A little of what you fancy does you good

By Bob Harding-Jones - 17/08/2011

Experts tell us that healthy eating, exercise and 8-hours sleeps every night are the ingredients required to become, let’s put it bluntly – older. But is there any fun in it?

We would all love to graduate gracefully into maturity, but to be happy – that’s the key. But is it really worth the effort?

A ‘healthy’ diet is often just a bunch of lettuce leaves topped with a miserly low-calorie drizzle and a miserable carrot. ‘Exercise’ is often just lots of grimacing, grunting and sweat.

People who survive on a low-carb diet and drip with perspiration are just not nice to be near. And what do the experts know anyway? Every expert contradicts another expert, so they are a pretty inconsistent lot. ‘A little of what you fancy does you good’: now that’s a maxim that can be related to.

So to follow this logic to its conclusion: Quite a lot of what you fancy must do you more good. Did you ever witness anybody consume a giant bar of milk chocolate at a gallop who was unhappy? No: they display an enormously satisfied chocolate-tinted smile. Don’t get me wrong, I do embrace healthy living and have concluded that the Mediterranean diet is both healthy and tasty, and it works for me as I can fit it in between meals.

As for gym exercise – to which I subscribe but don’t enjoy – I’ve discovered that if my local leisure centre has been unavoidably forced to close for several days and I’ve been unable to take exercise, I’ve felt much the better for it.   

Do let me know your ways of keeping fit to editorial@maturetimes.co.uk