A leopard never changes his spots.

And sadly neither does a diet cheater. I wanted to be able to say to you this week that I had stuck one hundred percent to the cabbage soup diet. Just so that you wouldn't think i was some sort of diet floozy. I'm not a dieter that fools around with wine and chocolate without any consideration for others. I can be committed. I can eat just celery if needs be, and I was determined to show that... after two solid weeks of essentially failing and eating the occasional bit of lard.

But the thing is a diet is like a good relationship. Firstly you have to have something in common. My belly may occasionally resemble a cabbage - but that's as far as it goes in this instance. You have to get on - we did not. You have to look forward to your future.... with the exception of the jacket potato i was allowed on day two I did not. That potato tasted amazing though. Really, really good.

The upshot of all of this...  I cheated on my diet with one of my best friends. The shame. I don't regret a thing though... Sometimes circumstances overtake your ability to only eat cabbage. In this instance my friend got engaged. There is no way the champagne was not going to flow - and anyway bubbles don't weight much, surely not??

The main problem with the cabbage soup diet was that it was hard to get back on track. I cheated and missed the banana and milk day... should i still do that? or skip to the veg and rice day?

At this point I should probably explain the diet for those that are not familiar ( and if you're not woo hoo for you!). Essentially you eat cabbage soup.. which whilst most reviews say is bland, i quite liked. But you are so limited with other food. Day one - soup and fruit. Day Two - soup and veg, and the beloved potato... just one though. Day three - soup and fruit and veg. Day four - soup and bananas and milk.. that's where i lost the plot. So after that I just stuck on day five like a bad record on loop... soup, beef and vegetables.

So the outcome of the week? Well despite my promiscuous diet ways I actually lost two and a half pounds... which does make you think... perhaps the cabbage soup diet does have a future in my life? perhaps I could make this diet work after all? Should I give it another go?...... The quick answer has to be no, although with two and a half pounds lost... i do end the week feeling quite satisfied.

If it sounds too good to be true... it probably is.

And that pretty much sums up the eat every thirteen minutes diet - the idea sounds fantastic, in reality all I can say is it's stupid. As a result of the stupidity of the diet by Saturday I cheated. I'm going to get that one out early. The result of the cheating was that I lost... nothing. This week I am therefore punishing myself - but more on that later.

It was meant to just be one meal that I cheated but extended right the way through Sunday, as is often the case with cheating. You really get into the swing of it. It's like riding a bike - even if you convince yourself you don't like cream cakes, once you give them a try you realise you never forget how enjoyable it is to eat them... and then you are having so much fun you don't want to stop. I didn't actually have cream cakes, but i did have chips... twice. The most annoying thing though is that I had lost weight when I weighed myself on Saturday - two pounds in fact. But I put this back on over the weekend... proving that not only is the diet stupid, I am too.

But why is it so stupid? Well let me first explain the basics of this diet... You eat three health meals each day. For example most days I had porridge for breakfast, soup and ryvita for lunch, and the meat or fish and veg for tea. Sounds alright. On top of this you can have three pieces of fruit, and half a pint of skimmed milk. Brilliant... In fact if that was the extent of the diet I could have stuck to it. It was the eating every thirteen minutes thing that wore me down.

Basically you have to keep a little pot of raw vegetables and a protein such as cooked chicken to hand. The food has to be chopped to the size of you little fingernail, and you can eat one bit every thirteen minutes. This is harder than it sounds. Basically I was either sat staring at this little pot... starving... salivating... waiting for thirteen minutes to pass so i could have another fingernail piece of bean. Then the moment would come, a flurry of joy would pass through my mind... I'd eat the fingernail piece of bean. Then sit and stare at the pot again. Like a dog watching someone cook, waiting for a scrap to fall on the ground.

That was one scenario. The other was that I'd be really busy at work, suddenly realise two hours had passed and i'd forgotten to eat not one fingernail piece of bean, but eight! The disappointment that I'd deprived my body of food... how could I? And surely it didn't work if you ate them all at once? I felt like i'd let myself, and the fingernail food, down.

