Before I began the IQS programme, I had afternoon tea booked with a friend for a couple of months down the line. It actually fell in week seven of the programme – around the time a certain amount of sugar, or at least sweetness, creeps back in, but before you’ve really completed the programme.

Now, I know you’re thinking “well, that’ll have been the screw up, then”. But actually it wasn’t. I found myself pleasantly and comfortably controlled on the day – except it wasn’t a case of control but just calmly allowing my body to decide what it was comfortable with. I ate scones, but with a little scrape of jam because more than that didn’t taste that good anymore. I ate half each of three little pastries but then I just felt like I was done. I had half my glass of prosecco because it was too hot to drink any more.

I’ve got to say, I felt pretty smug. It was like everything everyone says about moderation had totally clicked but, more than that, I had gone in with the attitude that I wasn’t going to be restrained or say “I shouldn’t”. I was going to go in and have exactly what I wanted. And by giving myself full permission to do that, I didn’t feel the need to overindulge.

Flushed by my success, I went back to normal eating the following day. And then work book club hit, and suddenly wine and orange juice and crisps and sweet popcorn and fizzy cola bottles and jelly beans were all within a foot of me. And for the first time in weeks they seemed appealing. And I went for it. Spectacularly.

Within the hour, the following symptoms appeared:

• Itchy, hot skin
• Jitters / shakes (not the visible kind)
• Headache

Overnight, I experienced:

• Poor sleep
• Anxious thoughts (you know, the 3am type. At 3am.)

The morning I felt:

• Bloated and rough with a skin flare up.

Now, there might of course be other reasons for some of these. While I had very little wine, alcohol does have an effect on sleep so that could be a contributing factor. We’ve had a bit of familial upheaval recently with schools and whatnot – not negative, but stressful. It might or might not be related to things that happen to women on a lunar basis. Hell, there could well be a psychosomatic element. But it seemed thoroughly too coincidental by half that all these symptoms appeared suddenly, en masse, on the night after I chose to gorge on something I’ve been avoiding for weeks.

I do wonder how it is I fell into the trap in the first place – trying to be sociable? Lady cravings? Overconfidence in my new found ability to say no? – but from discussing it with one of my friends it seems she did the same: ate sugar, felt bad, regretted it, got back on the wagon. Lather, rinse, repeat until the message sinks in. And certainly Sarah Wilson talks a lot about ‘lapsing’ (which, as she says, is not a lapse but just an experiment to see if you really want to continue eating sugar). After my experience, I’m not in a hurry to repeat my test, and I’ve been ‘crowding out’ with fats and veggies today to try and stave off the inevitable sugar hangover cravings.

I present this not really as evidence of anything expect my own experience, so do take from it what you will. It’s convinced me to get back on track, but then I’m the only person I have to convince…

*By which I mean when I inevitably screw up. Your mileage may vary, and your engine may be better tuned. But if you were all that brilliant, you wouldn’t be reading about quittin’ sugar, cos you’d have done it already so ha! Now we’re rubbish human together. Group hug!