Friday, January 27, 2012

Hugs in the workplace: Acceptable or personal-space invasion?

By Debra Auerbach, CareerBuilder Writer

The hug. It's a simple gesture that can make a happy situation happier or help someone overcome with sadness feel a little better. Studies have shown that hugs can actually make a difference in one's health; research out of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill found that a hug can lower blood pressure and reduce the harmful physical effects of stress.

Hugs are thought to be so beneficial, there's even a day dedicated to celebrating the gift of a hug. Jan. 21 has been deemed "National Hugging Day," and according to the organizer's website, the day was "created for family and friends to hug often and freely with one another."
Yet when it comes to hugging in the workplace, the act may become less of a kind gesture and more of a liability. According to a survey by staffing agency The Creative Group, seven in 10 executives interviewed said embracing co-workers in a business setting is inappropriate.
"The thing about hugging in the workplace is that if it makes anyone uncomfortable, there can be legal ramifications," says Donna Flagg, workplace communications expert and author of, "Surviving Dreaded Conversations." "And because of hostile work environment and sexual harassment suits, innocent hugging is always vulnerable to being construed as something else -- that is, something not so innocent."
So is hugging a co-worker or showing any signs of physical affection ever acceptable? Or is it better to avoid any gesture that could be considered a personal-space invasion? While opinions may differ, here are some things to think about when going in for an office hug:
Consider where you work
To determine if hugs are tolerated in your workplace, first think about where you work. The type of company it is and the culture it promotes may give you some clues as to whether signs of affection would be encouraged. Is your company more by-the-book or is it laid back in its methods or practices? Does the company culture encourage working in teams and being open to others, or is it more of an independent, cut-throat, every-man-for-himself environment?
In addition, the type of field you work in can make a difference. If you work in a more corporate environment, affection may be frowned upon. But some fields -- health care for instance -- may be more open to hugging, and the act may even be part of the job.
"In my world, there are times when hugging is the most appropriate thing to do," says Dr. Diane Radford, a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer. "There are times when I interact with patients that giving or receiving a hug is part of the whole spectrum of communication ... A hug can be a reassuring way of indicating they will be OK, but I'm there if they need me. One has to be astute and know when a hug is the right thing to do. In my workplace, it often is the right thing to do."
Take cues from others
It's also important to keep in mind that everyone has different comfort levels when it comes to public displays of affection, especially with people who aren't family or close friends. While you may love giving hugs, they may make your cube mate uncomfortable.
"Recognizing that not everyone shares the same personal-boundary line is essential to maintaining a pleasant and professional workplace environment," says Roshini Rajkumar, national speaker and communication/image expert.
"Remember that personal touch is not about intention, but rather, how it is perceived by the person receiving the touch. If they are uncomfortable, then the touch is wrong. Be aware of co-workers' personal boundaries before entering into a 'physical relationship' with them, no matter how passive or limited the touch."
Respect cultural differences
Someone's comfort level for workplace affection may be influenced by their age, upbringing or cultural background. While some cultures embrace hugging, others show respect or thanks in other ways, so it's important to keep such differences in mind.
Also consider one's gender and role within the company. Hugging someone of another gender could more easily be misconstrued than hugging someone of the same sex. There may be sensitivities around hugging a boss or subordinate but not necessarily around hugging a peer.
"Keep in mind the recipient's gender and ethnicity," Rajkumar says. "Different cultures have different boundaries...Generations have different expectations as well. Today's younger generation is more touchy-feely, while the older generation is more formal."
Watch how you hug
There are different ways you can hug someone, and they can mean different things. Hugging from the front or back may be awkward, but a casual side hug could appear less threatening and personal.
"A big smothering bear hug may not be appropriate, but the handshake and one arm around the shoulder hug -- which tends to be more of a hit-and-run type of hug -- could work fine," says Regina Barr, founder and CEO of Red Ladder Inc., a consulting, executive coaching and speaking company. "The latter hug might be more comfortable for folks in the workplace, because it's a hybrid hug."
If in doubt, handshake it out
"If you work in a friendly/casual environment, you may be able to substitute hugging for handshaking, but when in doubt, don't hug," Rajkumar suggests. "It's usually best to err on the side of caution when it comes to physical displays of affection. Consider a big smile and enthusiastically clasping your hands together while you express gratitude verbally as an alternative." Rajkumar also recommends high fives or shoulder claps as some other ways to communicate physically without overstepping.
While there's no right answer to whether or not hugging in the workplace is appropriate, there's still no argument that a good hug can make someone's day a little brighter. Just make sure it's warranted and welcomed.
Debra Auerbach is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com and its job blog, The Work Buzz. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Giant Greenhouses Mean Flavorful Tomatoes All Year

