoons of 0% fat yoghurt. Rub the marinade into the chicken and leave, covered, in the fridge for a minimum of four hours. When you're ready to cook the chook, wipe some of the pesto yoghurt off the chicken (leaving a thin coating) and place under a hot grill. Cook on both sides and serve with ratatouille or a green salad.

Ratatouille for four

1 medium aubergine, cut into thick slices
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 courgettes, cut in half lengthways then cut into half circles
2 peppers (preferably one yellow, one red), quartered, deseeded and cut into thick slices
200g chopped canned tomatoes
a handful of basil leaves, torn
salt and feshly ground black pepper

Salt the aubergine slices and place them in a colander with a heavy plate or bowl on top to weigh them down. Leave for at least half an hour, until the salt has leached the bitter juices from the aubergines. Rinse, pat dry and cut into chunks.

Fry the onion with a scant tablespoon of the oil in a saucepan over a low heat (I've found that using a bare minimum of oil means that the onion burns easier than it usually would. A low flame and taking your time helps avoid the problem, but stir frequently) until it is soft and translucent.

While the onion is softening, fry the aubergine in a tablespoon of oil (only use the remaining oil if you really, really have to; aubergine soaks up oil like a sponge, especially at lower temperatures, so get the oil good and hot before adding the veg). If the aubergine looks like it's starting to burn before it's cooked through, remove it and place it in a bowl covered with a saucepan lid or plate. The steam will help finish off the cooking.

When the onion has softened, add the garlic and cook for a further minute or so. Add the courgettes and fry for a few more minutes, until they start to soften. Finally, stir in the pepper strips and fry for a further couple of minutes.

Pour the tomates into the saucepan and stir. Bring to the boil, then turn heat down to a simmer, stir in the aubergines and season with salt and pepper. Cook, covered, on a low heat for about half an hour. Garnish with torn basil leaves and serve warm or at room temperature.


Minestrone for at least eight (this is a pretty free-form recipe, so feel free to adjust it to include other appropriate veggies)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2-3 leeks (depending on size), sliced finely
2 carrots, peeled and cut into medium dice
1 bulb of fennel, chopped
3 stalks of celery, sliced
2 litres chicken or vegetable stock
600g chopped canned tomatoes
3-4 sprigs of thyme, chopped
2 bayleaves
2 x 400g cans of cannelini beans
2 courgettes, cut lengthways into quarters, then sliced into chunks
torn basil leaves, to garnish
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil over a low heat in a large saucepan, then cook the onion gently until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute.

Stir in the leeks and cook until they start to soften, then add the carrots. After another 3-4 minutes, tip the fennel and celery into the saucepan and continue to fry gently.

Pour in the stock, turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, then add the chopped tomatoes, thyme and bayleaves. Simmer for half an hour or so, uncovered.

Add the the beans and the courgettes and season to taste. Once the courgettes are tender, you can serve the soup, garnished with a handful of torn basil leaves.

Crash and burn

I was on Masterchef on Monday night. Somehow, though, it had 'accidentally' slipped my mind to let anyone know about it.

Rewind to this time last year. I'd always been vaguely interested in competing in Masterchef. After all, I've run a catering company (part-time while I was at university – a handy source of dosh), cooked for Wine Magazine's sommelier challenge for the best part of three years and (modesty apart) am widely acknowledged to be a pretty good cook. I had visions of being covered in glory. At the very least I knew I was good enough to make it through to the quarter finals.

So some time in the depths of January last year I went for an audition. The panel of producers seemed pretty impressed with my guacamole and even asked me if I'd be prepared to leave the rest of the tub with them for lunch after they'd sampled it during the interview. That had to be a good omen, right? Well, no – completely wrong, as it turned out.

The day of filming dawned. It was a brisk, sunny day in late April (in fact it was the week we had summer last year) and I headed down to the location early one Sunday morning. My fellow contestants seemed like a nice bunch of people and the only inkling of trouble I had was when we were each taken away from the group for an on-camera interview. The producer kept asking me how much winning Masterchef would change my life and I really wanted to say: 'Not much, really'. The truth is that doing well in Masterchef would have broadened my options as a food writer, but unlike many of the other contestants, it wouldn't have changed my life in any fundamental way at all. To say so, however, would have seemed contrary to the whole spirit of the thing, so I ended up mumbling something semi-true about wanting to teach people about how easy it was to cook well if you use good ingredients.

