I confess. "ente pizha, ente pizha, ente valiya pizha".

semiya paayasam

As you sow, so shall you reap.

I sowed. wickedly delicious seeds. 
For instance, pies, pastries,  creams, custards, cheese, salty snacks, fried, baked,grilled,  Indian, non-Indian. Bacon, sausages, the lot. Anything potatoes. Kappa ( Tapioca). Bread.  Sugar. Starch. Fat. Salt. All was grist to the mill. All were seeds to be sown. Not in moderation anymore. And a little goes a long way at my age, in any case.  Equal opportunity strikes everywhere. I fell into temptation. no, wallowed in it.

I sinned. Repeatedly. mortal, venial - you name it -- I ate it all. and drank it all. wines and cocktails. I became a foodie. And a glutton. A glass of wine a day after a certain age is healthy, they said. And I obeyed wholeheartedly. But then I enhanced the experience by adding accompaniments to that drink - appetizers.  a piece of chocolate . And another. Portion control had long become a forgotten concept. I indulged my taste buds wantonly. Indiscriminately. Thank goodness, for small blessings -- I never liked popcorn or soda. But that is it -- all the rest, to most of which I never gave a second look, I love  all those now. I pretended to forget that I was older. I forgot that I was less active physically. I pretended not to notice the tighter outfits. Anyway, it was a long winter, I could cover myself up with thick coats.

I was young once, and could have done all this and more - but no --back then I abstained, without meaning to. I wasn't interested in eating at all! Mine was a low fat, mostly vegetarian, small portion diet. Picky -- that's what they called me. In those days, I could easily subsist on water for 2 or 3 days, when I was rebelling against injustice, imagined or otherwise. Starving myself as a protest against cruel authority figures, otherwise known as parents and teachers,[ ;) ]was not a big deal at all.  Chronically underweight, never in my wildest nightmares did I see that one day I will struggle with this issue. The love of food. The lack of exercise. The issue of weight loss. Anger or sadness do not affect me like they did before. You might say it is vanity to expect to be as you were -- after all I am not obese --  yet. You may be right - with age, and  other biological factors that  some of us have to face, things do tend to change. But when the family history of high cholesterol has crept up on me I have to stop and re evaluate. ( I do not like to have pills control me. Sadly, that could be unavoidable.)

All along, there were short-lived attempts to reduce weight. Like the beautified  oatmeal for breakfast. But the sugar and salt in it defeated the purpose. And without sugar or salt, oatmeal became scary, no, traumatic. Instead I conjured tantalizing images of payasams and puddings in my head. Any new city I stepped into, my eyes naturally sought restaurant names, preferably exotic ones. I see a movie, I saw the food in there. I wanted to try every cuisine in the world. Now I know what my grandmother meant when she said sagely to one of her glutton sons or minions ; "Son, your stomach is an ocean! You can throw anything ,in any amount, into it. But should you?"

And then the conscious control, the implementation of austerity measures  during week days, and the utter relaxation of those rules in the weekend. Complete undoing of anything that I had built up, or rather any weight I had managed to dislodge. And the guilt. I have sinned, I have sinned, I have sinned terribly! Ice cream, nothing exotic, just vanilla, beckons me. It sits atop a warm slice of apple pie. sigh! I try to calm the cravings of my sweet tooth with a slice or two of an apple, and I fail. Where did my will power run off to? Should I have any? :) mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!  And I reaped what I sowed. am reaping that painful harvest now.
The wages of my sins are in my waistline. "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault". I have eaten. I have eaten many many forbidden little dolcini.

I have started a strict regimen for the week days now -  slowly picking up the reigns of my mind and body. I will post my diet when I get halfway through my goal. haha. fooled ya! 
I am like Cain in that movie, Year One. "What have I done! what have I done again! ..(.and after a couple more dumplings, in my case), What have I continued to do!!"

run for your life

health- posts two days in a row -- am i some kind of a health nut? I know I am not, but do I get to pretend or what? it seems doing all those crossword puzzles or sweating your brain with sudoku ,or reading tons of books is not going to help prevent brain shrinkage when you get older. Instead, they advice walking.(BBC news). Or running, I guess if you can. Which I heard many can -- I don't know how I am going to be. Not that there's too long to go to get there. I read somewhere that people in Colorado, esp Denver, are very healthy, they are always riding bikes, and climbing mountains, and trekking and whatnot. They are ageless, they say. So that is one place I should never go to. Why go buy depression?

But if I can run when I hit 70, I wish I could do it like Phoebe and Rachel. Now that is running. Sometimes I try that on the treadmill  (to "I'm going nowhere... somebody help me!" ):) Actually, that is friendship too. Which I think is more important. When you have someone to talk to, not just once a day, or once a week, but someone, or people around you, that makes a difference. That is one of the reasons why the older cultures have lesser number of patients with Alzheimers. Or, it could be that they aren't diagnosed as much, but I believe there are studies that indicate that some Asian and European communities have lesser incidence of this sad, dignity-robbing disease.

to supplement, or not to?

This is for the ladies -- especially of a certain age. When we get to that age, there is apparently the problem of thyroid disorder, and it is pretty serious, broken bones, kidney stones -- there's a rhyme to this. Now they say that it is connected to a deficiency in Calcium. The good old Calcium -- the proverbial case of water, water everywhere -- not a drop to drink! I mean, they ask you to take supplements because it is hard to get everything from one's food. Then they say supplements are no good, because our body can't process it. And milk is a great source of Calcium. So we drink lots of milk -- and then we hear milk is for calves, not for humans. Human body cannot process milk. So what does a body do? oh, and you need Vitamin D to help process good old Cal, and again the same deal with Vitamin D -- to supplement or not to? that is the question.

Anyway this is what Iam doing for now.

I take a multivitamin 5 days a week. There is some Cal in it. With my oatmeal I use a cup of fat free milk, and I add a few almonds and raisins and craisins. All those are said to have Cal. And I eat fish, especially sardines now and then, and I have lots of veggies in my sambar. Hope this will help with  my Cal needs, and thereby, my thyroid. And I will live happily everafter.

Read the latest : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19991610