My first encounter with macrobiotic culture was when I was a child living in Marrakech in the Sixties, sharing a house with some other hippies. I was obsessed with animals, especially cats, which were numerous and everywhere, some of which I made my pets.

To my disgust, our macrobiotic-eating hippy friends fed them chickpeas instead of meat, which I thought wrong, and I vowed I would never eat macrobiotic food.

Thirty years later a friend told me about a book called Unexpected Recoveries by Tom Monte, a renowned macrobiotic counsellor based in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Even though I'm an alternative-medicine fan I can't bear those kind of books but I'd found that I had serious liver damage and would have to take heavy medication for a year to cure it, so I read it.

It was riveting and illuminating, with its case histories and weird recipes. Macrobiotic eating is all about balance and avoiding extremes of tastes such as a spicy curry followed by exotic fruit. The idea is that if you eat too much rich, salty food it sets up a desire for its opposite.

You need to eat food that oxygenates your blood so that if you get an illness your immune system is raring to go.

I thought I was a careful eater because of a lifetime of stomach and headaches: wheat and dairy-free, a natural hatred of butter, garlic and raw onions. Now I was entering a different league.

This new way of eating was so rigorous that I actually felt uplifted by the challenge. Out went meat, eggs, sugar, pasta, anything tinned or processed, all dairy, bread and baked goods, tea and coffee.

In came fresh vegetables, seaweed, pulses cooked in a new pressure cooker with kombu seaweed to make them digestible, fresh goat's cheese, miso soup, Japanese noodles, grains like millet, quinoa, brown rice and brown rice syrup and Japanese kukicha tea.

In the book, some case histories had described losing a lot of weight at first then balancing out - mine fell off, even though I was already slim. The body fascists kept telling me with concerned faces how terrible I looked. How dare they! They would never have been so critical (to my face) if I had become fat.

What I found hardest was making time to cook a proper meal. I just don't want to. My favourite is a thick piece of toast with goat's cheese or marmalade.

I was busy designing three different collections, writing a beauty column, fundraising for my charity, the Hoping Foundation, and looking after my little boy. When I get hungry I'm starving - and I want to eat immediately.

I had a couple of cooking lessons with nutritionist and shiatsu practitioner Ina Poljak, who produced spreads of nutritious, tasty food.

I even got her to cook us a family lunch in the hope of persuading my husband to join the new regime.

He likes nothing better than a cheese soufflé followed by belly of pork so he didn't really get it - he continued to cook rich dishes for him and our son while I ate yet more aduki beans with squash.

It does sound grim but I was feeling really good! After a year I had cleared my liver of its virus, my weight had normalised and my skin was amazing. Going to a restaurant was relatively easy, I ordered fish with vegetables or occasionally indulged in a risotto - hold the cheese and butter, please.

Everything that is sublime about the ideal macrobiotic meal can be found at one place I know. It means a trip to Paris, a walk down Rue de L'Abbaye in Saint Germain-des-Prés to Guenmai.

There a woman with the figure of Jane Birkin in skin-tight jeans and thigh-high boots brings the dish of the day, a dainty array of cooked grains, vegetables, pulses and protein. This can be followed by apple tart with the thinnest pastry. I used to order the whole menu twice, the food was so wonderful.

It was endearing to see the owner sitting outside smoking - modern macrobiotics is about enjoying yourself, though they wouldn't condone cigarettes.

There are no macrobiotic restaurants in London but there are places where you can choose some elements: The Gate in Hammersmith and Manna in Primrose Hill are great vegetarian restaurants, while Café Ravenous in Portobello Road has a buffet of raw and cooked salads and a hot main course. You can even sit in a yurt in the garden.

Most people, so the stats show, give up macrobiotic diets after two or three years.

And you start to break the rules until you eat what you feel like.

I only reached that point because the macrobiotic diet had restored my body and strength - for me that is a triumph.