I’VE felt a tad despondent this week.

Trudging around like Eeyore. On a bad hair day.

No, it’s not because Johnny got booted off X Factor — although that didn’t help.

It’s because I put on three pounds in weight.

The thing is, it’s not the three pounds that has annoyed me. I’m more down about the fact that I have joined the calorie counting brigade.

You see, for many, many years I’ve openly laughed at (mainly) women and their diets. All that “ooh, go on, I’ll have a custard cream but can you scrape the middle bit off it for me”, and “ooh, I shouldn’t have had that piece of chocolate and bacon fudge cake fried in lard”.

After a while, you can only hear so much about points, superfoods and red and green days, or the latest faddy non-eating nonsense, before that voice in your head starts screaming: “JUST EAT A BIT LESS AND DO SOME EXERCISE! THAT‘S ALL YOU NEED TO DO!”

So I’ve not had much time for dieters who constantly harp on about how they've lost this or gained that.

I mentioned a few weeks ago how Mrs Short and I decided we needed to shed a few pounds ourselves, using the tried and tested “more exercise” plan.

It’s not that we’re obese or anything.

I mean, I had a six pack. I did. It’s just that I’d cracked open the cans and poured them into a carrier bag, so to speak.

And OK, it’s true I was puffing and panting just getting my trainers on before the first workout.

Anyway, we’ve been steady away with the exercise and eating a bit less in recent weeks and it’s working well. She’s been kicking my butt at our weekly weigh in, but we’ve both been seeing the results.

Until last week.

Maybe it was the fact I missed a couple of workout sessions.

Or the two portions of fish and chips, mint choc chip Cornetto, bag of candy floss and several beers I had at the O2 North West Media Awards the night before the weigh in. (Incidentally The Bolton News was highly commended and our reporter Miranda Newey was named best young journalist. Have that!) Whatever the reason, I put on weight for the first time. I felt horrible. When I got back to the office I told Jane, who sits next to me, that I now planned to cut out the 62 calorie instant soups for lunch — they were obviously to blame. But as soon as the words left my lips it hit me: I had become a calorie counter.

A diet bore. I had turned into one of those (mainly) women and become what I had despised.

And that, dear reader, is why I’ve been feeling down.

Who knows where it could lead to?

Am I just a step away from wailing about that size 14 trouser suit I won’t be able to fit into in time for the Christmas party? You know, the one that goes with that nice top?

OMG!