by Layla Randle-Conde

Created on: January 13, 2009

I think I might have another apple. They're in the fridge, and that's a problem. I know he's hidden chocolate in the refrigerator. I can hear it breathing. That could very well complicate things.

This is my new strategy you see - if you can't ignore it, ice it. Yes blueberry muffin, not so seductive now are we? A few hours quivering amongst the tomatoes and you've lost all your fragrant, fresh from the oven charms. A jumped up fairy cake, that's what you are.

It doesn't work with everything of course. That's why the Stilton and the half cheesecake left over from Christmas are in the slammer. Huddled together under a blanket of frozen peas, praying for a pre-menstrual attack of the munchies. When I finally cave in there will be a load of little scratches on the inside of the freezer to indicate how many days they've been banged up. I wouldn't put money on them getting to double figures; I think the Muller Lights are staging a protest tomorrow.

I'm on apples at the moment. Lovely, crunchy, tasty, tangy apples. They are my snacks, of which I can have as many as I like. I could eat a hundred apples if I wanted to, in between my sensibly balanced, low-G.I. meals (the culinary equivalent of dusting the skirting boards). Even the small piece of dark chocolate I've allowed myself at the end of the meal only adds to the misery. It's like a party hat on a corpse. Eating apples and brown rice instead of real food has turned me into a paranoid praying Mantis, jumping at shadows and talking to Tacos. I dread to think what I'm going to be like on the second week of the diet.

When I can't bear to look at another apple I'll have a pear. They're even sweeter and a bit stodgy, almost like real food. Oh my goodness, that's it. I'd sell my soul for cheese on toast. No, I mean it. I'm totally expecting the Devil to pop up in the corner any minute now, holding a plate of oozy, white toasted bread with my favourite crumbly Cheshire cheese dripping from the golden corners. He can take my immortal soul and roast it like a quail on his satanic barbeque for eternity for all I care. I hope he's quick because I'll take his hand off if he's not.

The first cravings are easy to ignore, but that was at ten a.m. this morning when I smelled it cooking, and its nearly four now. "I'm stronger than you toasted cheese sandwich! Go on, ooze Cheddar at me at me all you like, I dont care,"

And I turned my back on it, convinced I could kick it into touch with a Cox's Pippin and a mental image of Keira Knightly's thighs. It worked at first. But the trouble with cravings is that if you push them away they tend to come back later. Usually with their mates and a bottle of Tequila.

I think I might have a pear

Learn more about this author, Layla Randle-Conde.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.