In my life, I’ve been a size 10 and a size 14 – believe me, there is no contest. As the Duchess of Windsor famously said, you can’t be too rich or too thin. In the current climate, rich isn’t really an option so I’ll settle for thin.

The older we get the more important it is to stay trim – excess pounds put a strain on the heart. Everyone reading this column knows that the only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. By our age, we have learned that crash diets just don’t work in the long term; what’s needed is a whole rethink of what we put on the table.

There’s another factor that deserves a mention. The best aid I know to getting (and keeping) the figure you want is a bathroom that’s wall to wall, ceiling to floor, MIRROR. There’s nothing like eyeballing the flab day after day to strengthen resolve.

If you’ve decided to lose a few pounds, start with the carrot approach – take yourself off to your favourite clothes shop and have a look at what you might wear if you dropped a dress size. I guarantee you’ll find something to kick start the will power.

Alas, hand in hand with the carrot comes the stick. My first size-14 experience occurred in my teens, my second a decade ago when I moved to Ireland. A potato hadn’t passed my lips for years but in Monaghan I discovered delicious, locally grown “balls of flour”.

Seduced by the novelty of country living, I started to bake my own bread and soon got carried away. I was adding walnuts and calorie-rich dried fruit to my mother-in-law’s excellent, if a tad austere, recipe. I ate it plastered with my homemade blackberry jam. As my partner recalls: “You stopped walking – you waddled.”

The crunch came when, invited to a grand do, I couldn’t fit into anything in my wardrobe. Drastic action was called for and I got the weight off by using Cold War-style brainwashing – the secret of dieting is all in the mind. It’s a matter of applying basic psychology. Think of the following foods: caviare, potatoes roasted in goose fat, Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. They are all divine but, let’s face it, we’re not bothered that we can’t have them every day. That’s because the brain pops them into a pigeon hole labelled “treats”. Now here’s the thing, it’s a very large pigeon hole with plenty of room for everything that stands between you and your target weight – anything fried or sugary, all cakes, biscuits and breads, and the Achilles heel of so many, alcohol (guys, are you listening?).

Habits for life that you might want to cultivate are as follows: orange juice on cereal instead of milk; tea with lemon; black coffee; resolve never to buy full cream milk again; say no to pudding unless it is fresh fruit; think of the cheeseboard as a dish of assorted fats; instead of putting butter on vegetables try fresh herbs and herb condiments such as Herbe Mare, a flavoured herb salt, and my newest discovery, an M&S pepper mill filled with smoked chillies and garlic.

When it comes to what we eat, anyone trying to lose weight has to think outside the box. As a species, we’re conservative. There are around 3,000 edible fruits but I bet you will struggle to think of more than a couple of dozen. Serve fresh figs or pawpaw for dessert, and, when in front of the TV, tuck into a bowl of lychees instead popcorn.

On the vegetable front, tomatoes and red peppers come top of the list. They are virtually free of calories and, incidentally, are the best defence against that male, 60-something bogeyman – prostrate cancer.

For protein, fish is your friend. The very best way to cook it is in the microwave, finished off with freshly squeezed lime juice – Joanna Lumley swears by it and it beats deep fried in batter any day. Bon appetit!

What do you think?
Have you any good weight-loss tips?