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– or absence.

      Your goal is to feel whole, and enjoy your wholeness, entirely separately from men and the validation their attention gives us. The purpose of this book is to inspire you to embrace self-respect and to pursue your interests single-mindedly. As you. Not as a person who desperately wants to be chosen, and who thrives only on male attention and the validation it brings.

      The key to satisfaction, as the Man Diet will show, is not sleeping with another fittie or having a little affair with the married guy at work, or trying to lure that beautiful man from the gym on a date. Rather, it is entering a robust and respectful relationship with yourself. Yes, I know, ‘love yourself’ is the oldest and least well-explained piece of advice in the book. But if you’re a single woman or a woman with a dodgy relationship with menkind, the Man Diet will show you how to do it. Or, for those with a slight issue with the word ‘love’ in relation to themselves (my hand’s up), it’ll put you on a track to happiness as you, your own woman. The rest – finding Mr Right and all that – should follow naturally, though being your own woman is the primary goal here, and a brilliant end in itself. The Man Diet is for anyone who wants to feel her best – particularly if she’s finding it hard as a single woman.

      The ‘Mix and Match’ Diet Plan

      If you’re a perfectionist and someone who likes drastic measures, you can do all of the rules at once, cold-turkey style, but you’re likely to get frustrated or feel bored – much as with a food diet.

      I prefer a more flexible approach – one of the reasons I like the Man Diet is that it’s perfect for mixing and matching rules, as well as the intensity with which you do them. I recommend picking anywhere from three to seven to do simultaneously at any given time.

      How do I follow the rules?

      The first part of each chapter explains the social context of the rule and why women may need it. At the end of each chapter there is a ‘how to’ that ranges from the general to the very specific.

      How do I know which ones to pick?

      At the beginning of each chapter is a guide to who will benefit most from the rule, along with which other rules they complement/work well with. When I started, Do Not Pursue (rule seven) was the one that felt most urgent. You will have a gut feeling about your biggest problem area, too. Some of the rules have to be done in their entirety right away – and Do Not Pursue is one of them. Others can be done to greater or lesser degrees, like No Talking About Men.

      Once I began relaxing my constant lookout for potentials, sending follow-up texts and so on, I followed my nose about the next rules to follow. I was doing well not pursuing men most of the time, but at night, after a few glasses, I’d feel my fingers twitch towards the phone. Equally, when I got home I’d head straight for Facebook. So next up: curb your drinking (rule two – and something I’d long wanted to do anyway) and No Facebook Stalking (rule three).

      The rest followed soon after, but you can’t expect to do them all hard-core at once. Start with your most pressing rule and roll them out. Do Not Pursue and No Facebook Stalking go together, for example, and Do Something Lofty with No Talking About Men.

      How long will it take to work?

      You can go on the Man Diet for two weeks, a month or a year (or forever). Its benefits kick in anywhere from within a day to a month of starting – long enough for lifestyle tweaks to really have an impact. And once you’ve felt its benefits, going back to the old attitudes and ways will probably be a bit less appealing.

      Doing something asexual/lofty (from reading a good book to doing a good deed) makes me feel like a stronger, more complete woman immediately. That’s because it’s an active rule. By contrast, something like cutting down on talking about men (rule four) can take a little longer because there’s more of a weaning period involved, for both you and your friends. But after a week or two – depending on how much you get to practise – you should notice a genuine rewiring of your brain and emotions for the better. For best results, employ as many rules as possible at once (though not all – as I said, you don’t want to get frustrated) and keep them going for a month to start with. The benefits will go deeper than that surface pleasure at having, say, picked up a difficult book or fought an impulse to stalk a guy on Facebook.

      Followed with some degree of discipline and passion (but also patience with yourself), you should manage to enhance your self-esteem in the long term, as well as sharpen up your act – as a woman and a person – overall. Other benefits of the Man Diet include flourishing at work, finding new outlets for creativity, and exploring new territory with friends.

      Do I have to do it forever?

      Not in the strict sense. You can do it for a week, or month or two months and feel the benefits. When you return to your pre-Man Diet ways, you’ll be more aware of what you’re doing, and how it affects you.

      Ideally, the Man Diet will give you a useful outlook, of which a part may become second nature after a while. You may choose to stick to certain rules as a matter of course – having tasted the freedom afforded by No Facebook Stalking, you may never open Facebook again. Other rules you may let slide. But the thoughts, feelings and ideas you’ll have while doing the Man Diet for however long will stand you in good stead.

      Will it drive me crazy?

      No. Quite the opposite – it’ll make you happier. Plus, the rules are a fun, not a gruelling challenge. I promise.

      I’ve been single for ages! The last thing I need is a Man Diet!

      Ask yourself the following questions and be really honest with yourself: Does the absence of men in your life get you down? Have you been rejected – perhaps more than once – in ways that make you sad or that lower your self-esteem? Are you spending a lot of energy plotting new ways to meet a decent guy to go out with? Does it annoy you that your friends constantly feel the need to discuss your romantic prospects with you? If you answered yes to any of these then you can benefit from the Man Diet. Because it is about emotional, not physical boundaries.

      What are the first signs I’m benefiting from the diet?

      Well, within a few weeks of Man Dieting, I lost a whole load of empty emotional weight. It was like an end to water retention and wheat-related bloating. I felt better psychologically and focused better on real things like work and books and good conversations, as opposed to the ever-changing shape of romantic possibility. The same will happen to you.

      The other thing that you will notice with wonderment is that with the men you do meet you will have better conversations because they won’t be so loaded with expectation. Whether they get in touch or not will cause you little wasted mental energy. For me, simply not conniving to get in touch (rule one) freed up a good bit. The saying tends to be: ‘No pain, no gain.’ Well, I found that on the Man Diet, it was more ‘Less pain, more gain’.

      Which would have been immoral, really, to have kept to myself.

      What if I fall off the wagon?

      You’re human. Get back on – and read the SOS sections at the end of each chapter. Honestly, this diet is not about deprivation and self-punishment – it’s about happiness and self-worth. I invite you to follow the diet as closely as possible, but when life takes you in a different direction, ask yourself why. Don’t beat yourself up about it! Sucky diets never work, anyway. Just ask the folks at Weight Watchers.

       Rule Number 1 Refuse to Have No Strings Attached Sex

      You need this rule if you …

      • Have lots of No Strings Attached (NSA) sex but it doesn’t make you particularly happy.

      • Feel crap when a guy completely loses interest after sex.

      • Always say yes because you:

      • don’t want to let them down

      • think they might like you more if you do

      •

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