You know what, even people who extol the virtues of self acceptance have fat days. The fat day seems to have become synonymous with feeling totally crap about yourself, a bit like a more permanent version of a bad hair day I suppose. At least you can go into a hairdresser and get your bad hair sorted out in an hour or so...when you are blessed with an hourglass figure where all the sand has sunk to the bottom, it can be stressful even thinking of how you're ever going to really practice 'self-acceptance' in a world that seems determined to hate you simply for your size, and because you are everything they are scared of becoming, and make you hate yourself at the same time.

It's like people think that a hefty dose of self loathing is all that's needed to sort out the obesity epidemic. We can all see how that works - if the number of women in this country who hate themselves because they don't fit the acceptable weight range of a so-called attractive women were positively spurred on by hurtful remarks, headlines and not being able to fit into nice clothes, we'd all be size ten by now. Hey, that was a very long sentence, wasn't it?

I think I'm just feeling miserable because I'm ill again. Because I tried to start my walking routine this week ready for Race for Life, managed around 10,000 steps for a couple of days in a row, and then came down with the lurgy. Because my jeans feel tight. Because I got some old photos out at the weekend and was horrified at how much I've changed, aged and expanded since the 90s. Because I'm getting older. Because I'm writing like a demon at the moment and people aren't paying me so I am going to run out of money soon. And because I post things about a gorgeous size 16 teenage beauty contest winner and smug arseholes think it's their God-given divine right to slag her off for being fat...and oh, because even on this blog, I get people posting about fat people being lazy and size 16 women needing to shift a few pounds.

And you know what? Stuff the 'fatosphere' - the stupid blogger's term for people who blog about fat acceptance (I don't accept my fat, I just live with it most of the time) I don't think things will ever change. With TV shows like 'diets that time forgot' showing that people were following stupid, dangerous and unappetising diets as far back as Victorian times, what hope is there that things will ever change?

Introducing Chloe Marshall, Miss Surrey 2008, a voluptuous size 16. Isn't she just gorgeous? I had to bring this story to you as it made my day to see an average sized woman celebrated in this way, in a world (and competition) dominated by minus sized women who fit some kind of unattainable fashion model mould.

Read the story here

Hooray that a woman with enviable curves has beaten the identikit girls into the competition! She looks happy, fit and healthy, and as for that killer smile...well, you can see why Chloe won the judges over.

Isn't it great to hear about a 16 year old who is happy with the way she looks at a size 16, and confident enough to put herself out there and enter a beauty competition - when all around we're being told that a size zero is something to aim for? he must have fantastic parents who have instilled a damn good sense of self esteem into their daughter.

"The teenager, who has been signed up by the Models Plus agency, said most of her rivals were size eight or ten.

"Everybody thinks you have to be a tall, slim blonde and I'm a curvy brunette," she added. "I want to show it is possible to be beautiful and not a standard size zero. "The reaction I've had is great. Other girls have told me I have really boosted their confidence, which is terrific."

Sue Thomason has some enlightening words of advice for anyone who thinks that following Gillian McKeith's (or any other strict healthy eating regime) diet is in any way a.good.idea!

Question to Sue:

"I gave up dieting after 20 years of yo-yoing. I must have lost and gained tens of stones over the years and I ended up three stone heavier than the weight I was when I went on my first diet. I decided that I would eat healthily after watching Gillian McKeith’s programme. I liked the idea of eating any amount I liked but sticking to really nice healthy recipes, so I cut out greasy food, ready meals, and as much fat and sugar as I could. I upped my intake of fruit and vegetables to five a day and made sure I ate three big meals each day from a healthy eating recipe book.

The problem is that after an initial good start, the urge to eat crisps, sweets, chips and red meat is stronger than ever and I keep going into binge mode. Why is it so hard to stick to a healthy eating plan?"

Cheryl, 44, Doncaster.

"As the dieting statistics are slowly leaking out into the press and are much harder to ignore, dieting has sort of gone out of fashion and it’s being replaced with something that sounds much more sensible and easy – healthy eating.

"The problem is that dieting causes overeating directly and healthy eating is psychologically no different from a diet. This misunderstanding is creating a whole new group of people who could be described as ‘yo-yo healthy eaters’ as they all follow exactly the same pattern as they did while dieting but are brainwashed into being under the impression that what they’re doing is different. This, unfortunately, makes them feel even worse about themselves because they failed at dieting and now they’re failing at something else.

"These feelings of failure lower self-esteem, which perpetuates the overeating. The truth is, that it’s not your fault. Any kind of food restriction will drive you towards food and not away from it and you need to learn how to stop and have a complete turn around in your thinking about food. You need to stop following outside advice and get back in touch with your own needs.

"This is easier said than done. Fortunately, there are courses out there that will help you to do this. If you want to help yourself out of this pattern, the first step is to ask yourself where you can get some help that is different from the help you’ve been given so far – because that obviously isn’t working."