March 31, 2010

By CHRIS LADD

Madison, Me.

AN icy mixture of rain and sleet fell on the glass roof of Greenhouse Two at Backyard Farms here, but as its big blue door slid open and the warm, green, celery smell of tomato plants wafted out, it was summer.

When it was built three years ago, the company’s first 24-acre greenhouse in Madison was already the largest building in Maine. This second connected greenhouse, completed last year, brought the total area under glass to some 42 acres, or roughly the size of 32 football fields. Even in the depths of winter, a million tomatoes ripen indoors to harvest each week, snipped from their vines by workers in T-shirts and shorts.

“It’s medium sized,” said Tim de Kok, one of the company’s head growers. At his last job, Mr. de Kok managed a 40-acre chunk of a 318-acre monster in Arizona. The center of Canada’s greenhouse industry, the area around Leamington, Ontario, has some 1,600 covered acres, roughly equivalent to putting Manhattan, south of Houston Street, under glass.

Once, if you wanted tomatoes out of season, you mainly had to settle for hard pink ones picked green in the fields of Florida or Mexico and shipped by truck. Commercial greenhouses could do better, but they were a niche market.

Backed by consumer demand for fresh tomatoes year round, the indoor acreage devoted to growing tomatoes has become nearly six times as large since the early 1990s, said Roberta Cook, a marketing economist who helped write what many in the industry consider to be the definitive report on greenhouse tomatoes in 2005.

Those tough pink ones are still good and cheap enough for most fast food restaurants and the food service industry, which buy about half the fresh tomatoes sold in the United States. But with shoppers willing to pay a premium — even $4 to $5 a pound — for red vine-ripened ones with more flavor, greenhouse tomatoes now represent more than half of every dollar spent on fresh tomatoes in American supermarkets, according to figures from the Perishables Group, a market research firm in Chicago.

“In the U.S., it’s hard to be competitive without a 20-acre minimum block,” Ms. Cook said.

The plants here at Backyard Farms number about 550,000. Each consists of two plants — the vines of new varieties, constantly tweaked for flavor, color, freshness and myriad other traits; and the roots of another, grafted together at a thickly scarred “V” near the base.

One half grows down into a sterile dirt-substitute made from fibers spun out of volcanic basalt, absorbing a custom hydroponic cocktail mixed by Mr. de Kok. The other half stretches toward the glass ceiling, growing a foot every week along a nine-foot length of twine. When the plants reach the top, workers reel more twine from the spool, shift the entire row horizontally and band each vine to its neighbor so that by the end of a plant’s life it might grow parallel to the concrete floor for as many as 20 or 30 feet, a dozen vines tangled together like garden hoses, before each makes its own graceful turn upward.

“It’s like a bonsai tree — you have to treat every plant exactly the same,” Mr. de Kok said. “As soon as it gets uneven, that’s when it starts to get away from you.”

He sat at his desk with three monitors recording temperature data, carbon dioxide levels, light readings measured in joules per square meter, and countless other figures from sensors scattered throughout the glass building.

To compete in a more crowded market, where increased supply eroded price, many exploit technology to scramble for tomorrow’s hot tomato.

