Guilty pleasures

The world seems to have returned to work today, at least those fortunate enough to have jobs during the recession, but not me.  I don't go back to work until tomorrow and all day long I have experienced a strange sense of guilt, at one point even expecting a phone call  from the office to ask where I was.  So anxious did I become that I twice checked the dates for my official return, a literal double-check. And it is definitely tomorrow. But I have enjoyed a relaxing, fruitful day nonetheless and made two different soups for dinner tonight - broccoli with cheese and mushroom - to allow the family a modicum of choice.  I even broke the habit of a lifetime and used bouillon powder rather than freshly made vegetable stock.  What would Julia Child think of me!  Nor is there a pudding scheduled.  Following the common sense advice that dieting begins when you eat less, I have decided to eschew an official second-course.  The trick is to enjoy guilty pleasures without feeling guilty and so a gap of a day or two, a brief period of abstinence, should be enough to allow us to reinstate our dessert course.  Not that we always have dessert.  Often we make do with cheese, cake, biscuits or chocolate - in moderation.  The fattest person in the UK is currently hovering (if that's the right word) around the 70 stone mark and hoping, through surgery, to reduce that significantly.  There are lessons here for all of us.  Eat less and weigh less.  Exercise more.  Avoid unnecessary surgery. It does raise the interesting question of how a person becomes that obese.  At what point do they suddenly look at themselves and say, 'Oops!  Gotten a little overweight recently.  Now how did that happen?'  A key role, leaving aside psychological, environmental and familial factors, is that of the food provider.  Somebody must have been buying and preparing the food for them.  A 70 stone guy isn't going to be able to push a shopping cart around a supermarket.  With restraint and sensible portion control we hope to be able to shed a few pounds, starting with the odd ounce here and there, without having to abandon our foodie favourites.  Not forgetting the wine, that is.  Now there's more than just a few calories to be aware of.  I have a theory that the health benefits that accrue from enjoying good food and wine, in terms of establishing and then reinforcing a sense of personal well-being, accumulate in inverse proportion to the absence of guilt one feels.  Which is why, as Pontius P. suggests, it's always important to wash your hands before a meal.