I really like cooking. I don’t do it very often because by the time I get home I’m usually starving and prone to shoving something in the microwave, but when I do have the time to make something from scratch, I really enjoy it. I love dancing around my kitchen to the Fratellis (‘Costelloe Music’ is my cooking album) using too many pans, getting over-zealous with the mixed herbs and inevitably spilling something (always the red thing, not the colourless thing) on my clothing.

Where am I going with this? Well, since I’m currently trying to not be fat any more (again), I’ve started cooking. It’s out of necessity, really. Pre-prepared ‘low fat’ foods are usually a) tasteless and b) only ‘low fat’ because the portions are smaller, not because they’re any better for you. Processed food is the reason we’re all heifers to begin with (well, that and alcohol, laziness and ’slow metabolisms’).

The ‘Cook Yourself Thin’ girls have been my inspiration for all this cooking, and I’ve just ordered their book in the hopes of being even more inspired. Since I have the willpower of Lindsay Lohan (read: I keep relapsing) I’ve decided not to cut anything out completely, and am instead trying to come up with healthier versions of all the things I love as a compromise. If they can put pureed pumpkin in brownies and still beat James Martin’s full-fat ones in a taste test, I can swap white pasta for brown, add more mushrooms and less meat to my stir-fry and substitute fruit for chocolate. Ok, scrap the last one. That’s never going to happen, particularly since I just discovered a giant Toberone in the bottom of the bag I bought back after Christmas and never properly unpacked…

Today I managed to not eat said Toblerone and instead turned my coronary-in-a-pan pasta with tomato sauce, pancetta and mascarpone cheese into pasta with tomato sauce, tuna and dairylea light (eaten in smaller portions). I’m not even going to pretend it was the same meal, but it was a fairly decent swap, and my waistline will thank me.

Now, can anyone tell me how I can come up with a healthy, calorie saving alternative to White Zinfandel? And don’t tell me to make it into a spritzer, that’s just silly…