She aims to put on a stone and a half in a year.

Each week Lizzie posts part of her diary describing how she is finding the challenge.

To sponsor Lizzie visit www.justgiving.com/lizziegrimaldi.

Diary entry: 11th January

I was wrong, it wasn't easier next time and I still couldn't finish lunch. Maybe tomorrow?

I'm not doing enough. I've wasted so much time. And I'm scared of how it is affecting me both physically and mentally. Lying in bed last night, freezing cold, I had to check my pulse as my heart seemed to have developed an irregular rhythm, then I kept waking through the night with chest pains. And my legs ache when I climb a flight of stairs. This has got to change or something is going to give out. Why do I feel I have to push my body to such extremes, what am I waiting for? I do feel like I have kind of lost momentum with this, and that I'm slipping back and getting complacent. Am I just using this as a smokescreen to keep me out of hospital. Time is ticking on and I'm still treading water. Stagnating.

Diary entry: 10th January

Hannah is right - I need to do something dramatic. It isn't just that I mustn't lose any more weight. I have to gain a substantial amount fairly soon otherwise she/I cannot justify keeping me out of hospital. Everything inside me is trying to fight it - to stave off the day when I make that huge leap of faith and "feel the fear and do it anyway" (irritating phrase but also irritatingly apt). So yes, it is going to be hard but we are going to try her giving me "normal" portions of food and me just getting on with the eating. Removing any element of choice. Try wriggling out of that one, gremlin.

It wriggled and wriggled, presenting every excuse in the book, but I did manage most of the sandwich Hannah made me. Big struggle though. Still, now I've done it once and can do it again and build on it. Next time will be easier. And it's ages until dinner.


Diary entry: 9th January

I can hardly bring myself to write anything. I am so disappointed with myself. I am now 6 weeks into this and I've got nowhere. Perhaps they are right and I do need to go into hospital. Sometimes I feel so strong and able, but other times... Maybe I should just roll over an put my hands up. Admit that I can't do it. But I must. I can try harder. I can do it.

Diary entry: 8th January

I'm like a bloody yo-yo. My weight is back down to what is was before Christmas. All that hard work in vain. It has shown me that although I don't necessarily like it all the time, having regular accompanied meals makes a big difference. How am I going to manage this? I wonder if I could persuade Barry to start coming home for dinner during the week. I definitely have to have lunch with Hannah as often as she can stand it. The practice nurse has also suggested having Clinutren as a supplement. As long as it is not like that ghastly Fortifresh stuff we had in the Priory when we couldn't (or wouldn't) finish a meal.

I thought I knew my body better that this. I thought I had managed to maintain what I had gained at the very least. Why do I find it so much easier to lose than to gain? The eternal loser, that's me. Waste of an ever diminishing amount of space. Now I have to plough my way through breakfast. Yum yum yum. I can't deny though, that there is still a part of me that, however warped, likes losing weight. And that is the part of me I need to destroy before it destroys me and everything for which I am working.

Diary entry: 7th January

I really need to stop hoping that someone else is going to do this for me. I have to stop blaming other people. It is my responsibility and it is only me who can do it. But that doesn't mean I have to do it alone. I need help and support and I have to learn how to accept it graciously. But I cannot assume that other people are going to know instinctively how to help - sometimes anything and everything is just the wrong thing to say or do at just the wrong moment. I need to lighten up and develop the ability to brush things off rather than dwell on them - who knows, maybe it was the way in which I perceived the comment rather than the way it was intended.

I have come to realise that if I just get on with the eating, and don't constantly go on about how difficult it is for me, my angst dissipates and I find it easier to JFDI. The minute I focus on how much/little I am eating, it snowballs. For example, last night Mim & Mikey came for dinner & as there wasn't a huge onus on what I was or wasn't eating (apart from the odd unloaded comment) it was far more relaxed & I managed to eat pretty well (even the ice cream). Now I need to keep it up, I'm being weighed tomorrow and I have to have gained some more weight. If I can get used to a regular weekly weight gain it'll become less of an issue than if it goes up one week and down the next. Then I can start to learn just how much I need to eat. At the moment I just don't know, it's a case of suck it and see. And swallow.