IT’S GOOD TO KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR WEIGHT BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE MAGIC WORDS ‘EVERYTHING IN MODERATION?'

culture, popularised by shows like The Biggest Loser. I’m no doctor or psychologist but finger-wagging rarely works.

Nutrition Is The Solution

Are these messages perhaps the wrong ones for our children? When 12-year-old kids are undergoing gastric banding surgery, and the obesity rate is still climbing, surely we should be thinking whether these anorexic-looking people are the ones who should be influencing us. Our obesity crisis will not be solved by a clutch of privileged people who eat small amounts of food and crave nothing, because for most of us food is perennially fascinating, not least delicious.

If in doubt, you only have to watch a Jamie Oliver show to know that extensive dieting is bad for us, not to mention the long-term damage it does to our skin. It’s nutrition that is the solution to the problem.

But with so many people offering different ideas on nutrition, who is right and who is wrong? There’s no doubt about it, diets are confusing. We have lowfat, low-carb, low-calorie, detox, low-glycaemic and high-glycaemic. Some people insist on the lowcalorie option, while others insist that eating less more often will build up metabolism and is the way to go.

Then you have all the weird celebrity diets, with a cacophony of stars eager to disclose their intimate culinary habits. Victoria Beckham has eaten steamed fish and vegetables almost exclusively for 25 years;

Rebel Wilson uses the Mayr Method to lose weight, cutting out sugar, dairy and gluten and chewing each bite of food 40 times; Joe Rogan is a fan of the carnivore diet (just meat and fruit) and when Mariah Carey wants to lose weight, she eats nothing but Norwegian salmon and capers. (Incidentally, it’s inadvisable to try these diets at home.)

Everything In Moderation

So here is what I’ve I figured out. Life can be tragically short and yet, it’s in our hands to fill it with heaps of happiness. I know that to be miserable about selfimage is easy and that self-absorption is an utter waste of time. I’ve learnt that no matter how rich or poor you are, how many shoes you have (that number is called ‘never enough’), and how much exercise you do in the messy business of life, the greatest possessions and achievements you can ever have, are your friends and family who love you just as you are, with or without a muffin top.

Of course, it’s good to keep an eye on your weight but what about those magic words ‘everything in moderation?’ And now the dreaming part (and dreamers out there will know what I’m talking about), I would really like it if the day would come when I can eat all the chocolate I want and not have it show up on my hips.

While I dream, I am lacing my feet into joggers ready to hike around beautiful Lantau. If anyone should see me collapsed in a bush, please be kind enough to haul me out and revive me. Low-cal red is fine.