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My blood was slightly boiling. Did anyone see the Daily Mail yesterday? I was drawn to an article quoting Nigella Lawson as having a dim view of ‘clean eating’, alleging it is just “another fad diet” used to disguise eating disorders. My beef, readers, is more with the journalism than with Nigella.

I’ve just spent a week on the south coast. Well, I say ON the south coast. I lurked nearby in the misty shadows, sporting my cagoul which (luckily) said ‘100% waterproof’ on the label. It poured for five days out of seven. But, you don’t go to West Wittering expecting Barcelona, do you?

After hours of skulking in the aisles of M&S Foods, hovering in hope in Waitrose and cruising the shelves of Pret A Manger, below, dear readers, is a list of high protein ready to eat snacks that you can purchase, rip open and munch straight away whilst still adhering to the strict criteria I set myself.

You’ve worked hard all year. 6am bootcamps, evening sprint-ervals, days without sugar, weekends at the gym, nights spent watching your partner devour bags of Belgian chocolate covered peanuts whilst you sit as far away as possible with a cup of green tea and 15 almonds. The start of the holiday is almost here. And you’re sort of… well… scared.

You know when there’s nothing on the telly, so you scroll through all that stuff you blindly recorded in a whim, hoping for a little gem. Well, my gem last week was this programme about Superfoods on BBC2. The channels were full of either cricket or Corrie so I pressed play and settled down. It was a piece about broccoli.

An article from the British Journal of Sports Medicine about the myth of physical inactivity and obesity… you cannot out train a bad diet.

I would have made, according to my great friend Karen, a fantastic Catholic. Permanently clothed in a hair shirt (although I feel camisole is more apt), the word ‘guilt’ trips off my tongue far too readily.

Right, here we go. This is about losing weight with a mixture of good diet and the right training. You can’t do one without the other.

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.

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.