Bon appetite!
Bacci, booze and sausage rolls? By Saffron Watson
You want to turn over a new leaf for the New Year and for your own well being, to un-tag yourself from clichéd meanings?
Then here are some home truths to help you get your bad habits off of your back
and reinvent yourself.
Food fight
I was discussing health with a friend the other day,
we always have health warnings shoved to the back of our throats, but we should
be cautious of what we put in out bodies. But it’s tricky around this time of
year we hit the ‘wall’ and shovel in the Malteasers non-stop. Like me, I bet
you love to indulge in a good Maccy D’s every now and then. But have you seen
what’s in them? Even though they now show us the good-bad stuff, we don’t look
at it! But when you do you’re in for a shock. We can dribble over the keyboard
on our PC whilst scoffing our Big Mac, to see the nutrition values for adults
and children (www.mcdonalds.co.uk) and this is what we’ll see; Adult 490kcal. It’s not
bad. Only 45% of our daily amount of calories, for you counters out there. But
the fat is 10g which is 45% of our GDA. Not good. You don’t want to see the
salt, that’s why it tastes so great and why you’re ‘lovin’ it’. If you think
that your info is in trouble, well a child is more endangered at old Mc
Donald’s acting as a money thirsty predator ready to inflate your bundle of
joy. The intake of fat is the same amount of grams as Adults but their GDA is
56%. Whoops. (If I were you reading this, I’d whack out the manly muscles and
rugby tackle the nearest child eating a Big Mac to save their life.) The salt
is a horrific 70% the same 2.1grams for us adults but children are more at
risk. So if you’re a mother and you ‘fast food’ I’d reduce your time at
‘restaurants’ like these, or get the salad bags, one of your five-a-day y’know.
Our Booze battle
So you’ve heard the
word on counting units of alcohol. Instead of counting on your fingers, there’s
an app for it on your android phone or Iphone (if you’re lucky.) So we all like
our booze. A tipple ‘o’ wine in the evening after a long, hard day at work. But
when is ‘when’? When do we stop and let it become a low sedative for a lovely
kip? Until it gets to the point where we’re unconscious on the floor snoring with
a massive fly trap…very attractive. If this becomes a routine every night, how
does it affect our lives? Our work life? Social life?
With 17 million days
lost each year due to hangovers, I think we should swap the cider for apple
juice don’t you? Especially with all the old bills and their Christmas
campaigns to stop drink-driving. Dr Selman says that drinking can make us “anxious,
have impaired judgment, loss of consciousness and potential poisoning.” Now we
don’t want to be in the emergency services at 2.00am with a stench in our mouth
that repels any nice looking chap eh? Do we really want to be the one craving
attention at a party, spilling everyone’s drinks on our new dress? And
statistics say that one in 25 of us are dependant on our drink, so maybe we
should tone it down to a couple of glasses of wine a week, if we’re cheekily
having it every night! Otherwise the unmentionables happen; getting caught for
drink driving (or worse), drunken mistakes, and the most embarrassing of all.
Texting whilst drunk.
Beat the Bacci
A huge problem here
in the UK is that two thirds of us start smoking before we’re 18. This can be
due from jibes on the playground or we’re just so stressed out that we need
something to calm us. The worst thing about this drug (other than the cravings
it gives us) is that it burns a hole in our pocket where the government put a
tax on it. Everything we enjoy or need has a price (you know the one, begins
with ‘P’ and ends with ‘etrol’). If everyone stopped smoking, they’d find
something else. Like cheese. There’d be rehabs all over because of the
delicious cheddar. I think we should go a few years without MP’s and see how we
go… I know that the first drag of whacky backy may make us relax and unwind,
much like the sneakily having that Crunchie between breaks at work, and (away
from the hole that you work in) the Rosé you’ve been saving for a ‘special
occasion’, but after you have one you feel rough and stressed again. You can’t
get enough. Becoming more dependant on the tar can make you unappealing to the
opposite sex; yellow finger nails, coughing up phlegm and of course the smoky
breath. Instead of spending time with our loved one’s we’re outside in the cold
Christmas weather puff puff puffing; gradually getting ill from the cold in the
winter time, and from the clogging in our lungs from our obsession. Not very
Christmassy at all.
Help is at hand
There’s help for
everyone with their addiction. You’ve seen the adverts with the sad children
doing a message for their parents to stop smoking. You’ve heard the phrase ‘you
can do anything if you put your mind to it’ well; we might as well at least
try. By putting those Galaxies in the ‘secret’ stash, try those candy sticks
instead of a Marlboro, and maybe drink a bit of squash. Also the sport squash will
take away the calories from your Big Mac too! What have you got to lose?
Hopefully a couple of pounds…