It wasn't until early afternoon that we filed into the kitchen set for the first 'mystery bag' round. I have to admit that I was feeling pretty nervous, but had been quite surprised by the fact that John Torode (who I'd met on a professional basis a couple of times, but whom I'd never taken much of a shine to as he came across as being pretty full of himself) recognised me. No that him telling the group that, as a wine writer, I should have a decent sense of taste helped calm my nerves any.

Once the ground rules had been laid out, the clock was started and we opened our bags. The first thing I found was a box of risotto rice. Great, I thought: I can remember being told that risotto is a really good test of a chef. Besides, I make a mean risotto. I also found some butternut squash and some dried porcini mushrooms, and I decided to use them to flavour the risotto.

I had a bit of a heart-in-mouth moment about halfway through our cooking time, when I realised the squash wasn't roasting fast enough in the oven, so I took the tray out and cut the small cubes into even smaller cubes. This just about fixed things, although the squash was still a bit on the toothsome side when I stirred it into the rice. And, to be completely honest, the mushrooms were so strong that their flavour ended up being a bit too dominant. Other than that, it was a fine risotto and I was quite proud of it.

That state of pride lasted another few minutes, right up until the moment when one of the other contestants, who'd also cooked risotto, took her dish up to the judges – and John Torode went off on a rant about how risotto was the biggest culinary scam the Italians had ever perpetrated on the world and how cooking risotto told you nothing about a chef's culinary abilities (by the same token, surely, cooking a pork chop – for which another contestant was heaped with praise – also tells you nothing about how well someone cooks).

Anyhow, I knew I was stuffed. And so I was. Bounced out in the first round. How humiliating. So although I told a few people about what had happened (my friend Helena's response was the most comforting of all. 'So they gave you an ingredient they despised on a TV show?' she said. 'Do you think they might have wanted to make someone cry?'), I didn't tell anyone when the programme was going to air.

It didn't stop them finding out, though, and I've been inundated with really kind messages from all kinds of people, including old friends I'd more or less lost contact with and acquaintances from the wine-tasting circuit.

And I still think John Torode's pretty full of himself.

A moment of truth

I haven't stepped on a set of bathroom scales for a very long time. I told myself that it was because I knew my old, rusted-up mechanical scales were inaccurate, making them pointless. But (and I bet this comes as a surprise to you all) the real reason I never used them was that I just didn't want to face up to how bad the problem was getting.

Obviously, if I'm going to take losing weight seriously, I've got to find some kind of way of charting my progress; and while I feel happy with the concept that looser clothes would mean lost pounds, going by the fit of my clothes wasn't going to allow me to monitor any changes efficiently enough. So I went out at the weekend and bought some scales.

This morning, I steeled myself for the awful truth. I had a worse-case scenario of 15 stone in mind, and things are better than that – but not much. At the moment, first thing in the morning, clothes discarded (and leaning slightly downwind for aerodynamic efficiency), I weigh 94.3 kilos. That's 14 stone 11 pounds in old money.

I'm not a happy bunny.

No more excuses

I'm not an exercise novice. I've signed up to the gym any number of times. I've also fallen off the gym wagon any number of times, too. There's something about the relentless monotony of treadmills, exercise bikes, ski-track machines and rowers that fails to enthuse me. It works for some people – many find that time spent on a cardio machine is the best/only time they get to think in a freeform kind of way. I just spend half an hour counting down the number of seconds I need to keep going before I can pack up and go home for the day.

So although I start off an exercise regime with enthusiasm, my keeness wears off quickly, and I begin looking for excuses not to go to the gym. And, if you're a busy freelancer, with a packed schedule of deadlines, tastings and trips, it's all too easy to find those excuses.

At the end of May last year, Mark and I bought the puppy we'd been wanting to get for a couple of years. Laszlo is a black miniature schnauzer, and with him there are no excuses. Like any puppy, he's full of energy (see his showjumping session in the park last summer, above) so he needs to get a good walk every day. He's usually so keen to get out the front door that he grabs the lead in his teeth and tugs it (and me at the other end of the lead) all the way down the garden path and out to the park. Lasz and I spend a good 20 minutes walking most days (when I say walking, I mean that he runs a lot and I have to run after him – he's not very good at coming back when there are other dogs to chase and play with), and at weekends Mark and I usually take him further afield for a couple of long walks. (He – Laszlo, that is – came home with half of Sydenham woods on him last weekend after a particularly vigorous session with a Labradoodle.)

