However, despite being cold enough to warrant wearing four pairs of socks, it seems that the festive party season – yes, apparently Christmas has its own season now – is looming, threatening to tear that mug of super deluxe hot chocolate from my frozen, chilblained hand. Just when we thought it was safe to put down the celery stick in that mad rush for the instant perfect ‘bikini bod’ we’re now urged to drop a dress size for the baby Jesus.

Aside from the shopping and general family feuding, Christmas is a time when not really much else apart from eating and drinking takes centre stage. From the turkey and the cheeseboards to Santa’s whisky and Rudolph’s carrots, everyone stuffs themselves silly at Christmas. So, why the pressure to slim down? The timeless little black dress and the hour-glass silhouette: these are enduring and iconic images that a lot of women still aspire to. In my It’s a Wonderful Life ideal version of the holidays, there’s snow, carollers and the prospect of a cheeky kiss under the mistletoe, alongside candy canes and litres of Baileys.

In these dreary winter months our bodies command us to go ahead and store up the blubber reserves for our natural period of hibernation; this involves fish and chip Fridays and pub lunch Sundays. So, one dreary morning, whilst having coffee and cake with a group of friends, we start to talk about the lunacy of winter dieting. We discuss gym memberships, Atkins diets and Weight Watchers points and reach the conclusion that we are either too lazy, too poor or too mathematically challenged to be bothered with any of these. Then someone mentions slimming pills, available online without prescription and usually bundled with a load of other free dietary supplements to make the expenditure worthwhile. She said that she had considered taking them in the past but had been scared off by the health warnings and reports that she had heard from other friends. Despite this, I couldn’t help thinking that this avenue might be worth pursuing, so I turned to Google.

Diet plans: that’s a serious investment of time and effort that I just can’t commit to. A dietician: an expense too far. Diet pills: limited effort and relatively low cost - just what I’m looking for and the answer to all my anxieties concerning festive fitness.

While I may be eager to streamline, I’m not entirely narcissistic and I wouldn’t put my body in any serious danger, especially not for journalistic integrity. We all know that slimming tablets are bad for you and probably won’t work, yet we still seem to be funding this booming industry. It seems that with our hectic modern lives, instantaneous and low-effort solutions are most attractive.
I want to make it very clear that I didn’t go into this naively; I was fully aware of the possible consequences and I'd promised myself that it would only last for as long as I felt relatively OK and was able to function coherently. Digging into the world of slimming aids uncovered a whole host of complications related to diet pills. These range from the relatively mild nausea and headaches, to insomnia and heart palpitations. So any pacing the floor or excessive dusting at five in the morning and the pills were out – and I would be back on solids.

After a bit of researching I stumbled across Apidexin. This slimming pill does much the same as the rest – speeds up metabolism and increases lean muscle mass. From my research, carried out before entering headlong into this experiment, I found it almost impossible to find any contact details for this company apart from an email address. Moreover, it says that their ingredients are ‘patent pending’. Needless to say, this didn’t instil me with confidence.

There are many brands: Silver Slim, SlimBurn, but I go for the Slim Bomb (drastic times, drastic measures). They say that they burn fat, suppress the appetite and boost energy. These ‘blue bombs’, as they’re referred to by those in the know, contain caffeine and green tea leaf extract. That's according to Dplan UK’s website, which is where, amongst the tooth whitener and spot cream, I purchased these wonder pills.

It sounded to me like a more militant coffee and cigarette lifestyle, so what would be the difference? Hopefully my waistline, as the website suggests, "It’s not called the BOMB for nothing." For the bargain price of £34.95 I receive 160 slimming capsules to last me 40 days, a free 30-day course of slimming patches and some ‘Pu-erh’ tea. According to the label, the Slim Bomb uses thermogenesis technology, which I’m patronisingly informed by a herbal remedy website means "simply the creation of heat in your body" produced from all the calories that my body will be effortlessly melting away. They also claim that no special diet is needed; you can continue your daily cheesy chip routine, but because they act as an appetite suppressant, you’ll merely find that smaller portions fill you up faster. Four tablets a day before three o’clock and I should be on my way to little black dresses and mistletoe.
They arrive in fairly good time, time enough for me to have one last binge. I headed to a reputable Marchmont café for cake and an Oreo milkshake. I started on Monday.

Day one: the sun wasn’t so much as shining as piercing through my curtains, as I rolled up and realised that it was time for tablet number one. It’s recommended that you take the pills before eating, so I wash one down with a smoothie and head off to the shower. The day passes, lectures, seminar – on the West Indies sugar boom cruelly enough – I eat lunch (tuna sandwich) and head home. Anxious to see some results as soon as possible, I realise that I’ve munched down all four tablets and it’s not even two o’clock. I don’t feel much, apart from a keen awareness of everyone eating in the library café, and all my conversations begin to centre on food, culminating in detailed accounts of what everyone has, is and will be eating. I feel positive and upbeat, excited at the distinct possibility of waking up the next morning built like Kate Moss.

