Weight-loss diets and normal modern-day living really don't exist in a happy mix. What common sense may suggest is a good wholesome food is not quite what reality, or even the Weightwatchers diet, might say.

One extra special example of these is the opposite-of-famous ASDA cheese and tomato sandwich. Whoo. What harm could it do, a slice of bread or two, a smattering of dairy produce and some humble vegetables (sorry, fruit). The Poorhouse will tell you exactly what harm: 16 and a half points of mother-lumping harm.

Context time: on the Weightwatchers diet known slightly misleadingly as "Full Choice" you tend to be able to eat somewhere in the region of 20 points a day. A day, not a meal. The Poorhouse nearly exploded in shock when the Weightwatchers Eating Out Guide(*) revealed the truth behind the ASDA cheese sandwich.

(*) apparently chomping away at a plasti-sandwich at the supermarket cooler constitutes "eating out" on this particular dietary plan.

Not many desperate dieters will be especially satisfied with having a mouldy old cheese sandwich that has already been vacuum packed and shipped around the world a few times after being made with ingredients you almost certainly will be better off not knowing where they came from - and then having to wait a day until they can eat again.

Let's do some comparisons. For the badness (which under normal, but perhaps not these, circumstances correlates to deliciousness) of an ASDA cheese sandwich you could instead kick that synthetic triangle to the curb and get your teeth around two and a fair bit of Mars Bars. If three's your lucky number, and you have found a Japanese restaurant that corresponds to the Eating Out Guide's definition of Japanese food, then you'd be actually doing yourself a fat-losing favour by troughing down 3 portions of deep fried icecream instead. Make your choice.