Diets.

Diets are one of humanity’s oldest traditions, right up there with agriculture, warfare, and pretending we’ve read the terms and conditions.

Every few months a new diet sweeps across the nation, promising that if you simply follow its rules, you will become a slimmer, healthier, more radiant version of yourself ideally one who can fit into trousers purchased during the Blair administration. These diets always have names like the Caveman Cleanse or the Ultra-Lean Reset or the Eat Nothing But Pulses And Regret Plan, and they all share one core principle: you must stop eating anything you actually enjoy.

Take the low-carb diet. This is the one where you heroically give up bread, pasta, potatoes, and anything else that has ever brought you joy. You are allowed to eat protein, which sounds great until you realise that after three days of nothing but chicken, your body begins to stage a rebellion. Mine once attempted to negotiate with me by sending a vivid hallucination of a baguette floating past the window like a carbohydrate-rich ghost.

Then there’s the fasting diet, which is based on the idea that if you simply don’t eat for long enough, your body will become confused and start burning fat instead of sending you increasingly angry messages. The fasting diet has many variations, including the 5:2, the 16:8, and the popular 24:0, which is when you accidentally skip lunch because you’re busy and then become so irritable that even the dog avoids eye contact.Of course, some people swear by the smoothie diet. This is where you take perfectly good food  fruit, vegetables, yoghurt  and blend it into a green liquid that looks like something a medieval apothecary would prescribe for “excessive tumours.” 

Smoothie enthusiasts claim it gives them energy, clarity, and inner peace. Personally, I find it gives me the same sensation as drinking lawn clippings.But the most dangerous diet of all is the one invented by your friend who has recently lost weight and now believes they are a nutritional prophet. They will corner you at a barbecue and explain, with evangelical intensity, that the secret is to avoid “inflammatory foods.” When you ask what those are, they say “Oh, you know… things,” and then list everything you’ve eaten since 1994.The truth is that diets are less about science and more about hope. We all want to believe that somewhere out there is a magical combination of foods that will melt away fat while allowing us to continue eating crisps. We want to believe that our bodies will reward us for good behaviour, like a benevolent headteacher. Instead, our bodies behave more like a grumpy landlord: they take our rent, ignore our requests, and occasionally make alarming noises.I once tried a diet that required me to drink eight glasses of water a day. This sounds simple until you realise that eight glasses of water is roughly the same volume as Lake Windermere. After two days I was spending so much time in the bathroom that I considered installing a desk.

And yet, despite all this, we keep trying. Because deep down, we cling to the dream that one day we will discover a diet that works without requiring us to give up biscuits. A diet that allows us to eat normally, feel healthy, and still fit into trousers that don’t leave a red indentation around the waist.Until that day arrives, we will continue to experiment. We will try the Mediterranean Miracle, the Protein Protocol, the Eat Only Beige Foods Plan, and whatever new system emerges next Tuesday. 

Because diets may not work, but hope springs eternal  especially when the alternative is exercise.