“There is a tremendous variety of tomatoes available, thousands of cultivars,” said Tom Papadopoulos, a senior research scientist at Canada’s Greenhouse and Processing Crops Research Centre in Harrow, Ontario.

In the mid ’90s, beefsteaks were the dominant contributor to greenhouse revenue. Then it was tomatoes sold on the vine, the principal crop at Backyard Farms. They are medium-size fruit, round and firm, and are sold in clusters of four to six.

Today, as tomatoes on the vine grow commonplace, many companies are going small — cherry tomatoes, or grape, or campari, larger than cherry and smaller than tomatoes on the vine. Backyard Farms recently introduced a new line of cocktail tomatoes on the vine, similar in size to Camparis and sold in clusters of eight and packaged in cartons like Tomato McNuggets.

“They’ve got strawberry tomatoes in greenhouses now — that’s a special variety that also has great flavor,” Ms. Cook said. “What I find is the smaller ones tend to be the good ones.”

While the diversification is industrywide, the ability to grow many generations of greenhouse plants in a single season allows breeders to introduce those varieties more quickly, Mr. Papadopoulos said. Advances in genetics have allowed breeders to cross-pollinate precisely for control over specific attributes like size, color, disease resistance, firmness for shipping and levels of acids and sugars, the balance of which accounts for the bulk of a tomato’s flavor. Too little sugar turns fruit tart. Too little acid turns it bland. Too little of both leaves tomatoes with little flavor.

As tomatoes ripen on the vine they develop more of those sugars and acids and other flavor elements. But most of the major farms growing tomatoes that are sold fresh year round are in areas where the climate is more hospitable to varieties best picked green.

By creating their own climate — whether in Arizona, Maine or Canada — greenhouses allow growers to pick and ship tomatoes only when they’re ripe.

That’s a major advantage. And while no one would mistake a Backyard Beauty for a tomato picked from a backyard in late summer — it is not as tender and its flavor is not as complex — it is juicier and has much more flavor than what you’d find in your deli sandwich.

“They don’t make a tomato that my grandmother would have liked,” Mr. Papadopoulos said. “They make a tomato that my son would like or my daughter would like.”

Some of the technical advances that have allowed for these changes don’t even seem like technology.

Twenty years ago, the millions of blossoms on these vines would all have been pollinated by hand, electric vibrators shaking pollen loose from anther to pistil every 48 hours. Today, that work is done by bees, shipped in cardboard hives from Michigan that are stacked seven high at the end of the rows.

Aphids, when they’re found, are kept in check by a small species of wasp, no bigger than a flying ant, that lays its eggs in the pest’s larvae.

Lately, the greenhouse has been experimenting with interplanting young plants alongside older ones so that when one generation is discarded, the next is already yielding fruit. The aim is a continuous flow of production, tomatoes ripening fully on the vine year round and landing in outlets as far away as Maryland within 24 hours of harvest.

“Continuous production cycles, that is important now as the market becomes more competitive,” Mr. Papadopoulos said. “If they’re out of production for two months, people who buy tomatoes will go somewhere else, and maybe they will forget to come back.”

For instance, the majority of growers in Canada’s greenhouse capital, Leamington, are unable to produce the year round because, experts say, there simply isn’t enough light to grow tomatoes there profitably in midwinter.

Backyard Farms is some 130 miles farther north of that Canadian city. To compensate, it employs some 20,000 high-pressure sodium lights, fueled by cheap power from Madison’s town-owned hydroelectric plant. Switched on, the lights use as much electricity in 32 minutes as the average American household does in a year. Some of its 200 employees wear sunglasses.

The environmental costs of pouring so many resources into a tomato is a touchy subject. Backyard Farms’ chief executive, Roy Lubetkin, when pressed, pointed to biological controls like the wasps that allow the company to grow tomatoes without pesticides, and to the four-acre reservoir of reclaimed rain runoff that supplies, almost exclusively, their irrigation water. And because there is no dirt at Backyard Farms, fruit needn’t be washed.

