Before I ditched the fags, the endless drivel about clean-eating on my Facebook feed used to drive me nuts. It seemed like nothing more than the latest fad adopted by pious, irritating, ram-it-down-your-throat foodies - designed to make people like me look utterly complacent. It was for people who wanted to push Herbalife products, and posts were usually nestled in neatly beside pics of fitness tracker apps and dirty running shoes.

Yet having gone smoke free, food tastes horrible. Given my taste buds are in recovery, they are now performing like a child’s - that’s to say they’re being awakened by new foods and are taste-adverse to anything enhanced by salt and sugar. Right now, everything I used to enjoy, now tastes laden with sweeteners and unexceptionally artificial. So I figured I give the whole clean-eating thing a whirl to see if I could turn this dire situation into something positive.

I know naff all about this subject, so I’ve cobbled together bits and pieces from social media to cover what I believe to be the basics (I don’t want/need to be corrected but I’m sure I will be) - so here are my top 5 principles for “clean-eating for people that hate people that eat clean”:

1 - The elimination (or at least minimisation) of processed foods

Okay I’m sure I’ll sneak the odd chicken nugget off the kids’ plates, but for the next few weeks at least I’ll be visiting only 3 aisles in the supermarket; fruit & veg, fresh meat, and the soft drink aisle (to collect water). Extreme? Just a bit! My herb rack is now bulging and ready to transform these raw ingredients into something Gregg Wallace would get all orgasmy over.

2 - Unrefined over refined

I’ll admit to having to Google this one. It appears that I’m supposed to substitute shop-bought pasta (that may have been lightly tainted with sugar) for things like quinoa, brown rice and other over-priced health food from Holland and Barrett. Sadly this won’t be happening, as I’m not a pet.

I’m also advised that maple syrup and honey should be my go-to sweeteners. However, given my taste buds are indicating sugar in water at the moment, I’m quite happy to get my daily fill from a mid morning satsuma.

3 - Protein, protein, protein

This isn’t new on me, so surely won’t come as a surprise to anyone else. Protein is of course responsible for multiple functions in our bodies, including building tissue, cells and muscle, as well as making hormones and anti-bodies. It’s role in weight loss is also last decades’ big discovery, seeing thousands of us swigging ghastly concoctions we’ve whipped up in NutriBullets.

I will be doing this.

God help me.

4 - Eat. Lots.

It’s no coincidence that “clean-eating” folks post pictures of food constantly. It’s because they are constantly eating. I see an analogy with a car here - you’re no longer shoving chemically enhanced petrol in your car, you’re running it with electricity. Electric cars need plugging in regularly, as does your body. This means no visit to the fridge should go unrewarded and I can graze on salady bits as much as I want to.

5 - Don’t undo it all with calorific drinks

This is so obvious it seems silly typing it. Basically, it’s water all the way from here on out… with the exception of wine… gin… vodka… I’M NOT GIVING THAT UP.

 

So there you have it. My plan for the next few weeks. I’m sure it’s subject to editing, and I’ll update you with any recipes I attempt, or any challenges faced. I’m no health-guru and can live with the extra few lbs, so this “diet” is undertaken purely as an experiment. I promise to remain every inch the lazy, glass-quarter-empty woman you’ve come to know and have learned to put up with .