IT had come to a time of reckoning.

I'd never been a Shrimp or Twiggy, but large, rather handsome bones I

thought, had carried the rest of me with few problems for a fair piece

of a lifetime.

Suddenly, I could not undress in front of myself, let alone anyone

else. Accidental glimpses in the honest mirror showed thighs like pots

of simmering oatmeal, a torso bursting with fresh adipose tissue,

buttocks that virtually bobbed against my shoulder blades as a walk

became a wobble. Clothes skulked in the wardrobe, refusing to strain

themselves across my bulging frame.

''It's my age, it's the sedentary life, it's this Scottish diet, it's

temporary, it's terrible,'' I whined, as intimates made subtle Fatso

remarks.

Then the Good Hearted Glasgow campaign caught up with me and kindly

offered and explained their cholesterol test. After that they went into

aspects of my degenerate lifestyle and said I had a 50-50 chance of

suffering a heart attack before the official retiring age.

This was received through a haze of hangover from a do the night

before, sharpened by no breakfast, with coffee and cigarettes to

adrenalise the doomed lump of protoplasm through an active morning.

''You know what makes sense,'' said the kindly woman who ran my crimes

through her computer and handed over the irrefutable printout. I hid it

somewhere, but know it by heart, till I drop.

In the meantime, I wryly nudged myself into trying a couple of things

to shift the habits of a declining adulthood. More by chance than

design, my efforts became linked with the powdered protein replacement

meal. Having seen local ads about the Herbalife weight-control

programme, I decided to give that a whirl.

A very pleasant woman named Kay came round to see me with her box of

goodies and told me how well her family were doing using the various

herbal and vitamim preparations. Not only were they controlling their

weight, they were feeling relief from asthma, arthritis, irritable

bowels, and other complaints.

Kay looked blooming, slender and bright-eyed, I must say, though she's

almost as old as me.

In the cause of science I took Formula One -- a protein powder

flavoured with vanilla which you mix with water or low-fat milk twice a

day, to replace meals.

Along with this 30-day canister, I received Formulae Two, Three, and

Four -- herbal tablets, vitamin-mineral tablets, canola oil capsules

(no-one seemed to know what a canola may be) and the magic Formula Five,

khaki-coloured oval pills, encapsulating a vitamin mineral complex with

herbs.

This little collection put items into my stomach I've rarely dreamed

of ingesting -- hydrangea, couch grass, and chickweed, of which I've

shifted tons from the garden, cornsilk, and hawthorn berries, along with

kelp, carrageen, and dulse, and several things I eat regularly in the

raw. Garlic, honey, oats, rosehips, parsley, soya, walnut, fennel, cider

vinegar, sesame seeds, ginger, and plenty more ingredients appear in the

lengthy lists attached to the formula containers.

It might have cost just under 50 quid for the lot, but think of the

withering cellulite, and the money you're not spending on real food for

the month, I told myself.

Apart from taking 15 pills a day and beating the chalky powder into

breakfast and lunch in a cup, the Herbalifer is supposed to take at

least one meal a day of nutritive quality. How I lusted for supper,

where the humblest dish could be smelled and chewed.

After 10 days, I'd lost four pounds and stayed there.

After 15 days my throat started resisting the pills. It took 20

minutes to get five of them down using hot or cold drinks.

Kay made regular phone calls to see how I was getting on, but I was

obviously a disappointment. I should have been half a stone down after

the first two weeks.

Physically, I felt fine and energetic, but the Herbalife literature

they left with me was depressing. I thought it would explain something

about nutrition and the way the formulae worked. But the journals,

obviously meant for distributors only, were full of stories and pictures

of glossily smiling folk who told how they were becoming millionaires

selling the products.

Nutritionally, Herbalife seems to be fine and provides a great back-up

for the body chemistry while the body takes in less. This body just

balked at the pill-taking routine.

Food scientist Dr John Piggott, from Strathclyde University, looked at

my rattling collection and said it had obviously been produced with a

good knowledge of nutritional needs and balances.

''However, a broad and varied diet with reduced intake, developing

different food preferences, and more exercise would do the same trick --

and be more interesting,'' he added. But he conceded that weight loss

would be at a slower rate than that theoretically achieved through the

sudden switch to meal substitutes and the supplements in pill boxes.

''Cutting out sugar, full-fat milk, and snacking between meals could

make a surprising difference,'' he pointed out. ''Appetite research

shows that you don't eat more at mealtimes if you cut out snacks. But if

you eat raw fruit or vegetable before a meal, you'll get some starch and

fibre and can reduce your energy intake at mealtimes. It helps if people

eat more salads in the evenings. They can change habits and develop new

food preferences more easily than they imagine.''

He made some diplomatic remarks about middle-aged people and their

metabolic slowdown, leading to weight accumulation, and the facts that

men generate heat more efficiently than women, burning up their fatty

bits better. Yes, we menopausal lardy ladies have noticed some of that.

After a break, I'm now finishing off my pill and powder course so as

not to waste the #50, avoiding snacking apart from a carrot or apple.