I couldn't continue... I hate the eat every thirteen minute diet. It might not seem so bad this time next week though because now I'll move onto the punishment for my cheating ... (and perhaps punishing those around me)

This week I will be doing an oldie, but apparently not a goodie... the cabbage soup diet. It promises to help me lose up to ten pounds in a week.. and also to make me smell. Joy!

And so the results are in and....

.... I wanted to write the sound of a drum roll here, but google was not forthcoming with the goods. So imagine a drum roll.... and this week I lost 2 pounds!

So it seems eating the viking way pays off, which is strange as in my head vikings are fat and eat lots of chicken legs. In reality it's a pretty simple diet, and as i said before no processed food, just lots of fresh stuff. I'm not going to bore you with the detail of what I ate for every meal... One thing I will say is whilst I ate like a viking (except the puffin) I doubt I cooked like one. It felt a bit elaborate to conjure up a camp fire for the sake of cooking an omelette (apparently a favourite with vikings according to the magazine I stole the diet from... was it really? really?) I ate a lot of omelettes though despite my doubts.

I will however tell you what I have learnt this past week.... before admitting something.

Rye Bread. I don't know why in a modern age this still exists. We have nice bread now... I tried to like it, I really did. As any veteran dieter will say if you're allowed a food on your diet you will try your hardest to eat it. So i piled on smoke salmon, hid it under grilled sardines... but I was not to be convinced. The end result is I have a packet of rye bread which will remain in my cupboard forever more - only to be sent to some future harvest festival when I have kids. (Given I do not this gives an indication of how long it will be left uneaten)

Curly Kale. I went into this diet already hating this... and surprising don't, as long as it's sauteed and a little bit of salt is added. Then it's alright... tastes like seaweed from the chinese. So essentially I like the healthy veg, as long as I make it unhealthy. Try it though, is very good.

Roll mops: couldn't bring myself to put it in my mouth so will never know.

Now onto my confession, because one reason I started this blog is I thought by making my diets public it would be harder to cheat. So I'm going to be honest from the start - this week I cheated just a little titchy bit. Some of it was accidental.. on the first day I accidently ordered a diet coke, and didn't really think about fact Vikings wouldn't have had it. I'm sure they would have loved it though so am going to let it slide. It was the wine I had at the weekend that probably didn't help my weight loss! But hey ho there's always going to be weeks where the lardy girl comes out to play (in fact will probably happen at some point most weeks)... and vikings drunk beer so surely that's worse?

Next up the eat every thirteen minutes diet... one day in and am already regretting this whole ordeal... wish me luck and speak next week x

Standing in an awkward way on the scales doesn't make you weigh less...

or does it? That's what i pondered as I stood on the scales after a Christmas and New Year of pure gluttony. I had reached a number I hadn't seen for a while - one which i promised myself i'd never be again... yet I was there. At first i was confused... after all many of the foods I had eaten had been mini; mini bagels, mini mars bars, mini burgers... mini pies. Mmmmmmm the mini pies were good.

After a few more moments of awkwardly balancing on the scales, trying to shift a few pounds... I gave up. The only way I could successfully loose the weight I'd gained was to lean casually on the wash basin - hardly a solution to the problem! So I decided at that point action was needed. Major action. That's the moment I decided to embark on a weight loss adventure, a diet that would hopefully turn me into the skinny bean I hope to be. The one that was trapped under the mountain of pies and lard. So I set myself a true challenge: 52 diets in 52 weeks.

The next step was to find a diet to start them all off and I stumbled across it fairly quickly. The Viking Diet. I'd never heard of it, but one week on I've pretty much got to grips with it. There was no pillaging, no need to kill and eat a puffin... but there was a lot of curly kale. Essentially the basis of the diet is to eat like a viking. Sounds horrific on the outset, in reality it was fairly straight forward. Fresh seasonal fruit and veg, lots of fish.. poultry.. game and a little meat, and grains. Not too bad really.

I started that a week ago - so how did i get on? That will be revealed tomorrow... the dreaded weigh in awaits...