I can't be bothered to say anything serious or thought provoking at the moment, I think my brain has turned to fudge. However, on my trawls of the internet, I came across this:

Twenty-five of the most ridiculous and ineffective diets

Why not have a peek, I thought. I might have tried a few of them...after all, for twenty years I tried anything and everything that wasn't prohibitively expensive or obviously completely bonkers. How many of these have you tried? And what's the most ridiculous thing you've ever done in the name of 'losing a few pounds?' Here's the top ten....the rest will follow when I've stopped cringeing!

1. Atkins

I've never been remotely tempted by Atkins. The thought of near fainting, constipation, bad breath and not being allowed bananas or sweetcorn ever again were a bit too much for me to handle for the sake of a short term drop in weight. Yuk. But I used to have quite vociferous debates with people about the uselessness of the low carb regimes that were fashionable about five years ago. I remember saying "they will be out of fashion again in five years time"

Ha ha! Smug? Me? Yes. And I bet most of them gave up well before the end of the two week induction period, after realising that if they ever wanted to go to the toilet without assistance again they would probably need to be a bit more sensible. Some people actually still live 'low carb' and swear by it. Each to their own...but I like my spuds too much...

2. The Subway Diet

Hmmm. I know full well that if I existed totally on Subway sandwiches for weeks on end I would bloat up like a balloon, have to restrict myself to places within dashing distance of a toilet and probably put on weight because I love the meatball marinara above all other Subs. However, some guy in America claims to have lost 245 pounds (bloody hell, that's more than I weigh and I'm no waif...) just by eating Subway all day. Of course, there was a catch. He walked a mile and a half each way, every time he wanted a sarnie...and cut his intake from 10,000 calories to 2,000. Hmmm. More exercise and 8,000 less calories a day. I don't think it was the fact he only ate from the low fat selection that made all the difference, do you? Mind you, I bet the local Subway LOVED him...

3. Cabbage Soup Diet

Now what's not to love about the cabbage soup diet? You get to eat cabbage and onions every day for a week, lose ten pounds that goes straight back on as soon as you sniff a cheese sandwich, and fart like a trooper. Possibly one of the most viciously antisocial diets of all time...but go on, I bet you've thought about it, haven't you?

4. The Tapeworm Diet

Eeeeuuuuuuuw! OK, so we're all supposed to be losing weight because we're so revoltingly unhealthy (of course) but at the same time, there's a diet out there that seriously advocates we swallow a tapeworm which we then have to kill with anti-parasitic medication before it does us too much damage? Pardon me if I'm not first in the queue for that one...

5. The Cereal Diet

We get the ads for these every year. Replace your normal, balanced diet with - several bowls of the same cereal. OK, it's unlikely to kill you, you'll probably lose some weight, and it probably tastes nicer than cabbage soup. And definitely tapeworms. But anyone who seriously thinks that it's going to be fun eating cereal and nowt much else probably needs to wake up. Cereal doesn't have any magic weight control properties either!  If you ate 250 calories worth of doughnut for breakfast and lunch, and a 'balanced meal' for dinner, you'd lose weight too. You would probably be sick of the sight of doughnuts within three days, and craving tuna salads instead, but hey, until then, pass me another Krispy Kreme...at 217 calories each I could lose weight on three of those every day ...plus a balanced meal of about 1000 calories, which could be a chicken pie (another 500 calories) and chip shop chips....Mmmmmm.....healthy! Calorie controlled diets rock...

6. The low fat diet

Shhhh, say it quietly, but the low fat diet doesn't work either! What do you think they do to replace the fat they take out? They add sugar, sweeteners and additives. Mmmmm, tasty. The only thing that a low fat diet ever served to do was make Weight Watchers rich, and make you want to eat twice as much of the foods that they reduced the calories of, because they are now low fat. You might laugh at the Little Britain sketch with Marjorie Dawes, but just think about it - you know the new revolutionary 'Half the Calories' diet? Well, you cut everything you want to eat in half, so it has half the calories...then you eat twice as much of it because it's half the calories...

7. The Hallelujah Diet

Now this one's a new one for me, so bear with me. What would you do if you were diagnosed with colon cancer? Swear? Pray? Start looking up cures on the Internet? Well, Reverend George M. Malkmus decided against conventional treatment, and just  changed his diet to "the original diet God gave mankind."

Although the diet consists mainly of good things like fruit and veggies, don't think you can buy everything God wants you to eat from Tesco or Asda.  Of course not. You have to order everything straight from the Reverend's farm because the general American food supply (and presumably the British one, too) is free from all the nutrients God gave us. Ironically, the Rev's mad diet has been found to cause nutrient deficiencies, and is apparently not a good move for anyone suffering from cancer anyway. With diets like this intended to cure cancer, you'd need all the prayers and Divine Intervention you could get.

