The calorific diet of diets

I HAVE a dirty little secret: I think that my husband is right. After nearly a decade in the trenches with this most scientific, contrary and logical of chaps, it's hard for me, the ultimate drama diva, to admit it.

But there it is. And what pushed me over the edge, into his corner, was the most girly of topics. The Diet. With a big, fat, calorific capital D – since we all know how badly things end when we don't mark The Diet with the VIP status it so churlishly, selfishly demands of us.

It was a kids' birthday party and, as usual, I tend to hover around the little table, where the most E numbers and chemicals are crowded, all shaped into soft, chunky chips, candy-striped sticks and rainbow-coloured teddy bears. I love the little table almost as much as I hog the grown-up table – the place I go as soon as societal politeness allows it.

I'm a glutton! Even if I go all Patrick Holford, creating and devouring a statistically nutritious lunch of protein-carb-mostly-raw, I am mysteriously starving when I arrive at any function, any time, anywhere – and especially when there's a good mix of sweet and savoury.

My husband, who has recently lost a sinful amount of weight eating essentially only bacon and eggs, says it's all down to a complex female thing involving evolution, storing fat in times of famine, lack of willpower and a bit of Darwinism thrown in to make me feel less guilty. I am, he says, driven by my genes – which results in being driven into bigger jeans. Pun, intended.

As a result, I am a theory dieter, rather than a serial dieter. I don't actually want to restrict or change my food intake or choices.

What I really want is a fairy godmother wand-waving thing to happen overnight, when I'm asleep, so that I can still eat peanut butter on toast the next morning, but while wearing a size 8 thong that fits.

I tested his theory on Facebook and my friends – two of my favourite scientific control groups, poor dears – and the results were astounding.

Everybody has been, is or will be – by Monday – on a diet. And the different methods of achieving the goal are so varied, so frighteningly different, that I'm doing my nut.

Before, when I actually stuck to a diet, I ended up sick and miserable. Oh, and thin – but it hardly mattered, because I looked (and felt) 200 years older.

And the more choice there is for the theory dieter, apparently, the fatter she'll be – because we seem to think that just by talking about the diet that everybody talks about, or reading books on protein-rich diets, low-carb plans, no-carb torture methods (fact) and asking helpful BBFs for their slimming recipes, we'll wake up six kilos lighter.

As of next week, I'm to choose between my friend Nikita's "10 bites per hour" diet, Jacqueline's "bacon breakfast" diet or Marc's "paleo" plan, which involves the bacon and eggs (sounds good, but you just try that on for size seven days a week, 24/7).

I'm all talk, no reduction. Can anybody recommend the best eating plan for that?