“It’s real sunlight, it’s real rainwater, these are real bees,” he said. “What we’re really doing is allowing nature to do its thing.” But which is greener, a field tomato shipped to Maine from Florida or one grown in-state in a greenhouse? “We’re redder,” he said.

Across from the four-acre reservoir of recycled runoff, hidden from the road, are three very large propane tanks that serve a boiler system that keeps temperatures hovering around 70 degrees year round.

Two enormous tanks, filled with carbon dioxide, stand on end beside them. The gas, fed along the vines in perforated plastic bags, adds bulk to the fruit and speeds growth. The tanks suggest that greenhouse tomatoes, while delicious, aren’t particularly green.

Such were the findings of a 2005 study by the British government that compared the ecological footprints of tomatoes grown locally in heated greenhouses with those grown in fields and imported from Spain. Even taking into account emissions from an additional 700 miles of shipping, the local greenhouse tomatoes were still responsible for emitting nearly four times more greenhouse gases than the imported fruit. Barring some advance in heating or lighting, or possibly even in the tomatoes themselves, such is the cost of perpetual summer.

Inside at Backyard Farms, the bees zip around the crates, workers and tomato vines that stretch on to the faint glass horizon. Through a door at the end of Greenhouse Two, pallets of tomatoes are boxed and ready to be loaded onto a truck. On this morning, they were suspended from their vines. By this time tomorrow, they’ll be back indoors, under supermarket lights.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 7, 2010
An article last Wednesday about

tomatoes

grown in giant greenhouses misidentified a variety that Backyard Farms in

Maine

produces. It is a cocktail tomato on the vine, not a cherry tomato on the vine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/dining/31tomato.html

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Wives, work and guilt: Bread-winning mothers tell of being 'torn' over leaving children each day

By BECKY BARROW, BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT

Last updated at 8:38 AM on 23rd January 2012

Bread-winning wives who earn more than their stay-at-home husbands are crippled by guilt about ‘abandoning’ their children, research reveals today.

About 1.4million families in Britain rely on a high-earning woman whose husband or boyfriend is raising their children full-time, or works part-time.

In this dramatic reversal of the traditional family set-up, four in ten mothers said they are ‘racked with guilt’ about leaving their children while they go out to work.

Stressed: Many working women find it painful to leave their children at home

The study of 1,200 mothers also reveals resentment among many bread-winning wives who feel they are ‘struggling to juggle it all’. One in five said they feel as if they have two full-time jobs because they also have to do the bulk of household chores when they get home.

One mother told the researchers: ‘I sometimes feel taken for granted. He puts his feet up the minute I get home and expects me to take over.’ Another said: ‘He says he does the housework but it is often half a job. I’m still expected to cook the meals and wash up.’

And a third mother said: ‘The children are much closer to my husband than me. I shouldn’t resent it but I can’t help it. It makes me so upset.’

According to the latest Office for National Statistics figures, record numbers of mothers are working full-time despite having a child as young as six months old. There are 2.25million women, whose youngest or only child is under the age of four, who have a full-time job. There were 1.9million in 2003.

Jealous: Some women feel resentment that their husbands are closest to the children

The issue is being exacerbated by the fact the average working woman in her 20s earns more than a man the same age. It means her salary is higher than her husband’s at the age when many women have their first child, typically 29.

The crippling cost of childcare as well as super-size mortgages means many couples have no choice but to stick with the higher earner’s salary when deciding who should stay at home.

Jill Kirby, author of The Price of Parenthood, said: ‘Women are increasingly changing their traditional roles, perhaps because their husband has lost his job or because she earns more than him. But they are not finding it easy.’

ONS figures show that, in 1997, men earned 5.9 per cent more than women in their 20s. In 2005, women earned more for the first time. By 2010, they earned 2.1 per cent more, rising to 3.6 per cent today.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the number of mothers working full-time has risen at the same time. In 1997, there were 4.5million such mothers with children under the age of 19, rising to 5.02million this year.

Yet despite the feelings of guilt, just 5 per cent of bread-winning wives want to change places with their partner, the survey by insurers Aviva found.

