Poor dark, cold January has become a time for rather miserably hiding away and cutting back on life’s excesses – almost like an entire month of hangover – following a lavish Christmas. But I find it hard to advocate the practice of such punishing abstinence.

This excessive detoxing seems too short-term and painful to me. What if your best friend’s birthday in January, or indeed your wedding anniversary? What if you get to February so fed up of your steak-for-dinner diet that you go on a three-day baguette-feeding frenzy? Or you celebrate your month of dryness with a whisky drinking night out on the town? Surely, anything so far removed from your normal life is almost doomed to failure, or, at best, only very fleeting success.

There are few greater pleasures than long dinners with friends, which stretch out over cocktail and course, the conversation growing headier and hazier with each re-filled glass and dish. And sad indeed would be the day when even the most abstemious of us decided not to go to one because we felt that it might interfere with the rigours of our January detox.

The trick instead, I believe and hope to practise, is to indulge in moderation. So don’t refuse the invite, but instead attend, savour, and then to carefully manage the consequences. A few ideas on how:

The day itself: 

I’ve often felt that one of the best ways to enjoy Christmas is eating ascetically for at least a week before. A few nights of poached eggs and wilted spinach make you so much more appreciative of that grand four course meal.

And, days when you know you’re to be treated to a rich meal in the evening should really be a approached like a miniature Christmas. This requires a balance between savouring food at its simplest and plainest, whilst not going hungry – you don’t want to end up overeating as and when dinner is finally served.

1. Breakfast more frugally than you might otherwise. Keep yoghurt plain with a sprinkle of muesli, and perhaps a few seeds. Leave off the nuts today.

2. Elevenses should be plainer too. Just an apple, or three dried apricots and a cup of decaf coffee.

3. You won’t need a large lunch. A light soup (nothing with potato in it!) with a little cheese on the side, and a small slice of bread or a rye cracker. If that’s not around, then a modest rice or quinoa salad with some tuna. Or make yourself two rye crackers with a thin layer of humus and half an avocado scooped out on top. Any of those should fill you up enough.

4. Don’t forgo your afternoon dessert – you want to avoid showing up so ravenously hungry that you storm the bread basket as soon as you are seated at the dinner table. But do make it less rich than usual. A large orange is an excellent choice; the time it takes you to peel it will make you feel as if you’ve had more food than you actually did. Another apple could make you feel bloated; a few bits of celery, cucumber and tomato – perhaps with a little cream cheese – would better hit the spot.

5. Drink plenty of water and herbal tea throughout the day.

Dinner: 

The essence of a truly enjoyable dinner is to eat and drink well, but never to excess. You want to be able to look back on the meal with delight, thinking of those wonderful flavours and the interesting conversation. You don’t to wake up swamped in hangover-induced self-loathing, hideously guilty at the mound of food still swilling around your stomach.

1. Unashamedly insist on high quality food. Going out for dinner is pointless when the food is going to worse than anything you might prepare at home – better invite people round to your place if you fear that will be the case. So choose a restaurant where standards will meet expectation.

2. Order well. Look for dishes where you’ll get plenty of lovely protein and not so many carbs. Don’t order any side portions of carbohydrate, but do add in extra greens – beans, spinach, broccoli, that sort of thing. Treat yourself to a starter, but seek out something small and delicious – a touch of fish on leaves, maybe. Soup is usually too stodgy and voluminous. If you can’t see a main course that really tickles your fancy, then order another starter. No one will mind (or remember!).

3. Limit yourself to one cocktail before dinner. And your choice of cocktail is paramount. Leave off sugary cocktails, bathed in fruit juice, lemonade, or with sugar swimming around on top of the ice. A classic martini is a good bet. Champagne cocktails can also be light and delicious. A seabreeze with vodka and cranberry, or better grapefruit juice, is not so bad. And if all else fails, ask for a mojito without the sugar (you can always pretend you’re diabetic).

4. Unless a really special occasion, don’t drink more than one glass of wine (or two small ones) over the course of dinner. I find white weighs down on me the next day far less than red, but that’s a personal preference.

5. A note on bread. If you’ve got the will power (which most of us don’t), leave it in the basket. You won’t miss it. If you don’t, then take one slice when your starter arrives and leave it at that.

6. You don’t need dessert. You don’t need to share dessert. If you really want to extend the meal, then share a plate of cheese between you. That said, a cup of black decaf coffee will end the meal as deliciously as anything else (and usefully stop you drinking any more wine).

7. A large glass of water on arriving home is all you need before bedtime.

The morning after: 

1. Hopefully, you’ll only wake up feeling mildly woozy and ever so slightly bloated. Get straight back on your health drive, with a glass of water and then your green tea.

2. If you can, wait a little longer than usual before breakfast, and think carefully about what it is you feel will really help wake you and your digestive system up. Perhaps an orange, a banana and a small yoghurt. Again rich nuts can wait for later in the day.

3. Keep the rest of your food relatively plain today, and not too starchy. Look for fresh greens and light protein. Why not have fish for lunch and an omelette (see recipe below) or cottage cheese for dinner. Keep vegetables raw – it’s quicker that way – and throw in a bit of rye bread, or a cracker or two to keep you going. Oily salads and stodgy soups can wait until tomorrow.

Omelette for dinner, the day after

Ingredients 

(serves 2) (you can always make it for one and save half for the next day – equally delicious cold)

• 4 large eggs
• 10 mushrooms (the more organic and less uniform-looking, the better)
• 1 shallot
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• Cream (just a dash) or milk, depending on your taste
• Small chunk of goats’ cheese (about a third of one of those small, crumbly kinds)
• Thyme (dried is fine, but fresh is better)
• Parsley (chopped)

Method

Slice the shallots (finely) and mushrooms (roughly). Then fry in a dash of olive oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan until softened.

Whilst these are frying, chop the the garlic very small and whisk your eggs in a bowl along with a dash of cream or milk and a sprinkle of salt (a little) and pepper (a lot). Cream makes the dish richer, but also more filling, if you’re very hungry.

Add the chopped garlic and fry along with the shallots and mushrooms for a minute at most. Then add the whisked eggs and reduce the heat a notch.

Wait until you see the eggs beginning to firm up with the heat (this may take a good five minutes), and then crumble the goats’ cheese over the top. Add the thyme and parsley around this time too.

When the egg is set all the way through, you can either fold it in half (as a standard omelette) or leave open and finish for a minute of so under a hot grill. I prefer the latter, partly because all the extras in the omelette make folding a challenge.

Slice down the middle, and enjoy your half. The other half will either be much appreciated by someone else, or by you the next day for lunch.

Have a handful of green leaves, a large ripe tomato sliced, or simply a sizeable chunk of cucumber (if you’re feeling particularly lazy) as the perfect accompaniment.

Other ingredients you might consider adding, if mushrooms aren’t your thing …

• Peas or broad beans (boiled first from frozen)
• Red pepper (chopped)
• Fennel (chopped)
• Cherry tomatoes (halved and added along with the cheese rather than at the beginning)
• Asparagus (when in season)
• Spinach
• Olives (pitted and sliced)