Resolutions
 
Years ago, I made a New Year’s resolution which somewhat obviated the need to make another.  No, not the infamous “resolution to not make New Year’s resolutions,” which strikes me as rather needlessly coy, but rather a resolution to implement whatever improvements my life needed as soon as I detected the need for them.  Thus, no waiting around for arbitrary milestones before bracing myself for the hard work of progress.

The idea of New Year’s resolutions, and the frequency with which people revisit the same health and diet goals over and over, seems to be setting us up to fail.  There’s a huge build-up, a planning stage which often includes only daydreams of how fabulous our lives will be once we’ve met our goals, and then the inevitable downward crash towards our old habits.  It is a little too much drama.  Worse still, society doesn't really expect us to maintain our resolutions.  Water cooler conversations by mid-February are laughing, self-deprecating comments about how long we managed to hold out before returning to our comfortable ways.  If we already know that we're going to fail, it makes me wonder why we try.

I kind of like milestones, even so.  I like the idea of a fresh start, something which, mentally at least, gives us the opportunity to leave our baggage behind and forge forward without having to be hindered by the failures, embarrassments, or sad times of our past.  It is a chance we seldom truly get, and if we can artificially create a time where it feels safe to move forward, then it is an opportunity to be seized.   The bolt out of the blue, the flash of inspiration on what would make our lives better doesn’t always occur on a Tuesday in July.  Sometimes, we don’t even realize how much our good habits have deteriorated until we have a chance to reflect, and the end of the year seems a perfect time – when we are reflecting on everything else as we watch the countdowns on television and the Boxing Week Clearance sales – to have a good, clear look to see what needs mending or discarding.

Eating habits are usually the hardest hit, at resolution time.  After the indulgence of the holiday season and its deleterious effects on both our physical and financial bottom-lines, it seems very natural to swear off food.  The problem, however, is that food is not the enemy.  Laziness, lack of preparedness, and misinformation are the enemy to anyone who wants to improve their food habits.  If we approach the idea of improving our diet with a grand gesture - giving up fat, or carbohydrates (don't get me started!) or meat - without educating ourselves on how to make these changes something that we can live with, day in and day out, stressed, hurried, or tired, our mealtimes are going to be a disappointing necessity before we backslide into our comfortable routines.  In our rush to eliminate things, we fail to ask, and answer, the most important question of all:  what are we going to eat?

Part of the problem seems to be the "go big or go home" notion of dietary renovation:  How many of us resolve to cut out fatty foods, for example, without setting up an alternative that doesn't completely depress us?  You can't replace french fries with rice cakes and expect your stomach and mouth not to stage a revolution.  A more sensible approach might be to look at where one is eating the most fat - say, fast food lunches, or creamy pasta dinners - and try to work out a less detrimental alternative, or a way to decrease the frequency.  The thing of it is, you have to prepare.  You have to know where to go, what to order, what to buy at the market, and what to cook at home that is going to fulfill your requirements for health, schedule, convenience, and above all taste, and you have to know these things before your stomach is yelling at you, and you have exactly fifteen minutes left on your lunch break, or before the kids are demanding dinner.  Carrot sticks and celery are not going to tide you through when you want a burger.

One of the smartest things one can do, in the fight to eat healthier, is to cook at home and to plan meals without using fatty convenience foods.   If you have freezer space, try batch-cooking of healthy dishes and freeze them in meal-sized (or family-sized) containers so that you won't be as tempted to stop off at a restaurant when you're feeling harried or don't feel like cooking.  You've already got something ready and made, just requiring a little time in the microwave or stovetop or oven - it'll be cheaper, healthier, and easier, if you remember that it's there.  Not everyone has a vast repertoire of healthy recipes that they are familiar with making, though.  Sometimes, it can make enough of a difference to find a healthier way to make your very favourite things.   Taste buds demanding a burger?  Try using lean meat, cooked on a grill (indoor or outdoor), and yogurty tzatziki instead of mayonnaise-based sauces, or making the patty a little smaller, and buffering it with lots of fresh vegetables, and oven-baked fries.

Having said that part of the answer lies in cooking at home, I am not advocating a restaurant-free lifestyle.  I live in Vancouver, which is a haven of culinary variety, and where I can get dishes that I don't have a clue about how to cook.  I like eating out - the service, the new dishes with unfamiliar flavours, the not-having-to-wash-dishes.  Make it count, though.  If you're going to eat in a restaurant, make it because you want to, rather than you can't be bothered to rustle something up at home.  Can't resist the plate of creamy goodness?  Then have it, and don't feel badly about it; tomorrow, you're back to healthier fare.  Don't be surprised if it sits like lead, though; once you've become accustomed to eating leaner meals, rich ones can deep-six you pretty quickly.  Does it come in a half-portion?

It's all about sustainable steps.  It's the anti-diet.  It's about learning what the actual food value is in the things that you eat, and making choices that are going to make your taste buds happy, your stomach full, and your clothes not straining at the seams.  Plan ahead.  Make small improvements, one or two at a time, and hang on to them.  And most of all, it's about not depriving yourself of good food in the name of health. 
 

December 2004