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Dianne with a day's worth of specially-prepared food.
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The traditional route works

M.E.N diary editor Dianne Bourne has been losing weight through old-fashioned diet and exercise. But it's an expensive variation on a theme that would set you back £150-a-week for the food and £45 an hour for a personal trainer. With one month left to go, she gives her verdict so far...

I'M afraid there's no magic patch or miracle cure behind my weight loss story. It's that boring, but rather effective, combination of eating less and moving more.

Doing exactly that has helped me to lose two stone in just two months.

And I haven't even had to starve myself to do it. I've been following a programme with new Manchester company Soulmate Lifestyle Consultancy, who provide me with all my calorie-controlled meals, six days a week.

It's proper, nutritious food as well. All freshly prepared, I get to eat five times a day - things like fruit and yoghurt for my breakfast, a fruit smoothie for a morning snack, a hearty pasta or rice salad with chicken or tuna for lunch, oatcakes with houmous for an afternoon snack and salmon or chicken and vegetables for dinner.

Admittedly, at the start the change in food took some getting used to - there is hardly any bread on this particular diet plan, and I used to stuff the doughy stuff down by the wodge-load back in my non-healthy days.

Little and often

But what is great about the plan is that simply eating little and often throughout the day seems to be actively helping in the weight loss process. This, combined with three hours of exercise a week down at the gym, means I'm shedding the pounds much faster than I could have anticipated, and am now ahead of schedule to reach my goal of losing two and a half stone and dropping three dress sizes within 12 weeks.

I'm reliably informed by the company's bosses that this is because my metabolism has been reinvigorated by the new system of eating, combined with the exercise, to slowly convert my body into a fat-fighting machine. Hurrah!

It certainly seems to be working that way. On my "day off" from the food every Sunday, I admit I've been really treating myself - in past weeks I've had things like sausage and chips and full roast dinners, and still managed to lose anywhere between two and five pounds of weight a week.

I also think the weight loss has been boosted by finding a new passion for running, thanks to my personal trainer Mikey Smith. At the start of the programme I could barely walk for ten minutes without getting out of breath, but now Mikey has whipped me into shape and I regularly run 20 minutes or more in the gym. And my fellow dieting mate at home has been roped in to go for runs at the weekend too.

And while I know I'm lucky to have been given the chance to try out this system (it costs £25 a day for the food, so it's not a cheap option) I also know that the one thing that no diet, slimming patch or miracle tablet can give you is the willpower to stick to it.

I've stuck to my particular plan for eight weeks, and have another four weeks to go, and I can only really attribute my willpower to the fact that this time I really, really wanted to lose weight and shape up.

And I'm hoping the willpower that has taken me this far, will now carry me on to the finishing line.

Read more about Dianne's progress in her Diet Diary blog - visit blogs.manchester eveningnews.co.uk/bourne

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