Spokesman Louise Colley said: ‘It’s possible that some women are making their lives harder than necessary by trying to do everything.’

12 secrets of being happy: Using research from 100 world experts, a new book shows how to look on the bright side

By LINDA KELSEY

Last updated at 6:46 PM on 23rd January 2012

Every time I saw my father in the couple of years before he died, he would say: ‘Tell me Linda, are you happy?’

I think he knew he was coming to the end of his life and wanted to reassure himself of my well-being.

Maybe it would have been kinder to reply: ‘Yes, Dad, I’m happy.’ But my relationship had come to an end after more than 20 years and the future looked bleak.

Value happiness: Happiness can be learned, but finding meaning and a purpose in life is what leads to it, not the other way around

I found myself saying: ‘Right now, no, but I will be again, I’m pretty sure of that. And you’re not to worry. No one can expect to be happy all the time.’ And yet it seems the pursuit of happiness has become a national preoccupation.

Eminent economists, politicians and psychologists debate endlessly about the best way to create a happy society, while David Cameron’s ‘happiness index’ aims to pin down just how content we are.

Plenty of woolly self-help books exist which promise to unlock the secret of happiness. Just last week, the Institute of Economic Affairs concluded rather prosaically that money had a large part to play.

More...

But I’ve found, when my life isn’t going to plan, there are plenty of simple things that help — for starters, my friends, my son and my dog. Then there’s walking in the countryside, getting lost in a good book, learning something new, still being a size 10 as I approach 60, a new recipe that turns out well. The list is endless.

But a new book tries to probe deeper. In it, you won’t find spiritual philosophy, but evidence-based material that aims to unlock the secrets of happy people. In the World Book Of Happiness, Leo Bormans has drawn together the research and discoveries of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of happiness. Researchers have questioned thousands of people and what he has discovered is as surprising as it is inspiring.

ACCEPT WHAT YOU HAVE

Research shows that happy people have modest levels of expectation and aspirations — they want what they can get — while unhappy people never seem to get what they want. They also know how to avoid disappointments and how to generate pleasant surprises. This is because they strive for realistic goals and are happy with their lot. As Dr Jose de Jesus Garcia Vega, of the University of Monterrey, Mexico, confirms, we must accept things as they come.

‘We spend a lot of time complaining about the things that happen to us, but this is a waste of time and effort,’ he says. ‘To be happy, we need to enjoy what we have.’

ENJOY WHAT YOU DO

Happy people do what they enjoy and enjoy what they do — and don’t do it for the money or glory. There’s no point being stuck in a job you hate, surrounded by unfriendly colleagues just because the money is good — people forget that they are allowed to be happy at work, too. Many spend the best years of their lives trying to make money, sacrificing their health and family in the process, says Dr Garcia Vega. Later, they spend the same money they made working trying to recover their lost health and estranged family.

LIVE FOR TODAY

Don’t dwell on the past, on things that went wrong or previous failures. Similarly, don’t dream about an idealised future that doesn’t exist or worry about what hasn’t happened yet. Happy people live for the now; they have positive mind sets. If you can’t be happy today, what makes you think tomorrow will be different?

CHOOSE HAPPINESS

Don’t be afraid to step back and re-evaluate your goals. Imagine your life as a story that you can edit and revise as you go along. This kind of flexible approach requires positive thinking and an open mind — you need to actively choose to be happy.

NICELAND
Iceland has the happiestpopulation, while Britain came ninth in a world survey

‘You always have the freedom to choose the manner in which you wish to approach any given situation,’ says Dr Garcia Vega.This theory is backed up by Ingrida Geciene of Vilnius University, Lithuania, who researched the happiness of people in 31 European countries.

She found that ‘voluntarists’ (people who feel they have free choice and complete control over their life) were happier than fatalists (people who think little can be changed by personal intervention).
Luckily for us, Northern European countries contain more voluntarists while Latin European countries such as Spain and Italy have a higher percentage of fatalists.

