Early New Year Resolution

As months go on the scales are getting scarier. I have chomped my way through Chinese take-aways, truffled on chocolates and hoovered up food without a thought. When you're not feeling well you fancy sweet or stodgy foods. Then later on, you find you're just too tired to shop for lots of fresh ingredients and cook from scratch. Add a lot of rest (ok, a lack of movement) and the wobble begins to creep up behind you.

One day you wake up and...hold on! Your jeans are tight...have they just been washed? No! It's just that you're becoming more voluptuous. Let's be clear about this, a little weight gain is attractive; a bit softer around the edges is sexy. But if it continues to increase it becomes a drain on your health and your self-esteem.

I've been watching Channel 4's 'The Food Hospital' and I am amazed at the range of disorders that can be affected by diet. So far everyone who has been on it, whatever they have wrong with their health has improved to some degree by altering their diet. This got me thinking that as a burn survivor and furthermore as a burn survivor with a stubborn rash, I should probably be eating a bit more thoughtfully. Filling my soon-to-be-jiggling self with refined and fatty foods is a bit careless; I'm meant to be taking care of my ailing body!

So from yesterday I began the great diet improvement plan.

It basically involves eating lots and lots of fruit and vegetables. Instead of snacking on mince pies and biscuits (sigh) I am going to be chewing on dried fruit and nuts. I'll be roasting lots of sweet potatoes instead of chips and spreading avocados instead of butter. I really enjoy colourful food, I've just fallen out of good habits.

As we all know, it's Christmas! (Yay!) Of course I will be eating plenty of naughty festive morsels but I am hoping that upping my vitamin levels and eating cleaner, more nutritious food for a couple of weeks might give me an energy boost. I would be thrilled if my rash got vanquished by vitamin power...but I'm not too confident about that one as it has smugly survived a variety of treatments.

Better put the oven on...sweet potato wedges, sweetcorn on the cob and steak for me followed by yoghurt and raspberries tonight....yum!