Kelly Rose Bradford: New year same old habits

Jan 5 2009

snr_kellyrose_dynamic

Much like the rest of the country I saw in the new year full of good intentions and resolutions - all the usual ones - eating less, exercising more, spending less time on the computer and more time doing fun stuff.

I lasted but a day.

Resolutions are all well and good as long as you are supported, cajoled and encouraged in your efforts, and evil forces do not work against you. Just an hour or so in I was feeling so unwell I had to eat chocolate.

The virus type illness that had been doing the rounds decided to pay me a visit, and while most people are lucky enough to lose their appetite when struck down with malaise, I am always just the opposite: if I am ill, I am hungry. In fact, I am more than hungry, I am ravenous.

So the remaining chocolate tree decorations were swiftly untethered and consumed as appetizers while I went in search of proper sustenance, found eventually in the from of the remaining sweets in the Quality Street tin - the coconut eclairs and strawberry creams everyone hates. But any port in a storm.

And so, over two days, this trend continued: I felt ill, and I ate. And ate. And when I wasn't eating, I slept. Fitful, clammy, disturbed sleep, punctuated with food filled dreams, and disrupted by the pounding headache and achy bones of my fever.

I'm still not over it, but, in keeping with another swiftly broken resolution, am back at the PC Ð something else I am probably going to fail to kerb my appetite for.

I recently went 48 hours without my computer and mobile phone for a feature for a daily newspaper Ð well, I almost did Ð I weakened and caved in on hour 47, tearing open the lid of my laptop and pouncing on the keys in a frenzied state at 11pm when I could stand the lack of interaction from the outside world no longer.

So I don't see that that resolution will be very practical in the long term either.

Then there's my old favourite: exercising. Long term readers of this column will be familiar with my sporting fixtures: there's been the cycling, the jogging, the roller skating.

With my dedication to keeping fit, I really should be a contender in some capacity for 2012 Ð the poster girl for how not to do it, maybe, because despite three years of good intention, the most I have actually managed is a six week bout of cycling and the occasional jog around the block.

It would appear I am not cut out to give things up or change my ways. So there's is my resolution: I'm staying the same. No effort or willpower required and no blood, sweat or tears or my, or my family's part.

And I get to continue eating chocolate. Which I guess is conforming to one element of the original resolution: the having more fun part.