When it comes to food, you may have realised by now I’m a little obsessed. Within five minutes of waking I’m thinking of breakfast. An hour or two later and I’m making a coffee to stop me raiding the fridge. Skip to one hour later and my head is firmly in said fridge. Then phew, it’s lunchtime! This cycle continues throughout the day, pretty much every day. I can barely go an hour without thinking about food.

Reading that back I’m even more addicted than even I thought! A food addiction may not be quite as bad as crack cocaine, or even alcohol, but we’re all pretty aware these days how much of a bad effect overeating can have on our health and well-being, let alone the NHS (no, I’m not going to get all political). So how do you find the right balance?

I’ve read various books and articles about portion control, balanced diets, less carb, no carb, and still find myself tucking into that naughty extra slice of toasted sourdough on a Sunday night, telling myself I’ll be virtuous next week. You see the problem is, I’m just not motivated enough to reduce my food intake any further, especially not on an ongoing basis. I like what I eat. I like how I eat. If I fancy a steak for dinner with chips, cabbage and bacon, then I damn well want to have that. If I want a healthy Thai beef salad for dinner, then likewise, I’d like to have that thank you very much. I actually think I eat fairly healthily most of the time!

Having reached my (mid) thirties, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that there are three important rules I need to follow: 1) balancing food and exercise is important, eat more = exercise more, 2) eat healthy options when possible, and 3) as long as I’m comfortable with my weight and am relatively healthy, then that’s alright. So these days if I do find I’m uncomfortable (or just want to keep eating as I do) I up the calorie output. But where? The gym is no place for me – all that stop-starting to switch between exercise equipment bores me rigid. Neither am I a fan of the triathlon’s my husband now does – swim, then bike, then run… what kind of torture is this?! The transition from swim to bike alone – cold, damp and running barefoot across a sports centre car park – is enough to send me headed for the nearest hot chocolate.

‘My thing’ rather embarrassingly is dance aerobics, of the bright leotard and sweat band variety. But while I’m jiggling away, looking like some kind of comedy extra on a Ministry of Sound video, I’ll be happy in the knowledge I’m balancing food and exercise, and it’s OK to eat that extra brownie from Barefoot Kitchen – I’ll just need to jiggle extra hard if I want a hot chocolate too.