SAUSAGE VS SALAD
After a recent bout of violent food poisoning courtesy of the local chippy, Brunty’s determined to try and eat more healthily
“For 24 hours I thought various parts of my body had jammed open”
Back in the late 1980s, a university friend of mine decided to go to Bulgaria for his holidays. The story goes that on his first night, he decided to eat in the hotel restaurant and endured a meal so ghastly that it made a Big Mac look like a fourcourse dinner at the Ritz. Unable to face this inedible muck for a second time, the next night he found a taxi and said: “Take me to the best restaurant in town”, whereupon the taxi driver promptly drove him back to his own hotel. Unsurprisingly, with this kind of fare hitting his sensitive British bowels, after four days my friend had chronic food poisoning and was confined to bed, permanently clutching his guts and suffering from the screaming habdabs, which got so bad that when it came time to fly home he had to be wheeled across the runway to the plane on a portable commode.
Naturally, my reaction was to laugh so hard that I almost ruptured my own innards, something my friend took umbrage with, warning: “You won’t find it so funny when it happens to you.” I lost contact with him many years ago, which is just as well considering that recently I too was struck down with a bout of food poisoning so violent I thought my family would end up having to bury me in a bucket. In my case, it was down to an ill-judged battered sausage. This being a family magazine, I’ll spare you the dreadful details, save to say that for 24 hours I thought various parts of my body had jammed open.
Now I know what you’re thinking – how can you eat that crap? That’s a fair question, especially when a quick review of internet tri-diets suggests the following: Breakfast – Granola parfait (half a cup of granola, one cup of Greek yoghurt and pomegranate seeds); Lunch – Fig salad (mixed greens, two sliced figs, goats’ cheese, pecans and wholegrain roll); Dinner – Kale pesto (sautéed kale, fresh pasta and steamed veg). The problem I have with diets like this, though, is that they assume: 1 You have the time to prepare all this and that your hours aren’t already fully occupied with training, getting over training, a job, travelling to/from a job, doing the garden, walking the dogs, fixing the bloody door/light/tap etc. 2 You live in a house where the other inhabitants are prepared to put up with your nonsense, and their patience isn’t already strained by you disappearing for hours on your bike and filling the washing machine with endless sweaty kit, without you requiring special meals. As such, a typical dietary day for me looks more like: 5am Get up for swimming, don’t eat anything because it makes you burpy during training. 8am Stave off ravenous post-swim hunger by eating a two-person serving of porridge. 9am Eat flapjack you were saving for the afternoon. 10am Eat lunch, typically a hastily made sandwich of whatever was in the fridge. 12pm Eat last remnants of lunchbox – banana and orange. 1:30pm Eat shop-purchased egg mayo sandwich and bar of chocolate. 2-6pm Refuse all food due to chocolate guilt. 6:30pm Evening training. 8pm Ravenously eat whatever is to hand that takes maximum 20mins from cupboard to stomach. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the benefits of a healthy diet and I’ve had several goes at it over the years, I just can’t keep it up. For example, I went through a phase of making my own soup until I realised that in the time it was taking me to rustle up a bowl of fresh carrot and parsnip I could knock out a 50-mile bike ride.
Anyway, after my recent bout of food poisoning I’ve decided to capitalise on the fact that I’m suddenly down to racing weight by trying to stay there. And I hereby swear that once again I’m going to try and eat more healthily – until the next time I smell fish and chips while I’m out running….