A little of what you fancy does you good

In the News • Published 24 Feb 2009 11:00

BEING a reporter is a great job. I truly believe that. But occasionally it involves a level of personal sacrifice most Communist regimes would consider unreasonable.

This week for example, I am on a detox as part of a piece for our quarterly lifestyle magazine Time For Me.

Now I don't consider myself an indulgent creature, and many of the dietary requirements have posed no problem at all.

I like almost all fruit and veg, and have been a convert to green tea for some time, I love fish, I'm not averse to a salad, I could quite happily do without red meat, white bread and pasta for a while, and I'm not massively into caffeine, cakes, biscuits and pastries.

Or so I thought.

In ‘Big Yellow Taxi' Joni Mitchell sang "you don't know what you got ‘til it's gone."

Granted it may have been intended as a prescient treatise on how we treat ol' planet earth, but I have chosen to impart an altogether more selfish meaning on the song this week.

For I am a man of simple pleasures, and for me, my morning cup of coffee is not simply instant granules carelessly stirred in 80 degree water from a machine that makes strange noises.

It is an oasis of sensory stimulation at my desk that I use to arm myself for the day. Doing without this has perhaps been the hardest thing of all so far, on day four of seven. (Yes, seven. I know, I'm pathetic)

Obviously booze is out, but this hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be (thankfully it's not a rugby weekend) even though I revere a cold beer or glass of red wine almost as much as my coffee.

Having no choice but to stare longingly at the glorious dark chocolate I was bought last week has also been tough.

So far, I've not noticed a great deal of difference in how I feel except I seem to be sleeping heavier and my wallet is lighter having spent so much on fruit and veg. I've definitely had a craving for sweet things, even concepts as egregious as the "chocolate limes" left cruelly strewn about the office by taunting colleagues have become appealing.

Lessons learned include: Soya milk is the work of the devil; anyone can do without white bread as a basic step towards a better diet; but most importantly, as my Gran used to say, ‘a little of what you fancy does you good'.

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This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 24 Feb 09

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