If an army marches on its stomach, then so too does an expedition. Nutrition is our ammunition against the elements. helping us to keep warm and to meet the gruelling physical demands of each day.

To counter any potential weight loss, long before the onset of the expedition, we were all carefully closing any copies of Vogue, tucking away any skimpy little numbers to the backs of our wardrobes and tucking into unladylike quantities of food. As we trained, endlessly pulling old tyres, we added a few of our own to the waistline. This preparatory work, plus the three week delay in Punta Arenas, where the local regime is pizza and chips, rounded it, and us, off nicely.

On the expedition, from 5200 up to 6000 calories and approximately 5 litres of liquid is our requisite light daily regime. Light indeed, as we managed to pack it all into under 1.1 kg per person per day. A tricky equation, and the solution is a menu that might appear to be thin on the ground for variety but does manage to embrace the requisite protein, carbohydrate and fat.

Protein

In a nutshell, our daily rations include sufficient nuts to feed a squirrel through his millennium hibernation and a large slab of cheese with our evening mug of soup.

Carbohydrate

This is provided in the two biscuits in our daily rations, in our evening supper dishes and in our breakfast porridge.

Fat

Fat, including 100 grammes of butter each per day, is hard to escape. This is a lot of butter, and it happily sneaks into anything from your evening supper dish to your breakfast porridge. Further fat is found in our nose bags - our daily ration bags - which are chock-a-block with Marks & Spencers milk chocolate, plain chocolate, nut and raisin chocolate, pistachio chocloate and - just for variety - a sliced Mars Bar.

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At the same time, liquid intake is crucial. One dehydrates rapidly, both from the extreme cold (through the mouth) and sweat. In these circumstances we require up to 5 litres of liquid daily. As there are no taps in Antarctica, this equates to at least one large stuff-pack of high quality snow bricks. From the moment the tent goes up, to when the tent comes down, the water production - or the snow-melting production - line renlentlessly continues, under the terrifyingly efficient manning of Pom and Ann. Once inside the tent these two figures wield awesome power, for it is they who are also our in-tent chefs de cuisine.

Their menu, all served up in the grand full complement of one mug and one spoon each, if lacking diversity is nothing if not nourishing. A typical day's menu is as follows:

Early morning - tea or coffee, knocked back with multi vitamin pills and vitamin C.

Brekkers - porridge or cereal.

Daily rations - a nose bag, to be grazed from every hour, which consists of mixed nuts; two biscuits; one sliced Mars Bar and one and half tablets of chocolate. Occasionally, a deluxe bag might yield a Duchy of Cornwall biscuit or two; some Duchy fudge or maybe some white chocolate.

Luncheon - served alfresco with hot chocolate. Sometimes, chefs Ann and Pom will have had a cook-in and thrown various ration remnants into the melting pot and come up with various gourmet delights, such as fudge bricks, cut into delicate pieces with an ice-axe.

The cocktail hour - over soup and melted of cheese - is a real tonic, shortly followed by dinner a la carte prepared by Ann and Pom. Dehydrated dishes from around the world include Hungarian noodles; Indonesian rice, Indian chicken curry; Irish beef and potato stew, or Irish potato and beef stew. A bit of water boiling and it's a final mug of hot choccers and a slice of Mars Bar.

After this we sleep like tots, and our only dreams of food that might linger with us in our long marching hours are but whims... Caroline, of creamy mashed potato. Zoe, a pint and a cigarette at the Pride of Smithfield. Pom, a juicy fresh orange. Ann, a bottle of red wine in front of a roaring log fire and Rosie, - her husband William's sensational cooking, Barbara's cake's and Christopher's British pudding.

But in our stark Antarctican reality, really, we lack for nothing, and each day we give thanks for our daily grease.

Staying in touch,

The Fabulous Fat Girls.

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