Tuesday is a disappointment. Not only do I feel more like Grant Mitchell than Miss Moss, but I’m restless. I don’t think I’m at the stage yet where smaller portions magically fill me up like a full-on roast dinner would – Yorkshires and all - so I can’t tell whether it was hunger keeping me awake all night, the enthusiastic saxophone player next door or a kind of caffeine high from the Bombs. Either way I’m not entirely at peace with the world and the day grumbles by. Nonetheless, I stay disciplined and manage to take all four tablets before three that afternoon. By five I’m losing them down the toilet again.

If I had to give one defining characteristic of the Slim Bomb, they make you feel below-par, queasy, nauseated, simply sick, and not at the most convenient of times either.

After Tuesday’s events, it seemed as though the flood gates had opened and I just couldn’t stop anything from giving me one last farewell. I think during the week I managed to keep two meals down. I use the term ‘meal’ loosely; as I was so afraid I’d yawn all over anyone whose company I happened to be in, I’d taken to eating small, dry food - mainly nuts and dried fruit. So yes, I was eating less, but not because the ‘blue bombs’ were speeding up my metabolism and making me feel fuller on less, but because I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to hold it down. So the week continued in much the same vein: vomiting, moaning and crying - a lot of crying. It seemed that the pills had much the same effect as gin does: they turned me into an emotional wreck. The slightest things would set me off: holes in tights, bringing a blue biro instead of a black one to class, getting full-fat milk instead of skimmed in my coffee.

So, if I wasn’t being sick all over my nearest and dearest, I was unleashing a barrage of emotion, which usually ended in some kind of silent rage and me storming off to sob uncontrollably for a solid five minutes or so. I can only suppose that this outburst of emotion was the result of a lack of decent sleep and decent carbohydrates. This seems to be a common story where slimming pills are concerned. Another University of Edinburgh student, who spoke to me once they realised I was writing about my experiences, told me that she had been given tablets by an American friend who had praised their effectiveness. However, her experiences were far from pleasant: "I had no appetite whatsoever. I also couldn’t sleep properly and eventually went three days without sleep. I got seriously depressed, and the worst part was that in the end I ended up considerably fatter than I was to begin with!"

Thus the story of Friday goes. Our flat were hosting a dinner party, followed by a stint to a nightclub. I’d taken all four pills and I was ready to enjoy some gorgeous grub. All went well, the wine was flowing and I successfully tucked away a generous helping of shepherd’s pie and enchiladas. Then we hit the town, more alcohol, more jumping and swinging on the dancefloor. It wasn’t until we returned home that it all went downhill. That famous mistress, Betty Crocker, had made a stunning birthday cake earlier in the day, and a tub of her chocolate spread lay a top the dining table. Of course, in a fit of drunken hunger, I proceeded to almost lick out the entire tub, with dire consequences. Needless to say, all that cocoa, chocolate and preservatives was a step too far for my shrunken stomach to cope with.

My digestive system and I were not on the best of terms for a good part of the next day, but not wanting to get five days in and then ruin the experiment, I soldiered on. When I had peeled my head up for long enough to take in my surroundings I realised it was rather dark outside; I had taken my daily dosage, but it was eight o’ clock at night, a good five hours over the recommended time limit.

Saturday night was eventful. I managed to rearrange all my books in height order, get album artwork for my entire iTunes collection, Facebook rape the profiles of a number of good friends and finally iron my towels. It seems that the three o’clock deadline is a wise idea, otherwise it’s virtually impossible to sit still, and shutting your eyes makes you feel like you’re falling down a very deep, dark well. Not only was my brain racing, but that started me off thinking about heart palpitations. Convinced I would experience an anxiety attack at any moment, I scrambled for the NHS Direct phone number and was on the verge of giving them a distressed call, until a documentary about the Girl Guides on BBC iPlayer caught my eye. After these surreal twilight hours the ‘blue bombs’ were violently dumped.

I couldn’t even last the whole seven days. It was a nightmare. I felt sick, emotional, tired and just generally miserable. Despite this, I was willing to undergo these traumas if ultimately I would see some results. Admittedly, I wasn’t taking the Slim Bomb for long enough for it to exact any noticeable weight loss, but after all that I had gone through – near starvation, humiliation – I wanted some kind of justification. I chose not to tell anyone what I was doing, and it seemed that no one noticed. Apart from looking wrecked, unsurprisingly no one commented on my non-existent new svelte figure.

I probably will never be a size zero and so I’m definitely back on the mince pies. Oscar Wilde may have thought that "it is better to be beautiful than to be good" but I would much rather be able to hold down three meals a day and smile when things go bad than be skinny and miserable. There’s no real way of cheating weight loss, but the hardest thing of all is to be happy with yourself first. This Christmas, I am holding on to my curves and my sanity.