Of Slender Means is my response to this creeping madness taking over our approach to living healthily. I’ll give some examples.

One good friend notes every morsel she eats using an application on her phone. Another swears by eating only hunks of meat for weeks on end. Someone else I know lost nearly two stone (and much of her joie de vivre) eating nothing for lunch and then crisps and satsumas on the bus home. There are the exercise fanatics, training for marathons or getting up at 5.30am to spin off life’s excesses in expensive gyms. And I? I find myself secretly licking peanut butter off a spoon whilst reading an article on chia seed energy snacks and reassuring myself it will all be fine in the morning when I start running again.

Now, I’m as much a sucker for thinness as the next girl. For years, clothes shopping, grocery lists and exercise regimes have been devised around this singular and empty goal. Low carb, low fat, interval training, daily running, good old deprivation, I’ve tried them all. Scoff at my vanity, I might, but the compulsive drive to smaller thighs, once set in motion, is hard give up.

But having two small children whilst re-building a career from the ashes of early motherhood no longer leaves me with enough time for endless laps around the park, nor for crotchety mornings after an evening meal lacking an entire food group. Instead, I want to eat both thoughtfully and effortlessly; in a way that fills me up, leaves me feeling balanced and energetic and doesn’t make me feel so deprived I constantly stray down the path of overindulgence.

Health food blogs aren’t the answer: filled, as they are, with white-teethed, thigh-gapped girls telling you about their medical and spiritual journeys from junk food to homemade almond milk. All too often, recipes call for ingredients I can’t pronounce and hours of soaking, blitzing and blending requiring time and high-tech machines I don’t have.

Cookbooks occupy another reality: their glossy pages laying out dishes so lavish and complex I’ll spend half a month’s salary on sourcing ingredients, which will only be left decaying at the back of the cupboard because I can’t face another evening of excruciating indigestion.

Food should be fun and delicious. Preparing it should not take too long, unless it’s for an occasional feast. Exercise should be a pleasure, not a chore. Fitting into beautiful clothes should not involve pre-dawn trips to the gym. And it should be possible to eat healthily and wholesomely despite a busy job, limited time to cook and too many dinner invitations.

I am neither nutritionist, nor chef. I avoid meat (for all sorts of reasons), caffeine and sugar (because I think they do me no good) but I do eat fish. I love to cook, eat – especially with friends, run around in the fresh air, and I am still committed (vanity prevails) to my mission to look good in skinny jeans. I do not aim to convert, but instead to share a few ideas on how you can live and eat well in our sedentary world of plenty…

Enjoy!

Chloe