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Another year, another set of resolutions to break a few weeks down the road. Except this time, there is one tough promise I made to myself last year that I mean to keep.
Over the years, I have been fighting a losing rearguard action in the battle of the bulge.
Although I have managed to keep the bathroom scales fairly steady, and my belt is still notched where it was a couple of years ago, the fact is that the tummy is definitely sagging.
The first few nicotine-free days were absolute hell.
But more importantly, I was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes three years ago. And although my GP said this only meant another couple of pills a day, I feel these are two pills too many. As it is, I pop them morning and night for cholesterol and high blood pressure, so I have decided that enough is enough.
I read somewhere that a diet of 600 calories a day for four weeks shocks the system so that it shakes off diabetes. This is a fourth of an adult male’s recommended intake, so it’s not very much nourishment, especially for a foodie like me.
But a friend in Islamabad successfully overcame his diabetes with this diet, so I’m determined to try.
I have been mulling over this radical approach for the last few months, wondering if I could do it. But then I recall the time I stopped smoking over 25 years ago, and feel reassured that I can indeed summon the necessary willpower.
I was slowly killing myself on two packs of hard-core K-2 cigarettes a day when one morning I woke up and decided I would never smoke again.
Before this, I would huff and puff on climbing a flight of stairs, and every morning, I would cough up the foul gunk I had filled my lungs with the previous day.
Although we did not have the same medical information we do now, I knew cigarettes were not exactly good for me. I told nobody of my decision initially in case my resolve weakened.
The first few nicotine-free days were absolute hell, and I felt the strong urge to scratch the insides of my lungs. But I had also read that the physical dependence on nicotine ends in a week or so, and after this period, it’s all in the head.
This is when the mind starts playing tricks: I recall trying to convince myself that now I had proved I could stop when I wanted to, I could have a few puffs now and then.
Luckily, I was able to push that particular devil back into its box.
Since then, I have never touched another cigarette, although there have been occasions when after a good meal, while nursing a cognac and a coffee, I would have loved to light a cigar.
But I’m aware that this is the start of a slippery slope.
According to an old study conducted by the British Medical Association, nicotine addiction is harder to break than heroin dependency.
So I’m rather pleased that I could do it; and having given up cigarettes, I can convince everybody that it can be done, especially with things like nicotine patches and e-cigarettes now available.
As a reformed smoker, I have been accused of imposing a no-smoking zone around myself. It is true that I now find the smell of stale cigarette smoke distinctly unpleasant.
Pipe and cigar smoke is fine, but not after it’s lingered in the air for a few hours. But I must confess I suffer at parties where lots of people are puffing away.
And what follows after my four-week diet? Do I return to my normal excesses, or do I then change my lifestyle into a more Spartan one? The thought of eating boiled, steamed or grilled food forever does not fill me with pleasure.
Nor indeed do unending evenings drinking lime soda instead of the stronger libations I enjoy in the company of friends.
In the end, I suppose it becomes a question of what pleasures one is willing to forego for a longer life. Perhaps if I had not eaten all that kadhai-gosht and all those gurda-kapuras in Lahore’s Abbot Road years ago, my arteries would not have clogged up with cholesterol, needing bypass surgery in 2000. But life’s too short to give up all its small pleasures for the sake of better health.
At my age, I find that when old friends meet, they are more likely to discuss their various ailments, symptoms and treatments, rather than the books they have read, or the ideas they are tossing about in their heads.
But in truth, there are few things more boring than the state of somebody else’s health.
So apologies to younger readers who will no doubt have switched off after the first few paras. But to all the smokers out there, remember if I can stop, so can you.
Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2016
