Having been relatively slim all my adult life (apart from four pregnancies), I was disappointed and upset to say the least, when part way though the menopause in my early fifties, I looked permanently about four months pregnant.

I tried exercise, but as my work at the time involved humping furniture and heavy boxes, in the house clearance business, I was not convinced that this was the answer. I was getting plenty of exercise, but tried doing ten sit-ups every morning for a week, and wondered why it hadn't made any difference.

I have to say that I was happy with the rest of my body, but my bulging belly was an embarrassment. If you have ever been there, wearing baggy shirts over trousers to try and conceal it, you will know how I felt. I could never tuck anything in as it only emphasized my belly.

The turning point came when I read an article in my daily paper about food combining. Several years previously we had bought a cookery book on food combining, read a few recipes and put it on the bookshelf with the other cookery books. It just looked too complicated. However, this article made it look so simple we felt we should give it a go.

First of all the article explained WHY food combining was good for you, and what happened to your digestion if you failed to combine foods properly.

Then it discussed the HOW of food combining, which is what I am going to describe now. The single most important piece of information to remember, and it was this that was like a light bulb coming on in my brain, is that meat or other protein is digested by acid, whereas carbohydrates use alkali for digestion. Even I could see that acid and alkali react with each other, and therefore neither protein nor carbohydrate are properly digested, so we end up with a grumbling mess in our stomachs.

To add a little excitement to this, many of us end the meal with fruit; when faced with the conglomeration of rotting and undigested meat and potatoes, the fruit gives up the fight and ferments.

It is quite likely that at this stage you will say to yourself "I feel bloated, I've eaten too much". Yes you are bloated, but no you haven't eaten too much, just the wrong combination of foods.

First of all, fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach. Breakfast is the best time, and you can eat as much as you like, certainly enough to keep you satisfied until lunchtime. You can also have fruit as a snack between meals.

The article that I read suggested that water is the only refreshment required, that tea and coffee, and even alcohol are acquired tastes, that we actually have to learn to like them. I have to own up that although we drank more water than usual, we still drank tea, and red wine.

My husband and I decided we would give it a go. I was not the only one with an excess around the middle, my husband had had a beer belly since his teens. He enjoys his food, and also enjoyed the meals between meals, Mars bars, crisps, and in the evening Stilton cheese and biscuits, and hot chocolate to go to bed with! I would join in with some of the treats, but have never been an overeater. At the start of our change of eating habits, my husband weighed 11½ stone and I weighed 10 stone. Now he weighs 10 stone and I weigh 9 stone.

In the four months that we practised this new regime, we both ate only fruit for breakfast, usually a banana and some melon or grapes, sometimes strawberries. Any fruit will do. Frequently, I bought my breakfast on the way to work; one large banana cost about 18 pence, not much more than a bowl of cereal and milk, and a lot less than a full English breakfast!

At lunchtime we would have a salad with fish, meat, egg or cheese, or in the winter home-made vegetable soup and multi-grain bread.

In the evening, the main meal would comprise protein (poached salmon, chicken fillet, etc) with at least three different vegetables - always broccoli, carrots and cauliflower, sometimes more. And we still enjoyed our glass or two of 'medicinal' red wine.

The only thing to remember is not to eat protein and carbohydrate at the same meal. Vegetables can be digested by either acid or alkali, so lunch and dinner should comprise either protein (meat, fish, cheese, eggs etc) and vegetables or salad, or carbohydrate (potatoes, pasta, rice, bread etc) and vegetables or salad.

Before you start thinking that it all looks very complicated, you have to remember that as long as you make food combining your general rule, it doesn't hurt to break the rules occasionally.

Avoid buying junk food. Gram for gram it actually costs less to buy fresh, and does you and your family more good. We still gave our children pasta, chips or potatoes at most meals, but they didn't notice the difference if they had the occasional meal without. Especially a good stew, they did not even realise there were no potatoes in it.

I wrote the foregoing ten years ago, and have only changed the tense in some places. Food combining has become part of our life, except that we now have porridge for breakfast with skimmed milk. My husband makes batches of home made soups, and a few months ago I got my bread-maker out again, so we have beautiful fresh seeded bread every day.

Our main meal in the evening still comprises protein and vegetables, without any potatoes. About once a month we will indulge in 'comfort food', like a home made curry and rice, or seafood pasta.

If we have snacks between meals it is only ever blueberries or other fruit in the afternoon, and sometimes some dark chocolate in the morning (four squares each).

Our weight is still the same, and we both have flat stomachs still!