RELATIONSHIPS

We get our happiness from other people, and from supporting other people. Remember that just as other people can make us happy, we are all ‘other people’ to someone else. And cherish people who are important to you. Research also shows that married people are happier than single people.

STAY BUSY

If you want to be happier, develop an outgoing, social personality — accept that drinks invitation, join the walking club, book group or choir. The best way to savour pleasure is in the company of others. Build a rich social life, says Eunkook M. Suh, a psychology professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, not as an obligation, but because it is rewarding, meaningful and fun.

Active, busy, social people are the healthiest and happiest, in society. Get involved: make your motto ‘use it or lose it.’

In the World Book Of Happiness, Leo Bormans has drawn together research from the world's leading experts on the psychology of happiness

DON'T COMPARE

Ambition is healthy and makes people happy, explains Claudia Senik, a professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, but envy makes them unhappy. Yet comparisons with others can spoil the benefits of ambition and are only useful if you learn something from them. Focus on your goals and dreams so you can enjoy your ambition and achievements.

BE YOURSELF

Just as you shouldn’t compare yourself with others, it’s important not to worry about what others think about you — then you can truly be yourself.
Happy people are spontaneous, natural and real; they say what they think and feel, and aren’t concerned what others think of them. Being oneself makes one feel free and authentic.

STOP WORRYING

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Happy people don’t worry and they recognise that 90 per cent of worries never come true.

GET ORGANISED

You might envy those laid-back bohemian types who just do things on the spur of the moment, but don’t be fooled. Happy people plan and organise, they have goals and a purpose. You can only get what you want or desire if you know what it is you want or desire in the first place. So while those chilled-out friends might seem happy, they’re actually just drifting along.

THINK POSITIVE

Bottling up emotions and bad feelings creates psychological distress and physical discomfort. Happy people get things off their chest, their motto is: get rid of it, or it will get rid of you. Similarly, work at developing optimistic thinking; happy people always look on the bright side.

Successful athletes know to focus on winning, not losing, explains Miriam Akhtar, one of the first positive psychologists in the UK. We need to switch from a negative, glass-half-empty outlook to a glass-half-full and put optimism into practice to be happiest. Optimism is the mind’s natural self-defence mechanism against depression.

VALUE HAPPINESS

Happiness can be learned, but finding meaning and a purpose in life is what leads to it, not the other way around. The happiest people appreciate and realise that being happy adds years to their life, and life to their years.

How I banished my baby belly

Celebrity mums ping back into shape in weeks, but how easy is it for real women to regain their figures? One mother shares her diary...

By CLAIRE GOLDWIN

MONTH ONE

Start weight: 11st 5lb

End weight: 11st

During both my pregnancies my downfall was chocolate. I’d have a medium-sized bar of Dairy Milk and a Mars bar every day. Both times I put on about two-and-a-half stone. Last time, I lost the weight by refusing chocolate and cutting down portion sizes, and it took about five months.

I’m going to follow the same plan this time and exercise at home on the Wii, too, when I’ve got more energy. Harry wakes up every two-and-a-half hours through the night for feeds, and I am exhausted all the time from looking after two children.

MONTH TWO

Start Weight: 11st

End weight: 10st 10lb

It’s been a good month! I’ve been strict about having only one treat night a week, when I’m allowed chocolate, and I’ve been monitoring my portion sizes — I’d got into the habit of eating the same amount as Dan. I may still be overweight and frumpy, but at least I no longer look pregnant. I’m finally starting to rediscover my waist and have been able to squeeze into some of my old skirts. I was feeling very good until I met up with a friend who had a baby at the same time as me. She lost all her baby weight within a month, while I’ve still got a long way to go — it did make feel like I’d failed a bit.

On the plus side, Harry has started sleeping from 11pm to 5am and it’s really helped me to find the motivation to start exercising. I had to wait ten weeks after the birth for the Caesarean scar to heal, but I’m using the Wii for 30 minutes, three times a week — doing step aerobics and hula-hooping. It’s easier to fit into daily life than going to the gym and I don’t have to organise childcare. I’ve also been trying to find time for myself and as a treat had a full-body massage. I felt self-conscious stripping off for the masseuse, but it was so relaxing I fell asleep.

