In anything you want to achieve you have to look at the ‘now’. Really stare it in the face, puff yourself up, adopt fighting stance, knit your eyebrows together and think deep and hard.

So, in terms of changing body shape (because that’s my thing), your goal could be any one (or two) of a number of things, aside from the usual wish of fitting into smaller clothes:

• attract members of the opposite sex
• watch the gorgeous guy from Marketing trample on Stacey from Accounts in the rush to ask you to dance at the office Christmas do
• attract members of your own sex
• revitalise a dwindling relationship
• show that stranger who muttered “out the way, tubby” a thing or two
• play with my children without needing an oxygen tank

And it means the C word. Change. And change is not always welcomed. It means casting aside the comfy slippers of normality and sliding into something altogether more challenging, tight even… people will look… you mustn’t make a fool of yourself… hold it together. Welcome to that Jimmy Choo moment.

To help you achieve that goal, make a list of the potential obstacles in your way. Once you’ve collected them, written them in your phone, read them, faced them full on, then none of them will be a surprise. A thorn in your side maybe, but not a surprise. Here’s some molehills which you may have to skip over:

• the well-meaning friend, “Oh go on, one won’t hurt. I can’t drink on my own. Wine isn’t fattening. Don’t be booooring.”
• the ‘health food shop’. Just because it says ‘gluten-free’ on the packet, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Check out the sugar content.
• dinner invitations on days you’d rather read / tweet / watch telly / clear out the loft than face a room full of expectant people and an even more expectant host whose long labours in the kitchen will scupper your skinny jeans.
• parents who want to feed you up.
• over-weight friends who are jealous of your resolve.
• the ‘drinks after work’ where mineral water is the drink of losers.

In short, it’s your body. You choose when you can stray from the straight and narrow, no-one else. Get those Jimmy Choos, strap them on and dig those heels firmly in.

Have a happy day, Annie.