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On your way home tonight, nip into the local food store and grab a couple of broccoli thingys and a bag of kale. If you can get over the strong tasting green-ness and inhale the list of holier-than-thou benefits below, then roast potatoes will soon be a poor relative.

I was going to sit down with a gin and tonic, but then I felt compelled to write about the article in today’s Times (Saturday 3 January 2015).

Every PT, fitness instructor and weight-loss provider in the land is thinking up new ways of promoting their way of training, their way of eating, their way of dealing with calories, points, how you should ‘train like a nutter for 15 mins then have a nice sit-down’, or should you do a long, slow, achievable jog which doesn’t hurt but which makes you feel like you’ve done something. Which is it? And what about fats and carbs? Which puts on weight? Do either of them?

Don’t panic. Follow these easy tips from now until New Year. I’m not saying it won’t take a bit of effort, but you have a few days to ease the pain of arriving in January feeling cross with yourself.

Let’s take a quick festive look at EMOTIONAL EATING. That weird devil-may-care “hand to mouth” movement that happens all on its own, without any input from you.

When everyone else is tucking into Christmas cake and mince pies, I don’t want to sit there chewing wasps… what can I eat that isn’t going to do too much damage?

Ok, ok, they look like anaemic meatballs but they are very moreish and very filling. They’re packed with protein, good fats and are delicious with a large decaf or as an end of the day treat when the rest of the family is cuddling the Quality Street.

Muscle. Very expressive word, isn’t it? Smacks of manliness, testosterone and sweat. Large, pumped bodies stripped of fat with a knobbly six-pack. And it’s a word women avoid. Out of fear and, probably, misunderstanding. Well, I’d like to put it centre stage. Turn up the lights, start the drum roll and give muscle a big fat yes.

I’ve got post – Inchloss blues. There’s nothing much in life which makes me down (other than real issues like world poverty, aids, ebola, famine and the loathsome greed of some individuals) but today I feel ever so slightly at a loose end.

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.

I have been roused to move from the to-ings and fro-ings of my email inbox to blog. And I’m going to sound like one of those personal trainers who bangs on (from the comfort of their own size 8 body) about how you should train hard, eat lean, jump high, squat low,...

“Can’t I just do the eating bit… and forget the exercise?” Yes. As long as you never say the word ‘diet’. Ergh, I can hardly bring myself to type it. What does ‘diet’ say? It says denial, discipline, hunger. A drip-drip-drip of measured treats, calories, points that are never fulfilling, never enough to get you through the day.

Vegetables are boring, that’s what one client said to me. “To make them interesting, you have to smother them in cream and fat”. (Hmmmm, and she wonders why the tape measure isn’t budging). So I gave her this to make.

Montmorency cherries apparently have fantastic powers to reduce stiffness in joints. I have ordered 120 capsules (2 a day for 3 months) so we shall see.