Monday 7th January
For your New Years Resolution I mean, and more importantly have you given up giving up whatever it was you gave up yet? For some it will have been chocolate, for others cake, but maybe it was something a bit more serious like salt or sugar, or more mundane like bread and potatoes. Or maybe not even food but the really tough ones like cigarettes or dare we even mention it booze. And why in the first place did we ever think that giving up something would either work or be in the slightest good for us. A couple of years ago I gave up sugar in tea and coffee. Tea was pretty easy, after a few weeks I had forgotten I ever took it, but sugar in coffee has taken far longer to kick, and even now sometimes with maybe a slightly guilty look around me I still slip in a half-teaspoon, especially in instant coffee. But what good has it really done, I am still addicted to my daily almond croissant, which as I no longer take sugar in drinks I feel no guilt about at all. And don’t even let me near pannetone or rich fruit cake, with or without icing. Spotted dick and custard, golden syrup pudding, and any form of apple pie and I am there with my bowl like Oliver asking for more.
I have never really smoked, just pretended at parties, and for a while I affected a pipe. Easy to give those up, though the Christmas cigar lasted a while longer, and now I would run a mile from tobacco. Alcohol is more complicated, because I do enjoy an occasional drink, and while I can happily go for a week or two without a drink, the thought of never having another drink would be hard to swallow, much harder than a nice glass of port anyway. And the medical profession is quite split on the relative benefits or not of alcohol. But really – even if it is proven that giving up cheese, or wine, or actually anything you enjoy, will give you a year or two more of life – will those extra years be worth if it if your life is made miserable by your diet.
So whatever you have given up, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, and if you aren’t sure then just give up giving it up and enjoy.