The Diet Chef competition winner is…

Thank you to everyone who sent me fantastic entries for my competition – there were well over 200 of them!

As I sit up in bed a little bit poorly from a nasty cold, many of the responses I've read have made me howl with laughter and shock at some of the horrifying advice you've had over the years!! Friends, relatives and even qualified doctors seem to have stuck their oar into your dieting stories, with extreme deprivation seeming to have been their answer. Which, of course, is what dieting and healthy eating should NOT be about.

People have told you to eat only baby food, or drained tuna on dry bread and crackers, eat just grapes and water, just boiled eggs and water (whiffy!!), or just drink water (no food!!). Others were told to take diet pills, drink diet shakes, some of you tried drinking black coffee and eating only cottage cheese (huh?!?), drink milk for 6 days and go on a 2 hour walk (!), take up smoking to curb your appetite, swallow cotton wool balls to swell your stomach (dangerous!!), binge eat, make yourself sick, smoke AND drink champagne (EVEN MORE dangerous!), to eat almonds with every meal, to not eat anything that starts with the letter 'C'… and so the hilarious list goes on.

I'm also glad to say that those of you who tried some of this bonkers advice have been able to reflect on the madness with a smile and have lived to tell the tale. Aren't women so resilient?!

And, after all that fun of reading the entries, I had to get down to the serious business of choosing one winner. In all of the responses one stood out and made me laugh so much, I had a coughing fit. So many of you said you'd tried a diet involving cabbages (be it boiled or mixed with water to make a cold drink or a soup). And, yes I too lasted only a day on a yacky cabbage soup concoction back in 2001!! The winner was also someone who'd tried cabbage soup and the response really was head and shoulders above the rest, because of the humour within it and the fact she roped her whole family into the sorry saga!

So congratulations to Jane Whitehead saying:

"The worst diet I was foolish enough to try was the cabbage soup diet. Whereby you only eat a homemade cabbage soup. It tasted quite nice for the first day, but boredom soon crept in and the windy side effects weren't pleasant! What's more I also talked my mum and dad into doing it with me. You can only imagine the smell in our house!!!!!!! Diet Chef sounds like a breeze compared to this. Xxxxx"

So good luck with Diet Chef, Jane. Please check your email and get back to us with your address so we can send you your prize. Let me know how you get on. Here's a reminder of my thoughts on it all and if you're dieting let me know via my Facebook page.

[Having trouble viewing this video? See YouTube's Help page]