8. The South Beach Diet

Oh, I remember this one being touted as another sure-fire 'medically proven' cure for all obesity a few years ago. Does anyone want to own up to this one? I haven't tried it but I will confess to looking at this in Borders and realising it was yada yada yada - low carb, blah blah. Written by a heart doctor, it makes you restrict your food in varying amounts so as to confuse your body and trick it into losing weight. The point here is - the human body has been fine tuning its fat storage instincts for many millennia, and let's face it, do we really think one little upstart heart surgeon is going to get the better of thousands of years of evolution (including lots of famine?) Hmmm, no, neither do I. Moral of the story - just because it's written by a doctor, doesn't make it medical fact.

9. Slim Fast

I've done this one! Oh yes, have I done this one. Two delicious shakes and a calorie controlled meal later and I'm farting like never before and almost cross eyed with brewing wind. The drinks are actually quite nice (I liked the coffee and vanilla ones) but the meal replacement bars take about three weeks to eat and leave your intestines in a state of crisis...the soups taste like wallpaper paste with additives, rock hard sweetcorn pellets and chewy chicken pieces...and the only reason I stuck to the diet as long as I did was because (a) I cheated and (b) I was due to squeeze into a bridesmaid's dress that was smaller than I was...take my advice, if you want a milkshake, have a real one. If you're worried about vitamins, take a tablet. Slimfast has been ceremoniously re-named Slim Fart in this house for MANY years...

10. The Chocolate Diet

No I am not making this up!!!! All the 'chocolate is good for you' studies have a lot to answer for, as some diet guru decided to make some cash by promoting a woman's best friend as a cure-all for a fat backside. You just eat less, basically, and include liquid chocolate diet shakes, supposed to stimulate your metabolism and replace vitamins. If you ate properly you wouldn't need to replace vitamins, you could eat a normal diet and just have some chocolate too. Hardly rocket science...

The power of TV has just had an effect on me, I saw an advert for Marisota while I was half watching TV just now and I had to check it out to see if it was worth telling you about. And it is! A bit like Simply Be, Marisota is another JD Williams company. Their advertising blurb says:

"a unique collection of contemporary clothing and footwear for today's modern woman.  A genuine alternative to the high street for women who won't compromise when it comes to looking good. We have listened to what women want from a fashion collection... and here it is!"

...the clothes go up to a size 32 in many of the ranges and feature one of my favourites, the talented Anna Scholz. The footwear ranges also come in width fittings and up to a size 8. You can also order trousers in different length fittings and

I spotted this fabulous dress from Anna Scholz that would turn any number of heads if you sashayed into the room wearing it. How cool to see clothes for big girls that don't so much as whisper 'don't look at me' but scream 'Ive arrived!!!'

The range was designed for possibly a more mature woman than the Simply Be collection, but that's not such a bad thing, and there are some stunning dresses, great accessories and a good selection of lingerie for the fuller figured woman.

I'd be interested to hear what you think of the site - does it represent what the more sophisticated plus size woman wants from a fashion collection? Are the prices and quality what you want? And do they deliver in 48 hours as promised?

The catalogue looks promising anyway...happy shopping!

According to the Daily Mail, there is a magical cure for obesity, and it's been around since the time of King Charles II.

The Heath pea, which is also known as bitter vetch, was used in medieval times as a hunger suppressant when the crops failed.

It was also passed around the court of King Charles, who gave it to his lovers who had a 'propensity for plumpness.'

Read the article here
 
Sigh. Here we go again, searching for a magic cure when the truth is that no pill will ever cure a whole culture of the 'epidemic' that's causing so much misery, the diet industry! The Heath Pea may well be a very good appetite suppressant, and may have worked exceptionally well during the famines of earlier centuries.

One big difference though - in the time of Charles II there were no Weight Watchers adverts screaming at people with extra padding to 'change their lives' by going along to weekly meetings where they offload details of everything they've eaten that's not a vegetable - or Weight Watchers branded - for the past week, weigh themselves after going to the loo four times (a number two before you leave the house and as many wees as you can squeeze out) and buy Weight Watchers branded sweets that will make them poo through the eye of a needle.

In those days, if you were fat, you were just fat. And probably jolly, in the eyes of ancient stereotypes. Plumpness was just another way to be, it wasn't demonised. If you were very thin, you were ill, and not a role model. People would try and fatten you up, not try and emulate your eating plan.

Good luck to anyone who thinks that a centuries old remedy for being hungry will stop people who have been brainwashed into thinking that weight loss is the be all and end all into eating normally. I have a strong suspicion that this, like all weight loss miracle drugs, will be consigned to the dustbin of diet history as fast as the F-plan and tapeworms...although I hear that tapeworms too are making a comeback.....

I adore Jarvis Cocker, and just look at our Beth rocking the silver dress. I love that hair, and the single is available now (OK, so maybe the Heaven 17 version was a bit better, but that was in about 1983)

"Temptation" is available exclusively on iTunes, and all profits from sales of the single - recorded live during the above NME performance go to UK-based housing charity Shelter.