It’s nearly 1 January, the traditional day for fresh starts. For many of us, this means an annual vow to change the way we eat, especially after the indulgence of the Christmas season, culminating in the festival of debauchery that is New Year’s Eve.
We wake the following morning promising ourselves that this year, things will be different. This year, we will eat sensibly, drink frugally, and go to the gym once daily, if not more frequently.
And then, within a matter of weeks – or if you’re like me, days – we regress. It’s just life. And even though you’re shortening yours by failing to do the things you know you’re supposed to, it’ll happen anyway. Like it does to all of us.
So I’ve prepared this helpful guide to both the self-denying healthy things you should eat during your brief period of resolve, and the things you can devour when you inevitably have a blowout shortly afterwards. Happy New Year!
Resolution: carrots. Who doesn’t like those delicious Trump-coloured vegetables? They made Bugs Bunny what he is today! Carrots are delicious whether steamed, shredded in a salad, or roasted in the oven – alongside other healthy vegetables of course – no more roast lamb or chicken for you under your new regime!
Resignation: carrot cake. Before there was banana bread, carrot cake was the original obviously-fattening baked treat whose name gave it a thin veneer of healthiness. So when you give in and start eating sugar-laden, icing-topped calorific explosions, make yourself feel a little less guilty by choosing one that contains tiny orange flecks that might well be carrot – I’ve never been entirely sure.
Of course there's cream cheese on this .
American Southern-style carrot cake Source: Poh & Co.
Resolution: fish. We all need our proteins, and is there a better way of getting it than fresh, delicious seafood? Steamed, of course, to make sure all the goodness stays in. Yum!
Resignation: fish and chips. You can get this from the same seafood place you visited during the brief flowering of your diet – just go past all the chilled platters of filleted salmon to the far end, where they keep the deep fryer. Sure, your meal will be battered, drenched in oil, and served alongside the carbiest of all carbs, but nobody can deny that you’re sticking to your resolution to eat more fish! (For an even bigger capitulation, you could order a Filet-o-Fish, but you’d be the first person to do so in recorded human history.)
Resolution: salad. Bursting with freshness, a lean, green salad is the perfect lunch! When you dutifully eat one at lunch on your first day back at work, you’ll ask yourself why you don’t always nibble on nutritious lettuce with a few raw vegetables when you get chance to step away from your desk!
Resignation: fruit salad. It’s just like that green salad, laden with fresh items from the greengrocer, only all of the ingredients are sweet! and if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, chunks of pineapple surely do the same thing, don’t they? Served with sweetened yoghurt, or even ice cream – because a balanced diet means consuming dairy, too.
is a delicously spiced Indonesian fruit salad.
Source: Feast magazine
Resolution: freshly-baked bread. How many times have we told ourselves that we’ll breakfast like the French do, with just a small serving of bread so fresh that it’s still warm from the baker’s oven? No more processed food for you – just high-quality artisanal produce!
Resignation: freshly-baked doughnuts. Served piping hot, straight from the oven! And perhaps lovingly prepared by one of those artisan doughnut robots.
A rich and luscious filling adds extra wow to these (bola de Berlim)
Portuguese doughnuts (bola de Berlim). Source: John Laurie
Resolution: superfoods. Everyone knows that the shortcut to a new you is to eat quinoa, kale, goji berries, chia seeds and other fruit ’n veg that was far too ‘super’ to be commonly available when we were growing up. With enough super foods in your diet, you won’t even really need to go to the gym – but you’ll have so much energy bursting out of you that you will want to pump iron constantly anyway!
is a deliciously healthy summer meal.
Source: Mark Roper
Resignation: supermarket foods. You’ll eat whatever comes pre-prepared and can be thrown together in ten minutes. Besides, you’ll occasionally augment your quick-bake lasagne with a few pre-wilted leaves from one of those plastic salad tubs, so really, you’re still eating super healthily!
Resolution: fat-free alternatives. In 2017, you won’t even have skim milk – it’s all about zero fat for you this year! And if the tiniest globule of fat so much as touches your tongue, you’ll spit it straight out with the iron discipline that you’ve developed ever since you made that New Year’s resolution!
Resignation: fat. Because they don’t have fat-free kebabs, fried chicken and supreme pizzas, do they now? Besides, good fat is good for you.
