I AM on a diet. If I am being honest I have been worrying about my weight since I was 11 years old.

At that age, I learned that you could get £200 if you wrote a Mills and Boon book and so, I began an epic Mills and Boon reading marathon to examine the narrative structure.

I then began writing said book and it was in this draft, which was never completed, that I made my first literary reference to calorie counting.

This is how I know that I have been thinking about my weight for more than 30 years.

In the 14 years I have known my ex-husband I have been trying to lose weight.

Unfortunately the only thing I have consistently managed to do is gain weight.

During pregnancy, I did not carry babies in a sylphlike manner. I was definitely more in the heifer category.

I have played for many years with my girl friends, a conversational game called Today I Have Eaten.

This is when you list what you have eaten and then establish whether you have been ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

So if you have only eaten lettuce and drunk green tea you have been ‘good’ but if you’ve munched your way through a whole sack of crisps and a bucket of hummus you’ve been ‘bad’.

I think it is one of the great injustices of life that hummus is fattening because it is so good for you and really tasty to boot.

Another thing I find depressing is crisps. I love crisps, especially the salt and vinegar variety, but they have no nutritional value whatsoever and are ridiculously fattening. It’s most upsetting.

A few weeks back in a US chain restaurant, I was ordering a chicken caesar wrap, which had a choice of sides.

As I was reading the menu in my head I was chanting ‘salad, salad, salad, salad’.

But when the waitress asked ‘with salad or chips?’, what came out of my mouth was ‘chips, please’.

For a while I deluded myself. I must be suffering from hyperthyroidism – this is why I am overweight. The computer said ‘no’. Ok then – how about polycystic ovaries?

The computer said ‘no’.

Eventually I had to face the truth. I eat too much, often the wrong food, and I don’t do enough exercise.

So this week I’m trying out a diet where you receive all the food you need to eat in pre-cooked packages.

I’m on day three now and I already feel like an astronaut.

And I miss crisps.

Although the salt and vinegar popcorn was nice.

l Writer and journalist Clare Macnaughton latest book is available on Amazon worldwide. A Modern Military Mother – Tales from the Domestic Frontline is an honest account of a decade of being married to an RAF officer serving in the British military.

Follow Clare on twitter: @amodmilitarymum Blog: amodernmilitarymother.com.