The countdown to Christmas diet :

Do you have a special outfit or little black dress that you want to wear this Christmas? If it's feeling a bit tight at the moment, you might be panicking that you've left it too late to lose weight. We've got a fail-safe 5-week diet plan that will help you slim and keep you motivated. And even if you've only just found us you can still join the diet at any point and lose weight!

One of the classic diet mistakes we all make is that we rush into it and then get bored a few weeks later and end up bingeing. But this diet is different. You start slowly and make changes gradually. The first week you could lose 1-2lbs, then the 2nd and 3rd week you could lose another 1-2 pounds a week. Week 4 and 5 you could lose between 3 and 5lbs. Of course, everyone is different but whether you start at week 1 or week 4 you'll lose weight and get a flatter tummy.

What do I do?

It's very easy. Here are the rules:

You cannot have any takeaway or junk food and you need to stop eating cakes, chocolate and biscuits other than the treat you are allowed each day.

Each day you can have one of these:
1 2-finger KitKat
2 jaffa cakes
1 packet of light crisps
1 low-fat chocolate mousse
2 scoops of low-fat ice cream
1 handful of salted or roasted nuts - any variety
1 sugar-free jelly with low-fat squirty cream

Take time to really enjoy these treats, and always have a large glass of water with them to help fill you up.

Swap all your milk in tea, coffee and cereal for skimmed milk.

Swap all the high carbohydrate foods, such as rice, pasta and bread for the brown or wholegrain variety. Did you know that these sorts of food can actually make you hungrier and bloated so this is another reason to go for wholegrain rather than white.

Don't drink alcohol

Drink 8 glasses of water every day - including one when you get up in the morning and one before every meal or snack.

Weeks 1 and 2

If you usually stick to ready-meals or you don't do much cooking, these are the weeks where all that changes! Don't worry it's not complicated or expensive. Stick to your normal diet, but follow all the diets rules and make every evening meal from scratch.

And if you've only just joined in and you've only got two weeks to go, don't worry you could still lose 1lbs or 2lbs a week.

Weeks 3 and 4

It's time to start calorie counting - but don't worry, it's not boring or hard because we've done the work for you. You can either make up your own diet based on 1500 calories a day, see our guide to what you get for 200, 300, 400 and 500 calories.

You can carry on having one treat a day from the list in week 1 as long as it fits in with the calorie count.

Week 5

This is the final week and you're almost at your goal weight or dress size. Well done, you've worked hard and you're looking good. But this is possibly the hardest week as there'll be booze and nibbles offered wherever you go. Plus you need to do a detox diet - it's just for a week, so it won't be too hard. Remember the prize is looking great and being the envy of all your friends!

Congratulations!

You've done 5 whole weeks of dieting and the effort has paid off, not only have you lost weight you've also learnt about your eating habits and gained new, healthy ones.

Don't ruin all your hard work with a massive Christmas binge, take some of the things you've learnt over the last five weeks - the new recipes, the new ways to be more active, clever fat burning tips - and make sure that you have a happy and healthy season and a slim new year too.