WANT to drop a dress size without giving up the food you love? asked last night's Cook Yourself Thin' (Ch4).

Erm, that'll be a definite yes.

But of course, as always, there was a catch. The main one, as far as I was concerned, was that shovelling Big Macs and Cadbury's creme eggs down one's throat wasn't allowed.

The new cooking show works on the premise that to lose weight we don't have to ban foods but instead just swap the components of the meal for healthier alternatives.

So last night's "victim", takeaway addict 36-year-old Jill from Middlesex, was shown how to replace her usual fast- food burgers for home-made spicy burgers, and greasy Chinese takeaways for lean chicken stir-fries.

All well and good, you might think.

Except that, as you would rightly expect, the healthy food looked nowhere near as appetising as the calorie-laded shop-bought treats.

But Jill seemed happy with the new cooking methods and all was well until I spotted a line in the end credits which said that the dramatic drop-a-dress-size results were partially due to her new exercise regime as well.

Well that's just cheating then, isn't it?