The Chocolate Lovers' Diet by Carole Matthews

had any sex that I’m struggling to get into my own pants.’ She holds out the waistband of her trousers and, even though she’s joking, it does look as if Chantal’s impossibly slender waistline has thickened out slightly. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who’s pigged out over the holidays. Depressed, I reach out for another brownie. Then, because I decide it’s better for my midriff bulge, I switch to the mango and chocolate option. Mango has hardly any calories, right? And I’m thinking skinny, skinny, skinny thoughts.
    ‘I guess this is down to all the great Asian food that Nadia’s cooking for me,’ Chantal continues. ‘Plus we get to keep the fridge stacked with chocolate and blame it on Lewis.’
    ‘We must start the new year in a better, healthier and more wholesome frame of mind,’ I observe piously. ‘I have no boyfriend. No money. No room in my clothes. This year can only bring about an improvement.’
    ‘We have to do something,’ Autumn says. ‘Something positive.’ With Autumn, that normally involves doing a circle dance or something strange with runes or joss sticks.
    ‘We could go on a detox diet,’ Nadia suggests tentatively. ‘Give up chocolate and stuff.’
    We all breathe in sharply.
    ‘Sorry, that was a very idiotic statement.’ She hangs her head in shame.
    ‘I started
Carol Vorderman’s 28-Day Detox Diet
,’ I admit. ‘Well, I watched the DVD, then I lasted twenty-eight minutes before I gave in to a Kit-Kat.’ I have no willpower. So sue me.
    Perhaps I can get hold of a copy of Victoria Beckham’s book – she surely must have some tips on how I can sick-up to a size zero in six days. Not that I don’t have some experience in that area myself, but no self-respecting celebrity is without an eating disorder these days. Or so it seems. They set us ‘real’ women impossibly high standards that anyone with even a vague addiction to Cadbury’s Caramel couldn’t meet. What’s the attraction in a grown woman having the body of a seven-year-old girl? That’s so dodgy, it’s untrue. Even a modicum of slenderness would do for me.
    Tristan comes into the café and leans on the counter. ‘How are our best customers today?’
    ‘Depressed,’ I answer for us all. ‘We’re fat. We’re broke. We’re not getting any action.’
    ‘Speak for yourself,’ Nadia corrects me with a wink.
    ‘We need to diet. We need to rejuvenate ourselves,’ I tell him. ‘Preferably without giving up chocolate. Or cheap wine. Any suggestions?’
    Tristan mulls it over. ‘Isn’t there a spa somewhere that bases all its treatments on chocolate?’
    There is much hyperventilating around the table. Could it be that our dreams have all come true?
    ‘Where?’ My voice holds a note of disbelief. If Tristan is joking then this is too, too cruel. I could withhold my custom for less than this. Well, not really.
    He muses some more, rubbing his chin in a scholarly manner. ‘California, I think.’
    It had to be.
    ‘I’ve heard of this place, I’m sure,’ Chantal says. ‘It’s supposed to be great. Why have we not thought of this before now?’
    ‘My goodness.’ Nadia has gone all glazed and vague. ‘We could spend all day being smothered in chocolate and still lose weight. That’s my dream come true.’
    We all let out a blissful, ‘Ooohhh.’
    This makes my tub of Body Shop Cocoa Body Scrub pale into measly insignificance.
    ‘You ladies are
too
sad,’ Tristan tells us with an indulgent shake of his head.
    ‘If this doesn’t sort out all our problems, then nothing will,’ Autumn says with a breathy voice. Even she can see that this would be better than anything to do with chakras or chanting.
    ‘We need to go there,’ Chantal states. ‘We need to go there now.’
    ‘Oh, we do,’ I agree. ‘We certainly do.’
    I daren’t think about the pain that this will cause my credit card. I just have to think how good it will be for my body and soul.

Chapter Sixteen
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