I KNOW it's not correct to mention the D word, but here you go. Diet. Diet. Diet.

We're not supposed to go on diets. They're bad, we're told at every at every turn of a magazine page. But, how pray, are we supposed to lose weight if not for a diet?

We can refer to it as much as we like as "lifestyle changes" but it comes back to the same thing: cutting dramatically back on eating and drinking. A diet in other words.

That's what I did in February, the Febfast month where many self-disciplined people pledge not to drink for 28 days and donate the money they save to help people with alcohol issues.

That's very charitable and admirable, but for me, February was a gloomy month indeed without the comfort of cheesecake or the cheer of a chilled chardonnay. But somehow I got through. My strategy was to lose myself in books during the vulnerable early evening hours - those normally cheerful hours where I should be cooking a dinner involving big mounds of mash and oversized steaks after popping a champagne cork and considering opening a bottle of shiraz to let it breathe.

So, after a tofu stir-fry cooked without oil or love, it was into the books.

Until you are deprived of your normal culinary luxuries you have no idea how much every character in every book indulges. If they aren't causing mayhem (the kind of books I read) they're down at the local pub ordering a double gin and tonic and eating a big feed of fish and chips while planning their next axe murder.

When reading didn't help, I turned to television and quickly became addicted to MasterChef: The Professionals. More precisely addicted to (obsessed with) the dishy Marco Pierre White.

I know watching a celebrated food show while you are on a diet is asking for failure but Marco, the famous British chef in Australia as MasterChef judge, had hooked and reeled me right in.

The way that man looked at me - his dreamy eyes boring straight into mine when he talked in that measured way, his muted voice heavy with romance and noble British accent.

Watching him obliterated any thoughts of my February deprivation.

Until the camera left his beautiful face and zoomed in for a tight shot of a prawn, all pink with freshness and plump with juices, sitting smugly beneath a dollop of wasabi mayonnaise.

"Fetch me an apple," I'd shout to the long-suffering husband who had been obliged to go on the same tofu diet. It is all or none at our house.

Once the camera was back on Marco I was safe again as he spoke directly to me, even though the contestants thought he was speaking to them.

Then it was the camera in close again - this time on a thick piece of grain-fed scotch fillet, then a chocolate fondant smothered with caramel mousse, then a steaming bowl of french onion soup with gruyere toast, then a deconstructed lemon meringue pie, then pavlova with poached strawberries.

"Bring me a glass of water," I'd call through my dribble. "And while you're at it, perhaps a cup of air, that's all we're allowed for this wretched month of February."

Of course I exaggerate as February at our house wasn't just about tofu and apples and water and air and Marco Pierre White. There was fresh fruit and colourful vegetables and tuna and chicken and something new in our lives called "portion control". It all went down well with our growling stomachs.

But - and this is the uplifting part if you're thinking of Febfast next year - there was weight loss. Eight kilos for him, five for me.

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