My Newly Discovered Potentially Healthy Diet

Another thing I decided after my MS diagnosis was that I should pay more attention to my diet. I should become conscious of what I eat. This is not to say that I have changed the diet itself, but only that I take more definite note of the things that go into my mouth and down my gullet. It has actually heightened the pleasure to be had in partaking.

We should all be more conscious of the simple things. After all, you don't eat when you're in the grave, but rather are eaten--which are two totally different things. In addition, one does not have the opportunity to be conscious of the latter (or hopefully so, anyway).

Whereas a hunk of ice cream covered with chocolate syrup seemed once nothing more than an indistinct blob, a matter of little purport on its own, the same has now become a miniature universe of untold wonders, such that I spend more time admiring the thing on its way to my mouth than I do with actually clamping down my jaws and imbibing. For this reason, I have begun to lose weight--what with the time spent on scrutinizing rather than swallowing--but that is all in all a good thing, as I could stand to lose a few 10 or 15 pounds.

When was the last time you truly watched as a butter horn, skewered just so upon your fork, arose from its plate to make its journey to your tongue--this elegant dance of cause and effect, intention and target, beginning and end (for the butter horn, that is).

Have you ever just stopped to purely observe what a pork chop will do when left to its own devices?

Food for its own sake--the very foundation of diet. To begin at the beginning is my maxim nowadays. Be the buttermilk cruller, be the buffalo wing. All the rest (by which I mean the dietary particulars as they pertain to good health) will fall into place by and by.

MS Nutrition 101

The Son of Man came eating and drinking
--Matt 11:19

• Eat three or four balanced meals every day
• Limit your fast food intake to two meals per week
• Eliminate all sugary drinks (especially soda)
• Limit your alcohol beverages to one a day
• Drink at least 48 ounces of water each day
• Exercise at least 45 minutes five days a week
• Get seven to nine hours of sleep each night

Oh dear, I'm flunking MS nutrition 101.

Three or four balanced meals? Whatdaya mean balanced? You mean that the weight of the chips and salsa should not overbalance that of the ice cream?

Three or four meals? What, are you kidding me? I'm contending here with two dogs and two foreign exchange students! How much food do you think is left? Lately I've been skipping all but the bedtime snack.

Now where avoidance of fast food is concerned, I come through with flying colors. This is because I type ER reports for a living. Nuff said.

Eliminate all sugary drinks? What else is there to drink though? (Oh wait, I just remembered what my dad used to say: There's plenty of water in the Goddamn faucet!).

Now the alcohol intake is a toss up, for whereas I never drink nowadays (and for the last four years or so), I did come reasonably close to drowning in the stuff during earlier years. So what to make of this? I figure the way things add up, I've already had my lifetime quota, along with a couple other people's too.

Drink at least 48 ounces of water a day. (Regarding this, I think my dad would have said Turn off the Goddamn water before you run it all empty!).

Exercise?

Now sleep is good, and, again, I have that one nailed. Unless it is meant that one is not supposed to sleep more than 9 hours.