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If my resolve holds out, by the time you read this column I'll be about 24 hours away from a nice glass of full-bodied Rioja with lunch on Easter Sunday - and it will be my first taste of red wine in almost two months.

In fact, it will be my first taste of anything remotely alcoholic in eight weeks, unless you count that trifle laced with several generous slugs of sherry served up at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago. ( I reasoned it would be rude to refuse a helping or two).

In my case, giving up alcohol for Lent had nothing to do with religious observance and everything to do with trying to shed a few pounds. A similar exercise last year proved remarkably successful, and as my post-Christmas posterior was beginning to look like something that should have the word Goodyear' printed across it, I decided that it was time to take action.

I don't hold with those diets that kick in on the first day of January.

After what seem like months of bombarding us with unctuous, artery-blocking suggestions designed to help us all produce the perfect festive feast, at the stroke of midnight on December 31 it seems that every magazine and national newspaper has a nasty attack of the puritanicals, urging us all to see the error of our big fat ways.

It's a bit rich (like the menus they've just been stuffing down our throats) that after devoting pages and supplements to the most cholesterol-laden recipes ever to grace a dining table, come January we are suddenly told that because we've all let ourselves go a bit it's time to go on a strict detox diet and start exercising.

The general tone of self-righteous disgust displayed by editors who not two weeks previously were extolling the virtues of a whole suckling pig drenched in a caramel glaze with a honeyed parsnip chaser is hard to digest.

Dismal January is positively the worst time to start denying yourself the little pleasures that make life worth living - especially when you feel so depressed every time you look in the mirror the only thing you want to do is comfort eat.

The worst thing about healthy New Year resolutions is that they generally last about five days.

As there's no set period to which the Spartan restrictions of this particular regime apply, so it's pretty easy to slip back into your bad old ways within two weeks of packing away the tinsel.

Lent, on the other hand, is a clearly defined period; eight long weeks during which you can make a really positive difference, secure in the knowledge that there's a finish line.

The best thing is that when you tell a friend that you've given something up for Lent, they evince an almost awe-struck admiration for your saintly resolve and very rarely try to tempt you off the chosen path.

Compare that to schadenfreude of January when most people are so depressed at having broken every one of their own resolutions that they take a perverse delight in helping others to do the same.

To be honest, food isn't exactly my Achilles heel.

When it comes to temptation, I'm far more likely to be found staring at the bottom of an empty wine glass and contemplating a top up rather than reaching for a second helping of pudding.

I haven't got a problem (please don't think I'm in denial about this) it's just that I really look forward to a couple of glasses of red wine when I get home from work every evening and can quite happily polish off a bottle or so with my husband and friends on a weekend night.

The trouble is that these are all empty pointless calories that go straight to my hips as well as my head and now that I'm creeping into my mid-40s it's getting a lot harder to make the fleshy bits disappear.

So, like last year, for eight weeks I've been strictly teetotal and I can honestly say that apart from a couple of chilly evenings when the tempting grapey waft of a warming Tempranillo reached my nostrils from a nearby glass (held by my husband) I haven't really missed it.

Best of all, like last year, I've actually lost quite a bit a weight.

My face is no longer slightly puffy around the jaw line, my trousers are definitely looser and last week I bought a dress in a size 8. (Before you begin to really hate me at this point, bear in mind that at 4ft 10ins a scaled up size 8 equates to a roomy size 12 for those who are not so vertically challenged).

During my teetotal weeks I haven't particularly altered my diet - although I did have an out-of-character craving for cakes and chocolate back at the beginning which I attributed to my body's shock at missing out on all the sugars it usually extracts from alcohol.

There were a couple of days when I brought home extravagantly frosted fondant fancies, ostensibly as a treat for my sweet-toothed husband, but actually because I couldn't resist them.

I also cut out snacks like crisps and peanuts - those salty little tidbits that are so pleasurable and so easy to eat in large quantities when washed down with a glass of wine.

Other than that, I haven't made any particular changes to my diet or activity levels and I've gratifyingly managed to lose about six pounds.

Easter Sunday marks the end of my personal period of abstinence, although I've been assured that Good Friday is officially the end of Lenten denial.

I have to say that I'm really looking forward to a glass of wine with lunch that day, but I've vowed that in order to keep my errant body in the shape I'd like it to stay, from now on I'll be keeping the corkscrew in a kitchen drawer until Friday night so that opening a bottle is a treat and not a reflex action.

And luckily I'll be able to draw encouragement from the fact that by the time I start tippling again, a bottle of wine will be 14p dearer thanks to Alistair Darling's Budget last week.

8:54am Friday 28th March 2008

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