Alun Newman: The persuasive power of food

If you’re getting some food ready for a meal or perhaps you are about to eat in an hour or so. Then, you find yourself indulging in a pre-food moment.

For example, when you eat too many crisps before dinner. A quick piece of cheese on a cracker, then a roast. For all those times. Then you’ve had a snack-cident. Like an accident but with food. I’m recovering from a constant stream of snack-cidents that have caused no end of extra mini-meals and bonus eating to occur.

A cruel twist of fate occurred this week when our weighing scales broke. The ones for humans not the ones for weighing flour, marg and sugar.

I haven’t climbed onto a set of scales for years. No need. I know exactly how much I weigh and also my waist size. Unfortunately, these scales come with far too many additional bells and whistles.

As with so many things these days, it’s pointlessly connected to your phone. It tells you information that ‘head in sand’ humans find annoying.

To the delight of my daughter, we all had to enter our biometric data. Otherwise known as ‘how fat are you’. Once added to the weighing scales system, every time you get on the scales, you tell it who you are and it tells you that you’re too fat.

I was surprised that the only thing that seemed correct in my assessment data was my height. Everything else was over the anticipated acceptable threshold. I managed to account for some of it by assuming my slippers, thick jumper and Christmas socks probably weigh a stone all together.

That gave me some margin for adjustment. It is, sadly, that time of year when many articles contain the usual helpful and semi-shaming stories about weight, choices and exercise. It’s the wrong time of the year for that kind of conversation in my head.

I’m still recovering from the pleasure of not really knowing what day it is. Having a selection of delicious smelling presents to use. Beard oil to look at in case I decide to go ‘off grid’ and an abundance of chocolate still to consume. Not to mention the cream and mince pies that I said no one would eat.

I was told off for being Grinch-like. Now I’m tasked with consumption. I can’t stand waste. End of January is a far better time to regroup.

To make more complex personal decisions. New year, same me. February, that’s going to be epic.