Little Vices I AM NOT Giving Up

I have given up a lot of things over the years: smoking, hard liquor, sun bathing, daytime television… Much has been sacrificed to the cause of improved health and potentially extended life expectancy, and I have been generally happy with the results. But here’s the deal – I’m not giving up anything else! My list of guilty pleasures has been edited to the smallest possible word count and there will be no further deletions.

I AM NOT giving up:

• Coffee, tea and other caffeinated beverages

I love the comforting feel of a warm mug in my hand. And I love the little zip I hear inside my head when that first jolt of delightful stimulant shakes my neurons to attention.

• Gluten

Bring on the pasta because it is delicious. Better yet, add a side of French bread because it is even more delicious.

• Solid Food

I am not going to ‘cleanse’ my innards with days of consuming only strangely coloured juices that smell like my high school locker and taste like nothing that ever grew in the ground or hung off a tree. Nope. My precious organs will remain happily cluttered by the remains of good food and I will assume that my daily glass (or two) of wine will function as a ‘sanitizer’ for the digestive system and its related parts.

• Television

At the end of a long, stressful day, I do not want to curl up on my sofa and read War and Peace or gather my entire brood around me and start a family board game… screw that! I want to stretch out on the sofa, preferably in sweatpants, and watch a few hours of mindless entertainment (Yes, I said hours. Don’t judge me!)

• Wine

Because it goes with everything made of gluten and makes watching television even more relaxing. Red or white – I don’t care, so long as it comes in “big girl” portions. (Don’t drip 5 ounces into the bottom of my glass because I will not accept that as a “serving”)

Perhaps it is okay to have a few vices; to embrace a few things that don’t make us healthier, or thinner, or smarter in some way. Maybe it’s even okay to encourage others to partake in the madness. Let’s get together and enjoy coffee and gluten-loaded muffins. Let’s gather around the table and share a meal (preferably pasta-based) and let’s add a good bottle of wine (or two, or more… let’s not count). And when we are full and tipsy, let’s all squeeze onto the sofa and watch something mindless, like Cake Boss.

I won’t go back to smoking. I will try to eat “healthy” and I will walk those 10,000 steps a day. But I will also indulge myself a little every day because it’s easier to pick the salad at lunch when I know I’m having spaghetti for dinner, and it’s easier to keep walking when every step is bringing me closer to the sofa and the TV remote.

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