Is it just ME?

Or is healthy living disastrous for friendships?

UNTIL recently, whenever I met an old friend the formula was always the same: a cheeky cocktail or two and a bottle of wine, consumed while we put the world to rights.

But of late all this has changed. ‘I’ve given up booze,’ my chum announced as I brandished the drinks list. ‘I just decided it’s healthier to cut it out altogether.’

I’ll confess I was dismayed — and not just because quaffing Sauvignon alone never feels quite as much fun.

Because it’s not the first time in recent months that someone I know has gone from zero to 100 on the healthy lifestyle front.

There are the sponsorship requests for marathons from people who once believed exercise meant a trip from the sofa to the fridge. Or the gluten-, sugar- and dairy-free brigade telling me about their ‘lifestyle overhauls’.

The mantra ‘everything in moderation’ feels as remote from modern living as a black-and-white TV.

It hasn’t always been this way. Even ten years ago, if you felt you were packing a few extra pounds or needed to boost your energy levels, you took a few simple steps.

A skipped dessert here, an aerobics class or two there, fewer glasses of wine on a Friday night — job done.

Now it’s all spiralisers, green smoothies, ‘free from’ foods, 5:2 diets and extreme physical challenges. Macrobiotic Gwyneth Paltrow started it all off, with her Goop website paving the way for the Hemsley sisters and Deliciously Ella.

At least no one in my immediate circle has gone ‘full kale’ yet and given up everything that isn’t green, though I fear, given the rising number of teetotallers and sugar free-ers, it’s only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, I continue to believe that when it comes to wellbeing, a few tweaks can match any extremes.

I hope to clutch on to a cheese toastie and a glass of rosé until the bitter end — with the odd walk thrown in.

I’ll be clutching a cheese toastie and glass of rosé until the bitter end ...