Monday Monday

Monday - a fresh start.  A new week.  Let's start again.  Out come the diet papers which glare at me and speak into my head "you're not doing it right".  So, determined to crack it, I weigh everything I eat and write it all down.  I can see now where I was going wrong (I think).

I soon rack up 12.5 syns of my 15 a day allowance and, after an afternoon gardening, I blow it by having a glass of Bacardi and Coke whilst soaking in the bath to soothe my aching back and bones.  Bliss.  Wasn't that deserved after such hard work?  May be not, I just gave way to temptation.  I could have just had Diet Coke but the words 'treat' and 'reward' buzz through my brain.

Why?!!!  Why do we use food or drink as treats/rewards?  When did that happen?  It goes back decades.  After the war and the end of rationing it must have been a 'treat' to have foods freely available again.  It was one of the rewards for winning the war - no more queueing for bread or meat.

Diets are about rationing ourselves.  Trying to go from 'enough' and 'plenty' to limiting our intake.  I remember petrol being rationed in my younger days.  I don't recall it causing us too much bother but if that were to happen today it would be tragic.  Children would have to be walked to school, bike sales would rise and public transport would not be able to cope with the increase in passengers.

Exercise was an every day natural occurrence in my growing up years as we walked without thought or complaint.  We cycled joyously and carefree - no helmets and joint pads then.  How times change - everything is handed to us on a plate now - literally.  We leave our front door and sit in our cars just to go to the local shop.  We ring for cooked food to be delivered to the house and the weekly shop is ordered on-line and brought to us by van.  Walking is reserved for holidays and high days - along the beach or on a day out in the country.

So with those thoughts I finished the gardening, walked to the postbox and back and did my sit-ups.  Surely the calories 'in' didn't outweigh the calories used up in energy and I was safe to partake of my rationed tipple?

Bring back 'rationing' I say.  A word little used these days and even less exercised.  Ration computer times, ration working hours, ration time in the sun, ration our greed and complaints.  Ration our minds to think 'less is more' - less food is more energy.  Quality not quantity.

No-one starved when ration books dictated their food stocks.  People made the most of what they could get and made meals that went further.  How on earth my mother made shepherds/cottage pie on a Monday from left over meat on a Sunday I'll never know, but she did.  I remember pushing the meat into the barrel of the mincer.  The metal contraption was screwed onto the side of the kitchen table and I turned its handle and watched the mince fall into a bowl.  How lazy we have become buying minced meat already minced!  OMG now I know I am old!