The ultimate diet taste test

I start the Immogenics Programme by heading off to a Harley Street clinic for blood tests, the results of which will deliver me a tailor-made weight loss plan for the most high-tech of all the diets I taste-drive.

Two weeks later my personal programme arrives with a list of the foods I can eat, those I shouldn't and those I should run away from screaming.

Now here comes the science part. My blood was tested for its reaction to over 100 popular foods for the production of free radicals. According to the immogenics ethos, certain foods cross the gut and enter the bloodstream, causing your immune system to go into attack mode.

The immune system responds by releasing free radicals which damage the red blood cells, reducing the supply of oxygen to muscle cells.

This means the muscle is starved of oxygen and the body experiences tiredness and hunger. End results? You pig out, get
fat, feel fatigued, become depressed about your weight, pig out…….

My Immogenics bible is a sheet of paper with various foods divided up into green, yellow, orange and red boxes.

Let's put it in Pop Idol terms: the green box is full of Nicki Chapman foods. They are kind to my gut and I can eat as much of these foods as I like. For me they include rice, potatoes, chicken and cheese.

The yellow box is full of Dr Fox foods. They're not too bad for my body and generally like to sit on the fence as far as the free radicals are concerned, but they should be avoided for the first five weeks that I'm on the plan.

Pete Waterman foods fill the orange box. These are quite nasty to my gut lining and I should avoid them for the first 10 weeks of my programme.

The red box is my Simon Cowell foods - mean to my gut and to be avoided at all costs.

The Immogenics Programme makes sense to me. I've been dieting since I was about 11 and sometimes I've been thin and sometimes I've been fat, but I've never, ever maintained the figure I want without denying myself and without it all being a bit of a bore.

It makes sense that the food and drink I've always consumed, even while being on a diet (salmon, tea, broccoli, cod, carrots, yeast and cow's milk), should have affected my ability to lose weight.

The list of foods I'm able to eat means this isn't a regimented diet and its not about counting calories, as I could eat as much of the 'green' foods as I liked. Breakfast was usually Rice Krispies with soya milk or an egg white omelette with cheese. Lunch and dinner were soya or chicken stir-fries with vegetables, followed by fruit salad or nuts and seeds.

My information pack also contained recipes specific to my allowed food groups and certainly pulled no punches when getting its message across: 'You say you're "big-boned", you're "stocky", you're "heavily-built". There's no point in deluding yourself.