Last night on the way to the gym, I was thinking about what I’m going to do after my April detox is over with. My first thought was, “I’m going to eat a massive bag of chips!”

But underneath that was the little voice telling me that it was this kind of thinking that got me here in the first place.

So I came up with a plan where I could have my chips and eat them too. Four times a month.

I have decided to award myself four naughty points per month. I can spend these on things like:

• a bag of chips
• a night out drinking
• take away or other junk food
• skipping a scheduled gym class

and so on.

I want to be sensible about my lifestyle, and not feel guilty every time I do something “naughty”, so this way I keep track of it using a points system. Maybe I should call them “Get Out of Guilt Free Cards” or something.

I’m not going to count a single glass of wine with dinner, or a piece of chocolate here and there. I’m also not counting our Wednesday “date night” unless we do something particularly unhealthy, like eating burgers and nachos at TGI Fridays.

I’m mostly concerned with being sensible about the bigger things. If I skip a gym class without making it up within the same week, 1 point. If I go out on a Friday for a night of cocktails at Tørst, 1 point. If I have a movie night with a girlfriend and we eat pizza and snacks, 1 point (or 2 if there’s a lot of wine involved).

However, I know that a single gym class doesn’t work off a burger and fries, so I’m not going to award myself additional points if I do an extra class. Also the points will not carry over into a new month; if I have spare points at the end of the month, I will get myself a little non-food-or-fitness related treat. Like some new earrings or perfume or something.

At the moment I do three gym classes a week and I have a preordered copy of Wii Fit waiting for me to pick up when it’s released on Friday. I think I’m all set to begin my patented “Naughty Points Plan” on the first of May. I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes.

Incidentally, something weird happened to me last night. I needed to leave work at 4.45 to get to my 5.30 gym class. So I changed at the office, caught the bus and headed over to the gym. When I got there and tried to check in for my class on the touch-screens, the class wasn’t listed. I asked at the desk and the girl said, “Yes, dance step was on tonight… it started at 5.30. It’s almost finished.”

What?!

I looked at my watch and realised it was 6.25. How the hell did I lose an entire hour? I’d had a meeting at 3.00 and then needed to work through some stuff to send an email request to our developers… I honestly have no idea how I lost a whole hour. I was so confused that I went home without working out at all. And when I checked my work email to see when I had sent the developer email, the timestamp said 5.05. Somewhere between the meeting and that email, I lost an hour without realising it AT ALL. The only clue I had was that on the walk from the bus stop to the gym I was thinking the sun seemed a little low in the sky. Scary.

So I missed one gym class this week. If it was May that would mean 1 point down (unless I can find another class to do tonight). Luckily though, it’s still April so all I did was ruin my perfect detox record. Oops. I guess I better go check the gym class schedule and find another class to do tonight.