LOCAL weight loss organisations have been offering advice on how to shift those post-festive season pounds.

Never one to let a bandwagon pass without trying to leap aboard, I have some tried and trusted tips that I’m happy to share with Swindon Advertiser readers, free of charge.

They may seem a little counterintuitive but I promise they’ve always worked for me.

You may have been told that cheese is a major no-no when it comes to losing weight, but the exact opposite is true as we embark on the New Year.

If you look in your fridge you should find plenty left over from Christmas. Not the ordinary stuff, which will have been eaten within an hour or two of being taken out of its packaging.

No, the stuff you’re after is the two or three pounds of special cheeses you bought from the supermarket “because it’s Christmas” and had to put in a sealed plastic box sometime before the end of Doctor Who because it stank the house out.

What you need to do is get that out and put it on a plate – but you haven’t finished yet.

While you still have the fridge open, find that imported jar of weird pickled objects you bought in the deli section of the budget supermarket because it was on special and you were a bit drunk.

The chances are that you can’t read the label and have forgotten what the little sign on the shop shelf said, but no matter. Whatever is suspended in the murky brine, be they vegetables grown in the shadow of a nuclear power station or some tentacled, eyeless horrors which may or may not have had shells when alive, all is well. Next, go to the cupboard and seek out the box of dates which only has one date missing because only one was eaten before the little plastic date-impaler snapped and everybody grabbed a handful of crisps instead.

If you didn’t buy any dates for the Christmas just gone, simply look further into the cupboard for the box from 2014 or 2013 or whenever. Don’t worry about sell-by warnings; if the country named on the “Produce Of” label still exists you should be good to go.

Don’t forget the substantial remains of that too-large meat joint you bought, which is now so gamey that even the dog turns up its nose and gives you a look that says: “Nah, I’ll stick to tearing open the neighbours’ bin bags, thanks.”

If you’re truly dedicated to losing weight, you’ll want to supplement your food with an appropriate beverage. Remember that bottle nobody at your celebrations could bear to do more than sniff the contents of, not even your fun-loving uncle who’s been known to sink a cheeky bottle of aftershave?

Well, that’s the bottle you want.

Having gathered all your New Year diet items, simply place them on your dining table and consume them at a sitting.

You might want to choose a weekend if your beverage is a spirit, and especially if it purports to be a brand name spirit but the label is spelled wrongly.

Over the next few days you may notice some alarming weight gain, but fear not.

It should be at least May before you can think of eating again without gagging, and by that time your body will be beach-ready.