Andy Richardson: All that you can eat? Yep, now I'll pay the price

While the rest of you were being sensible at the start of the new year and cutting back from your festive over-indulgence, I trod the road less travelled. I enjoyed every last Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I made it a personal mission to test the quality of a dozen authentic Cornish pasties. Rowe's are the best, in my opinion, though I prefer the seasoning of Choak's.

I ate my way through the entire menu of a particularly good restaurant in Devon – thereby hangs another tale, but I'll share that another time – and I gorged on a dish called piggy bits at one of my favourite local haunts. Piggy bits are one of life's great treats. They are tiny pieces of belly pork that have been roasted in fat, chopped up into bite-size chunks, deep fried until crisp and then slathered in a Korean sauce called Bulgogi. I have eaten about five small boxes. Oink bloomin' oink.

And now it's my day of reckoning. I've gone from fit to fat. From Nero to zero. Nero, in fact, would have looked down on me in disgust. The last Emperor in Rome's Julio-Claudian dynasty was a good egg and would have disapproved of my gluttony. He promoted athletic games, among other things. I've promoted Olympic eating.

But the party's over. I've eaten my way through my last tub of Nutella, gorged on my last Michelin degustation, drunk my final cup of Spanish hot chocolate and polished off the bacon and sausage sandwich.

I'm on the wagon. I've given myself 150 days to lose 30 pounds. Now there's a challenge. I'll be happy if I lose 28, but I prefer the symmetry of my lose-1lb-every-five-days diet. Each five days, I have to run up a deficit in the region 3,752 calories if I'm to meet my target. There are 88 calories in a Reese's choccie. Each five days, I have to miss out on the equivalent of 42 of them. That's some weird maths, eh?

My wardrobe doesn't care about the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup equation. It stands like an angry sentry, looking down at me in disgust.

It houses my slim-guy Vivienne Westwood threads, which drape forlornly from their hangers. They are all hung up with nowhere to go.

I have an ideal weight. It last happened when I was 30, 13 long years and approximately 750 restaurant dinners ago. I was a trim 11st 3lbs. I ran 35 miles a week, my 30-inch waist jeans were sometimes too big and I ate a loaf of bread from my local baker every morning. Ah, happy days.

I have no desire to turn back time. Cher tried that, and look what happened to her. But I would rather not spend money I don't have to buying new clothes to replace those that I'm too fat to wear. That makes no sense.

I've created a diet of my choosing and it goes something like this: one meal a day, then fruit. Nothing else, unless I'm reviewing a restaurant, in which case, all bets are off – and all piggy bits are on.

My diet started yesterday. I went to a meeting of chefs. They gave me piggy bits. Tonight I've got to visit six restaurants. Yes, six. Tomorrow, I have to go for lunch. On Thursday, I'm taking my partner for dinner. And with a schedule like that, I might not need the fruit.