You're looking really good.

"You're looking really good."

Me, lying on the rug in my pyjamas: "Hmmmm." I was thinking how gravity was sinking my stomach in rather flatteringly but that the illusion would disappear once I stood up.

"You really are. And you have to learn to take a compliment."

Oh dear! We've been here before. I thought I'd learn to take a compliment. But apparently, these things can be unlearnt if they are not practiced. I'm not implying for a minute that I was out of practice because no one had been paying compliments... It's the "taking the compliment" bit that I hadn't been practicing. It takes a combination of humility, confidence, joie de vivre and optimism... like spinning china plates on top of long bamboo sticks.

"Thank you. Thank you very much. It's very nice of you to say."

I've been on this detox diet (still am: day 10 and counting.) which includes various forms of starvation (ranging from little food, to only food which is 90% water). So it makes sense that I would be looking marginally slimmer. Or does it?

I don't know about you but my body takes on average about two weeks to shift up or down weight wise. If I have a really greedy week, it doesn't show in that first week, and by the second week I'm thinking I've hit on the magic diet that lets you gorge on pudding and pizza without affecting your weight. So I carry on for a second week when all of a sudden "woomph!" my jeans are a bit tight and my bra cups threaten to spill over.

Conversely, if I'm on a diet, nothing really happens for those first two weeks. Makes it bloody hard to persevere... I'm thinking that my metabolism has finally got stuck on "very low" and nothing I do, not even near starvation, will melt the pounds away.

There's an ad on FaceBook at the moment that promises the loss of 2 dress sizes in 10 minutes. That sounds like a much better bet.

I'll keep you posted.