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The Christmas diet

How to eat well on Christmas Day and be slim again by New Year's Day, in three easy steps.

1. December 25
   Stuff your face full of turkey and all the trimmings. (Make sure you have double helpings of pigs-in-blankets.)

2. December 26
   Don't just mingle with family; participate fully in any activity. Make sure you spend as much time as possible with the most likely disease carrying members (probably children).

3. December 27
   Wake up in the night with terrible stomach ache. Spend the remainder of the day feeling ill, refusing to let anything but a dry water-biscuit and a litre of lemonade past your lips.

If you follow this plan closely, by New Year's Eve everyone will be telling you how much weight you've lost and you'll be ready to over-indulge all over again.