So far, so good. At least I'm getting a basic amount of brisk exercise every day. But I still run out of puff if I have to sprint for the bus, and I know a good fitness regime will not only help shift the kilos, it will also help me tone up and get in shape. That's why, from next week on, uber-trainer James, from Phoenix Exercise Professionals, will (I hope) be pushing me much harder than I would ever push myself in my quest to get get fit. With any luck the challenges he sets me should motivate me enough to keep me coming back for more.

My first challenge

My mum came round for dinner last night. I don't really want to tell her about the diet yet – she'd only make a big fuss about it, and I can't deal with that yet – but dissuading her from bringing a box of chocolates over was, er, difficult. (Christ only knows why I feel comfortable about posting details of my diet on the internet so that, potentially, thousands of people can read all about it but I can't tell my mum. Obviously some deep psychology involved there somewhere...)

Organising a menu that would work for her proved a bit of a challenge, too. The idea was for us to sit down to a dinner that would fulfill my dieting criteria while still appearing to be a 'real' dinner from her perspective. I settled for lamb cutlets, cooked rare on the griddle (no oil used). She and Mark had two cutlets each. I pleaded a lack of appetite and gnawed on a solitary cutlet. We also had one of my fave mashes – chickpea (works beautifully with lamb) – and a ratatouille to accompany the meat. You'll find a recipe for the chickpea mash below (I think the ratatouille may become a bit of a favourite, so I'll publish the recipe at some later date). I even sipped at half a glass of Southern French red, without ever quite finishing the glass – just for effect.

But time, perhaps, to explain the basic rationale of my diet. I'm not a great believer in calorie counting – it's never really worked for me in the past for several reasons, among them the fact that it's easy to get obsessed about what you're putting in your mouth and how much of it you should be eating. And I always end up hungry between meals anyway, further enhancing my obsession with food, all of which makes the diet unsustainable.

I've also tried variations on the Atkins diet, but I've come to the conclusion that eating fats, meat proteins and leafy green vegetables, to the exclusion of starchy carbs and fruit, is not really a great idea, particularly on a sustained basis.

And as for anything quite as dumb as cabbage soup diets, Israeli army diets, replacing meals with diet shakes/soups/cereals... Well, I'd just be setting myself up for a fall.

The diets that seem to make the most sense to me are those based around the concept of the Glycaemic Index (GI) or Glycaemic Load (GL). The reading I've done seems to suggest that following these principles – no simple sugars; eating little and often; balancing proteins, complex carbs, vegetables and fruit; controlling portion size – may well be the best way of balancing your body's glucose levels, thereby controlling feelings of hunger while shedding weight.

In order to make this work for me (given that I'm probably going to be following this diet for at least a year, if not for life) I have to be realistic. Because of my work, temptation is going to rear its ugly head pretty frequently (damn you, temptation), so I'm going to allow myself one meal a week where I can eat or drink what I like (within the bounds of moderation, of course).

And as well as coming up with my own recipes, I'm going to be taking plenty of inspiration from as many interesting foodie diet books I can find. You'll find images of three of my favourites on the left. Of them all, I find Ruth Watson's Fat Girl Slim the most appealing – it's written by someone who clearly loves her food, and the recipes (or at least all the ones I've tried so far) are delicious. Ian Marber's Food Doctor series is a little more earnest, but (I suspect) gets relatively quick results. I'm also intrigued by Antony Worrall Thompson's book, although I'm slightly disappointed by some of the recipes (I suspect the book was largely written by the team of nutritionists who get a mention on the back pages) – but it's worth using as a basis for experimentation.

If and when I find more interesting books, I'll let you know about them.

Chickpea mash for one (just multiply the quantities according to the number of people you're feeding)

1 400g can of chickpeas
1 tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt
1/4-1/2 tsp Spanish pimenton (spicy smoked paprika)
juice of 1/4-1/2 lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Drain most of the water out of the chickpeas, but leave a little bit to keep things moist (I used one can's worth of water for four cans of chickpeas the other night). Pour into a saucepan.

