Food for the Soul

EAT, drink and be merry, for tomorrow I diet. So far the New Year diet has not gone well - and it is only January 2. Yesterday can only be described as a disaster on the food front, although I did take take a gentle stroll to the shops round the corner, which must surely counct as exercise, and exercise is good for you.

Today started well, with home-made vegetable soup for lunch, followed by baked potato and grated cheese this evening. I felt quite virtuous, especially as I woke with a headache and sore throat and have been feeling shivery and off-colour all day.

Fearing I might have caught Elder Daughter's cold, and feeling sorry myself, I bought some Lucozade, which always makes feel better, although I suspect this may be psychological, since it always conjures up memories of childhood illnesses, when my mother administered chicken noodle soup (this was long ago, in the days before I became a vegetarian), Ryvita and Marmite, and Lucozade. Food for the soul, as well as the body!

I once asked her about this sick-bed diet, and she insisted the choice was mine - it was all I would eat and drink when ill.

Anyway, I digress. Having spent the day eating sensibly I then read the label on the bottle and was shocked to discover just how many calories there are in Lucozade(175 in 250mls in case you are interested, presumably from the whopping amount of sugar it contains).

And I appear to have consumed the better part of a bottle of the stuff: not one of those piddling little bottles, but the decent 1-litre size. Now my maths may be wobbly, but if there are 1,000mls in a litre, that works out at 700 calories a bottle (tell me if I am wrong), which is horrendous.

I think I shall stick to water in future!