There is a famous quote, that a lot of people purloin “I can resist anything but temptation”, and it certainly is true when it comes to me. Due to my lifetime of sitting behind a microphone I am prone to podge, after years of being reasonably skinny. Yet temptation is hard to resist, face it, if it was easy no one would smoke, everyone would be stick thin and no one would ever cheat on their partners. Perhaps some of us are prone to fall into temptations trap whenever it is possible. Just this morning I was out jogging (I HATE HATE HATE it!) and after about half a mile I spot a seat. There is no way I won’t sit on it! Half way through my jog, I will create a reason to ring someone, that might take up a bit of time and allow me to walk a few hundred yards to get my breath back. Yet as soon as I see a cyclist, a fellow jogger or a car, you can’t be seen walking, so you pick up the pace again, but just until they’ve gone, then you continue your slow plod. If someone catches you walking you have a few options, you look at your wrist, as if you are checking your fitbit (I am bare wristed but still do it), or you can bend double as if you are winded, your last gambit being the ‘I’ve pulled a muscle, but I’m still walking, limping but still going’. That last one scores you extra points. Then there is the ‘opposite sex’ situation. This is when you see blokes start to run like a gazelle whenever a female jogger appears, looking like they are not remotely in pain. Yet once they get around the corner you see them panting like a sweaty bulldog. Ladies on the other hand also pep up their step, not to impress, rather more to show they are the superior sex, and it’s obvious they are! The most important bit of a jog is that last few hundred yards when you get to your own street. They ALL judge you there! So make sure you’ve rested so you can bound around that corner like Usain Bolt, not stopping for a second until you reach your door, and then you look around, stretch a bit, and looking stunningly fit you stride inside. Of course you collapse on the verge of a heart attack once you are inside, and find yourself still on the floor ten minutes later. Everything aches, the surgical knee supports are pulled off, and it’s as if someone has removed your leg bones, and you wobble to the bathroom, to remove your sweat soaked clothes. You splash some water on your face, as you step into the shower to face the first cold blasts before the warm comes on. A bath is always better, but if I had one after a jog or working out I’ll fall asleep. Nothing worse than waking two hours later in a cold bath, looking like a crinkly ginger raisin. Some parts looking more like that than others. I know I need to lose a bit of weight, I’ve lost a bit, but it really seems like it’s never enough. I thought if I work out like a maniac, every day (AAAAAAAARGH) then I’ll be able to have the wonderful food out there. The experts tell me no!
How can anyone see a Crunchie and not want to eat it. To help us slimmers they made a baby sized Crunchie that was equally irresistible. Of course once you have one you think, that was only tiny, so you have another one. Then you think, you’ve eaten most of a big one, might have another one, then do an extra 15 minutes slog next time. You’ve had three, so you rationalise that if you’re doing an extra 15 minutes, you could probably have a fourth one then? That is how it goes. Then you spot that in this week’s shopping a box of four iced doughnuts. Your heart sinks at the thought of all the working out you’ll need to do to cope with all of that sweetness. What could you possibly do to cheer yourself up? It’s obvious, have a couple of doughnuts!
The reason I was diagnosed as a Type 2 Diabetic was my own fault. On a particularly hot holiday I drank gallons of fizzy sugary pop of various types. They had pineapple Fanta (WOW!), they had orange Fanta, but in the States it tastes like sherbet (DOUBLE WOW) and the usual Pepsi and Coke suspects. Every garage sells huge bucket size soda’s for 57 cents (about 35p), it’s called a Gulp. Temperatures for the entire trip was between 85 and 110 degrees, and I drank my fizzies like a demon. When I returned had a medical and my sugar level was the highest the Doc had ever seen. He said the average was 52 and mine was 147, henceforth I have been working getting my sugar reduced. Going sugar free with drinks was major to me, because I LOVE the fizzy. To my credit I have not touched a full sugar one since, and Pepsi Max is so close to full strength Cola that it does the job.
If I were to start listing all the things I find irresistible it could easily fill the page. The foods that I should eat could too but they are broccoli, spinach, asparagus, radishes, tofu and similar. When I mention this a vegetarian or vegan leaps out to tell me how I’m missing out. My producer Hollywood Tony McShane sometimes tried to sell me the benefits of his Nutribullet. A blender that turns the greener vegetables into a drink. The result was a green slime that slid down his throat, moving like vomit, and tasted like fresh sticky snot. They tell me, ‘But it’s good for you!’. I can’t deny that it probably is. ‘They’ told me it was best for me to move South if I was to work in broadcasting, on TV ‘they’ told me that I should move South for it to take off, and ‘they’ told me to move to Los Angeles following my successes on US TV. You have to do what you think is right, and it’s the North and Scotland for me. I’ve done a lot wrong, no question about that, but drinking slime will not be one of them!