I HAVE always thought that I had a bit of a tummy.

Every woman has it that little bit of fat at the front of their stomach which you are constantly trying to lose in order to look like the image you have created in your mind of a flat stomached underwear model.

However, the thing that I always like to tell myself is that these super thin beautiful women are really miserable, mainly because they have to go to the gym constantly and just never eat.

The reality may be slightly different, but this is what I tell myself as I scan through magazines like Cosmo or Elle.

Now I have attempted dieting before. My mother has been diet obsessed since I can remember. She’s tried everything from Atkins to Weight Watchers – and I also remember a very painful period of cabbage soup.

However on the very rare occasions that I have tried to diet it has all gone horribly wrong!

I have come to realise that it is all mental because I can go for quite a long time without eating – not because I try but because I am lying in bed all weekend and can’t really be bothered to move.

But as soon as I tell myself I can’t eat – or at least I can’t eat certain things – my body acts like I have starved myself for days, when in fact I had a healthy salad less than 20 minutes ago.

By the end of the day my temper has reached breaking point as has my stomach and I’m scoffing down a packet of Maryland cookies in my bedroom so no one can see my shame.

Clearly dieting is not for me.

And this time seven weeks ago I sat at my desk and wrote that exercise wasn’t for me either.

In fact I think I wrote that all I really wanted to achieve was to be able to walk and talk at the same time without getting out of breath.

I’m happy to be able to report back and tell you that I have succeeded. In fact my fitness level has improved so much that I was able to knock those four minutes off my rope challenge this week and completed the entire thing in just over 25 minutes.

And although I almost started to cry towards the end of the whole ordeal I really pushed to get that time and genuinely felt so good when I achieved it.

So maybe I was wrong – maybe exercise is for me or at least this kind of exercise that Dion specialises in. To be honest as long as I don’t have to give up chocolate or binge eating cookies I can handle the exercise especially if it means I can look in the mirror and feel good.