MONTH THREE

Start weight: 10st 10lb

End weight: 10st 13lb

The month started well and the weight came off quickly. I packed away the last of my maternity clothes. Harry even started sleeping through properly. But it all went downhill from there. Dan trapped a nerve in his back and was signed off work for six weeks and told to rest. I’m so exhausted from looking after Dan as well as the kids that I feel I deserve to treat myself, so I’m back to a bar of Dairy Milk a night. I’ve managed to go swimming a couple of times a week, as Dan can babysit in the evenings, but it hasn’t been enough to stop the weight going back on. I feel horribly demoralised.

I don’t think I’m an easy person to live with at the moment — poor Dan can’t do anything right

MONTH FOUR

Start weight: 10st 13lb

End weight: 10st 2lb

Dan is back at work, so it’s been easier to get back into a routine. I’ve been on the Wii Fit for 40 minutes every day and have even been for a 40-minute jog. Exercise definitely makes me feel more positive. My size-12 skirts are still a little snug, but I can fit into two pairs of my pre-pregnancy jeans, and my belly is a lot flatter.

My main issue now is my flabby arms. They’re the part of me I’ve always hated most, so I usually avoid wearing sleeveless dresses. I’ve been doing arm-toning exercises — bicep an tricep curls holding tins of beans, which I do when Dylan’s having a nap. Harry is very good, he lies on his back, watches me and gurgles. In general, I’m really pleased to see my figure coming back. I’m looking in the mirror more and making more of an effort with my appearance — wearing make-up and figure-hugging clothes. I’ve started undressing in front of Dan again and, because I’m happier about my body, our love life has improved.

MONTH FIVE

Start weight: 10st 2lb

End weight: 9st 12lb

This month I’ve really noticed changes in how I look — I’ve lost weight off my face and my figure is starting to look like it did before I got pregnant. As a result, I’ve been feeling really positive — and have hardly been nagging Dan at all. I’ve been managing to stick to my healthy lifestyle. Dan has been trying to eat healthily, too — he gave up smoking recently and put on nearly a stone — and it’s really nice to do something together. He’s also been paying me lots of compliments, telling me how sexy I’m looking, and how well I’ve done.

I’ve been doing a lot of walking with the children, as it’s been difficult to do so much exercise at home because I’ve started weaning Harry and potty-training Dylan. I seem to spend most of my time cooking and washing these days. That’s the difference between celebrities and the rest of us — they have help with the children and the housework.

MONTH SIX

Start weight: 9st 12lb

Finish weight: 9st 9lb

I didn’t make my target of 9st 7lb but I’m so close I’m still delighted. At times it felt like a slog, so I really feel I deserve to have my hourglass figure back. I’ve felt so positive about my appearance, I even treated myself to blonde highlights for the first time since having the children. I used to have them done regularly and since I went to the hairdresser I’ve been smiling every time I catch myself in the mirror. Dan says it reminds him of how I looked when we met.

I’m back at work in a few weeks and there are girls in my office who always look perfect, so there’s always a bit of pressure to look good. I’ve been planning my new work wardrobe — my body shape has changed and my hips are bigger — so I’m not sure my smart work trousers will fit any more. My style has also changed since having Harry. I’ve worn more dresses and skirts while I’ve been on maternity leave, and friends tell me they suit me, so I’d like some more feminine clothes.

Now I’ve got my confidence back I’d love to lose a little more weight, even get down to 9st, but if I don’t lose any more I’ll be happy anyway. I am never going to be skinny. Celebrities may get their figures back within six weeks, but I think it’s easier if you’ve got personal trainers, chefs and nannies at your beck and call.

It’s much harder doing it on your own, and while it may have taken longer for me to reach my target, I am proud of what I’ve achieved.