Heat over a medium flame, then mash with a spud basher. You want to keep the texture a little chunky, so don't worry if you miss the odd chickpea.

Stir in the yoghurt, the pimenton, the lemon and seasoning. Chickpeas can be fairly bland, so check the flavourings and adjust according to need and taste.

It's easy to burn the chickpea mash if you keep it on a high heat, but it retains the heat fairly well, so if it's ready in advance, just put a lid on the saucepan and reheat gently, if necessary.

'D' day

I'm trying hard not to think of it as food deprivation, but yesterday's breakfast was the pits. I know there are probably plenty of people out there who make their porridge with water rather than milk, but I'm not one of them – or, at least, I never have been. And for good reason, I decided at about 8.30 yesterday morning. Although I'd jazzed it up (at the suggestion of The Food Doctor's Everyday Diet book, of which more later) with slices of green apple, a sprinkling of chopped almonds and a spoon of 0% fat Greek yoghurt, my bowl of porridge was depressing. Not only was the porridge pretty flavourless, the sharp, watery character of both the yoghurt and the apples seemed at odds with its texture. And don't even mention the way it looked. (Scrambled brains, springs to mind...) Not, I decided, an experiment to be repeated.

To make matters worse, a number of diet books recommend you remove coffee from your diet. It's not that I drink a lot of coffee – I don't – but I have really problems kick-starting my day without that initial hit of caffeine. I can function alright, but I find myself feeling a tad irritable and headachy (addicted, me?) – by the time I got to the supermarket in the afternoon, I found myself snapping at a man who'd lost control of his trolley and had driven it into the back of my legs and the woman with the screaming brats got very short shrift. Furthermore, Mark and I had been jonesing for a coffee machine for ages and, just before Christmas, we went out and bought a Nespresso cube thingy (I don't know if you've ever used one before, but they're magic – no mess or fuss with the grounds, just these neat little pods that you slip into the machine. The coffee itself isn't up to Bar Italia standards, but it's pretty darned good). So, there it was, our coffee machine, in all its pristine newness, winking at me from the kitchen worktop. Damn.

After the breakfast debacle, the food bit got easier. I snacked on the other half of the apple mid-morning, then lunched on a ladleful of leftover lentils (which I sprinkled with a bit of balsamic vinegar for added zip) and a slice of cold roast pork (from which I removed all the fat). My afternoon snack was a thin slice of multigrain bread with a smear of sugar-free peanut butter on it. So far, so OK. I didn't feel starvingly hungry – although planning my food is taking up a fair bit of time and energy. I'm hoping it will all become second nature over the course of the next few weeks.

Where I really let myself down was with the water. I know you're meant to drink a litre and a half to two litres of water every day, but I'm just not a big water drinker. Never have been. Besides – I don't want to have to keep running to the loo every half an hour. Still, most of the advice I've had so far is that I need to try and get through as much liquid as possible. Not sure why – I'll have to check it out and report back.

Dinner was, IMHO, a bit of a triumph. I got one of those packs of stir-fry veg from the supermarket (this particular one had spinach leaves, a bit of baby sweetcorn, strips of courgettes and spring onions) and jazzed it up with some ginger cut into matchsticks, sliced garlic, a sliced chilli and a couple of sticks of lemongrass. I stir-fried all this with some slices of chicken breast (the trick, I've found, is to separate out the veg that's going to take longest to cook and chuck them into the wok way ahead of the leaves and fast-cooking veg, otherwise you either end up with raw onions or very limp spinach), then moistened it with a bit of Chinese cooking wine and a sprinkling of fish sauce, then served it all on some brown rice. I suspect I'm going to be cooking a lot of Asian-inspired meals over the next few months as they tend to be low in fat and sugary carbs.

The calm before the storm

Self control isn't my strong point, so I know that my kitchen cupboards have to be cleared of all kinds of temptation before I buckle down to my diet. Having brought rather too much food into the house over the Christmas and New Year break (I'm a fully paid-up member of the over-catering corps), I'm now finishing up all the leftovers. Once they're gone, I'll have to start shopping for some sensible food, but in the interim I've had two slices of home-made cornbread for breakfast, snacked on a couple of spice and nut biscuits I brought back from a work trip to the Christmas markets in Alsace and lunched on cold chicken and a beetroot, dill and apple salad. Yum.

