Confession

I may have lied. Okay, I did lie. I lied about my weight on the forms for the assisted conception unit. I'm a serial dieter, have been since I was about 12 and my mum was a Weight Watchers leader. My weight has always fluctuated by about 5 stone, which I know is really unhealthy and was actually fundamental in my assumption that I was the one with the fertility issues.

I'm not good at doing diets where you lose half a pound a week and go and get weighed and everyone claps. I do the crazy meal replacement 'lose at least 3lbs a week' diets because I like to see results fast. The trouble is that I'm an 'all or nothing' personality, so they suit me very well. I can happily not eat food for months on end as long as I don't have to make any choices. It feeds the 'nothing' side of my personality. However, when I finish losing weight and have to start eating real food again, my 'all' side kicks in and I just keep stuffing myself until the several stone I've just lost goes back on again. It normally takes about as long to gain the weight as it did to lose it.

The hospital won't treat me if my BMI is more than 35, and if it's between 30 and 35, they'll tell me I need to lose weight. My current weight gives me a BMI of 36.4, so I need to lose about a stone before they'll even consider treating me and obviously the lighter I am, the more likely it is that IVF will be successful.

I'm starting to get anxious about it now because what if I get an appointment to start the IVF process really soon? I know it would be lunacy to embark on a crazy diet at this stage, because who knows what kind of damage that does to me. It makes my hair fall out, so clearly my body doesn't particularly like it. So my only option is to start eating healthier and exercising and now. You'd think that my desire to have a baby would be all the motivation I needed, but I just can't get started on it. Will I even lose enough weight in time on a sensible eating regime?

Watch this space.