Fit and fab in a fortnight

Halfway through the first set of press-ups, it dawned on me how difficult the next two weeks might be. I had belatedly realised that the holidays were approaching and my good intentions to deal with spotty skin, wobbly upper arms and feeling tired all the time - symptoms common to the stressed working mother - had gone by the board.

And now it was all too late. Or was it? Could I make myself feel better, look better and get fitter in a fortnight if I got the right advice?

If I changed my diet, found a straightforward exercise routine and sneaked in a couple of beauty treatments, would it be enough? Any regime would have to be simple and practical enough to be slotted into work and family life.

Long experience has taught me to start with the experts, to avoid false starts. At The Third Space, a swanky gym in Soho, I found Bill Stoppard. One of their senior and most diplomatic personal trainers, he did his best not to look dubious at the prospect of making measurable improvements in such a short time. I'm not in bad shape, but the only exercise I do is cycling to get around.

"Your goals should be realistic," said Bill. "You're not going to lose a huge amount of weight in two weeks, but you will see a difference in the tautness of your muscles, and you'll get the psychological benefits, too. Two weeks of having something to strive for can get the ball rolling in terms of exercise."

Dr Simone Parkinson, a blonde bombshell armed with a PhD in longevity and internal pollution who is head nutritionist at Third Space Medicine, was more gung-ho. "We can do that! " she said breezily, when I held out a roll of stomach for her inspection.

Working out properly with a trainer was something I hadn't done before, and it was an eye-opener. If you can find the right person with the right personality for you, just one or two sessions can be enough to give you a whole new take on the tricksy subject of exercise, to identify your ability and your goals, and work out how to make the exercise a sustainable part of your life.

I wouldn't be able to cope with a toughguy, shouty sort of person, but Bill was composed and endlessly encouraging. He drew up a couple of manageable alternating programmes to work at on my own, and pointed out that a 40-minute workout is plenty to make an appreciable difference, if you do it three or four times a week.

He made me try skipping (exhausting, and so much harder than it looks) and boxing for variety, as well as many different machines. Desperate to not be a pathetic failure, I tried as hard as I could.

A press trip to the south of France threw a spanner in the works. There was far too much pink champagne about - I drank my fortnight's quota of alcohol on the first afternoon - and after late nights playing boules and dancing in cabaret clubs, my early morning attempts at exercise had to be abandoned due to sudden-onset of nausea.

Yet, miraculously, by the halfway stage, I was still on track. I'd even lost a kilo or two, though that wasn't the primary aim. (Simone wasn't surprised. "All my clients drop a couple of kilos in the first week," she said.)

After that it all became much easier. When I wasn't feeling shattered from all the exercise, I felt good. My muscles snapped into shape fast - the phenomenon of muscle memory at work (if you have trained muscles before, they'll come back remarkably quickly). Bill upped the weights, encouraged me to sprint as fast as the treadmill would go, and to try full press-ups.

We even went rollerblading, which I hadn't done in 10 years. But the key thing was knowing how to motivate myself by realising that a lot of the achievement in exercise is mind over matter. If you start a set of crunches thinking: "I can do 20, yes, yes yes," you're far more likely to get through than if you start believing that it's an impossible hurdle to surmount.

Meanwhile, there was the food. Simone's philosophy is straightforward. If your body was a fabulous, sexy car, you wouldn't fuel it with cheap diesel. You'd give it what it needs; the right balance of protein, carbohydrate and fats, and no junk. I thought I didn't eat much junk, but in the food diary I kept for her, there was a surprising amount of white bread, chocolate, cappuccinos and alcohol.

Her aim is to remove emotional issues from the whole process of eating, to stop foods being "good" or "bad". To get back into, say, a favourite pair of jeans doesn't need a major exercise in deprivation - it needs an action plan. You need to choose to eat well. She tested my blood and urine, examined my tongue and eyes, and drew up a list of dos and do nots.

This sounded good until I contemplated the reality of a fortnight of no wheat, no dairy, no red meat, no tea, no coffee (unnecessary stimulants; if I needed a "kick in the pants", advised Simone, I'd get it from the supplements she'd prescribed) and almost no alcohol. No fun, really. It's not impossible, it just feels a bit joyless.

After 24 hours without my usual five large mugs of tea, I had a cracking detox headache and making fudge with the children for Father's Day without eating half of it was agony. It didn't help that we had visitors for the weekend, which meant catering for a dozen who tucked into croissants, pasta and puddings with gay abandon. I rarely eat any of these things except in company, but I hate appearing faddy in front of guests, with my soya milk and gluten-free muesli.

During the week, I was so busy with work that there was little time to think about food. Deli salads, cottage cheese, crispbread, apples and mixed seeds provided adequate fuel, and in the evening I got out of the kitchen as fast as possible after supper.

My husband, disgusted by the reappearance of tofu in the fridge, took to frying himself steaks and the children were amused by the array of expensive liquid supplements I have to drink. Simone doesn't believe in vitamin pills (she has seen too many emerge, entire, during colonics).

Soon, to my amazement, I stopped yearning for tea and the discarded corners of the children's toast. Despite a stream of parties, I didn't miss alcohol. I'd assimilated Simone's psychology; it wasn't something I needed right now and besides, the fun of the parties is in the company, not the drink.

Such virtuous living is all very well, but I still didn't feel very glamorous. What I needed was the beauty equivalent of a fivestar, full-valet carwash with wax and polish, to add some serious gloss.

A Crystal Clear Oxygen facial with the A-lister's favourite facialist, Linda Meredith, provided the basics, gently scouring my face with abrasive crystals to remove dead skin and allow greater penetration of the oxygen-rich serum which follows. My skin was noticeably plumped up afterwards. "Think how good it would look after a whole course," mused Linda.

At Groom, a few doors further along Beauchamp Place, I enjoyed one of their signature high-speed beauty overhauls: two therapists working in synch managed to perm and tint my eyelashes, tidy my eyebrows and pedicure my feet within an hour. Lashings of Estée Lauder's skin-illuminating Perfectionist serum and a lightning "Airport 1" tan from a St Tropez specialist added the finishing touches.

Two weeks on, I am clearly stronger and slimmer, with enhanced energy levels, abs of steel and a nicely developing deltoid/bicep tie-in (that's technical-speak, Bill told me, for Madonna-style arms).

Yup, I'm feeling impossibly pleased with myself. The silly thing is that I know all this is logical result of what I've been doing - heck, I write about the benefits of good diet and exercise almost every week - yet I've never managed to finetune my own habits to make a real difference before. And I can nearly do two sets of 20 press-ups. I'll be doing them on the beach, just to show off.

So, have you got two weeks before you go away? What are you waiting for?

2775); for other Crystal Clear salons call 08705 934 934. St Tropez tans, from £40: for salons call 0115 983 6363.