Every Tuesday morning, Emma finds an excuse to escape from the office.
Popping into the newsagent to pick up a pint of milk, she can?t stop herself glancing over at the magazine racks. And there they are on the middle shelf ? the new delivery of the weekly glossies. She scans them all – Heat, Star and Look until she sees the familiar bikini shot, tanned skin stretched tight over newly-taut curves. ?Britney loses 20lb on brand new juice diet!? screams the strapline. Emma?s heart starts to beat faster. If it works for Britney, it could work for her too. Maybe she could look like that in time for Magaluf, she thinks as she heads back to the office to Google Britney?s new diet.
Emma?s a celebrity diet addict. Every new delivery of celebrity magazines brings with it a new celebrity diet. There was Kylie?s grapefruit diet – which gave her bad breath and a nasty burping habit, and Katie Holmes? raw food diet which she had to stop because she was getting jaw ache from all that chewing. She?s even tried that Puer laxative tea all the celebrities use. More like poo-ey though ? no wonder you lose weight, the smell alone was enough to put her and the rest of the office off their lunch. Mind you, Posh?s ?pink? diet where you eat just prawns and strawberries worked surprisingly well. Although she doesn?t want to admit that a dodgy prawn gave her such a bad dose of food poisoning that she ended up 10lbs lighter without having to do anything?
Emma firmly believes that there?s some magic combination of foodstuffs that will magically melt her wobbly bits away. And every week, thanks to celebritydiet.co.uk and Heat magazine, she tries to find it. She likes how virtuous she feels turning up to work with her thermos of cabbage soup or freshly juiced wheatgrass, and taping a new ?7 Day Diet Plan? to her desk. She manages to stick to her diet for a couple of days, until, light-headed and giddy, she just can?t resist the lure of a Friday night drink after work. And before she knows it, she?s woken up bleary-eyed and bloated after four glasses of wine, a couple of tequilas and a kebab. Depressed and hungover, she breaks into that packet of caramel chocolate biscuits she hid at the back of the cupboard and thinks that she might as well order a takeaway. After all there?s always a new diet to start next week when the new crop of celebrity-watch magazines hit the shops.
If she?s being honest though, she?s beginning to get a bit suspicious of all the miracle weight loss stories. It seems a bit funny that all these celebrities say they?ve lost loads of weight just by doing a bit of yoga and eating steamed salmon for lunch every day. Especially since she?s seen those internet adverts for diet pills on howcelebritiesloseweight.com.
But tomorrow she?s going to try something that really works. No, not liposuction. The Master Cleanse. You probably read about it in last week?s Look ? it?s the diet where you only drink maple syrup and lemon juice with a dash of cayenne pepper. Apparently, the weight just falls off you. Emma?s sure this one will work. After all, you only have to look at the pictures the latest Grazia ran of Beyoncé to see the difference?.