Tonight's dinner is going to be sausages served with lentils. Sausages (really great ones from Boston Sausages at Borough Market in this case) are going to be off the menu for a while after tonight, but here's the recipe for the lentils – there's no reason that they can't be included in a diet, as long as you don't pig out on vast quantities of them.

Puy lentils for four

a scant tbsp of olive oil
1 small-medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled, halved lengthways then sliced into half moons
500 mls chicken or vegetable stock (water will do, but stock is better)
250g Puy lentils
1 bay leaf
a couple of sprigs of thyme, chopped
1 small can of chopped tomatoes
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pour some olive oil into a heavy-bottomed saucepan, then fry the onions gently until they're soft and translucent, but not brown.

Stir in the minced garlic and continue to fry for a minute or so before tipping in the carrots. As these begin to soften, add the stock. Bring to the boil, then pour in the lentils and reduce heat to a simmer. Stir in the herbs and chopped tomatoes and cook until the lentils are tender, but not mushy – about 25 minutes or so.

Season well before serving.

This is a great base recipe, and it works well with all kinds of plain grilled meats as well as fish like salmon. You can ring the changes by adding some fresh spinach leaves to the lentils just before serving and cooking until the spinach wilts, or stir in some oven-roast cubes of squash or pumpkin.

If you've got some left over (I deliberately cook to much to make sure I do), the lentils are great served as a salad the next day – you can liven it up by dressing it with some balsamic vinegar or a squeeze of lemon.

We're also going for broke by opening a bottle of wine (raising a farewell glass to my normal way of life). For those of you who are interested, it's a Mas Janeil Le Tiradou 2004 from Jacques and François Lurton – a delicious southern French red that's full of plump raspberry fruit and white pepper spice, one of my favourite wines of last year, which I recommended for the annual Absolutely Cracking French Wines selection.

Why bother?

These pics, boys and girls, are a reminder of what can happen to anyone who enjoys their food and drink just a little bit too much.

Truth be told, I've always had a tendency to put on weight, even as a kid. That, combined with the fact that I've made my living for the past few years from writing about wine, food – often wine and food together – and the good things in life (and when I'm not researching things to write about, I'm sat on my arse in front of a computer screen), has taken its toll on what used to be my figure.

I've decided that this is the year I'm going to put it all right. This is not a daft New Year's resolution, though, even if I am starting this blog on the 1st of January 2008, just the inevitable consequence of the realisation that I'll have even further to go if I start the process in six months' time.

Why bother? Part of it comes down to health reasons – my dad had his first heart attack when he was in his late 40s and my mother is a type II diabetic (she's also pretty big herself). Most of it, however, is about vanity. I'm sick of not being able to go into a shop and try something on that fits and I'm on the verge of outgrowing my 'fat clothes'. If I carry on at this rate, the only thing that will fit will be patterned marquees.

I'm no stranger to diets, but like most foodies I have little patience with most diet plans. Many of them seem to be devised for people who don't really like food (which begs the question: how do the people who come up with these diets think we got this way in the first place?) Other trendy diets seem unhealthy (hands up anyone who thinks eating fats and animal proteins but no fresh fruit for several months at a time is a good idea – especially given that one of the known side-effects is death breath). And I don't really go a whole bundle on the humiliation of weekly public weigh-ins and standing up in front of a group to share my struggles ('My name's Natasha and I'm a greedy pig').

Nope. I've decided to try and come up with recipes for dishes I might actually enjoy but will still help shave the inches off and, although I'm loath to go down this route, regular exercise is inevitable (if you don't tone up as you lose weight, bits of you go all saggy – never a good look). Along the way, though, I'm going to have to battle all kinds of temptation – my job means that I spend a lot of my time in restaurants or visiting wine producers (I can feel the sympathy vibes from here), and when I'm not working there's nothing I enjoy more than cooking for my partner, Mark (who, bless him, enjoys food just as much as I do), or inviting my friends round for a slap-up Sunday lunch (one thing I learned from my mother at a very young age – that food equals love – something I'm clearly going to have to unlearn pretty darn fast).

I'm hoping that this blog will help anyone out there who's got a few kilos of their own to shift. After all, if I can do it, I reckon anyone can.

And the reason for the humiliating pictures? On the first of each month, I'll publish photos of me wearing the same three outfits so that you can see the results of my diet for yourself (sometimes words just aren't enough...)