'I left the garden of Eden and gorged on scones and cream' OPINION

Alun Newman and Lou Hannan host BBC Radio Solent's mid-morning show

Since the start of the year, I have amazed myself with the way I have stuck to my diet.

It’s a mish-mash of ideas involving little or no carbs, small portions and the complete removal of newsroom treats that appear on a daily basis.

Group emails reminding all that there's cake in the ‘usual place’ or ’doghnuts for all' have been deleted.

I’ve become the irritating, self-opinionated refuser that I’ve always despised. I am that person with self-control and I like it.

Recently, we were away for a week and my family continued to haemorrhage cash at every single possible pit-stop. I was caught out by a simple curve ball.

We were shopping for our evening meal and Mrs Newman had brought us to the UK’s most expensive supermarket to pick up a few things. Among other things, on this occasion, we ‘needed’ biscuits.

Apparently, as a decoy to remove me from the major purchases, I was deployed with my daughter to look for supplies.

In this supermarket, even basic foods cost a kidney so when my daughter pointed out that three packs of biscuits were £3 she asked what I’d choose. I replied that I like chocolate covered Hobnobs.

This was the moment that I took the apple from the tree, I fell, I left the self-opinionated garden of healthy Eden. After that, I was unstoppable.

Within an hour, I had broken the hermetic seal on the pack and was munching through. Sweet Lord they were good. Moments later, I was joining the kids as we toasted marshmallows on the remaining BBQ embers and made ‘Smores’ (an American biscuit sin that’s so lovely and sweet they make your teeth itch).

From that point on, the dam of control was broken. I'm now eating white cut loaf, pounds of cheese, pain aux raisin, McCoys ridge-cut crisps, chocolate digestives, multi packs of club biscuits.

Like the dam at Whaley Bridge, the situation is critical. Unlike that dam, I've not been shored up and made safe.

I’m writing this eating a homemade scone with so much Rhodda’s cream that it should come with it’s own heart surgeon.

Before that, chilli chocolate that I hate and no one else wants and then a Muller Corner (the strawberry shortcake one that no-one likes).

It’s not poor decisions that make us unhealthy, It’s family holidays. No human can take that kind of pressure.