To be consumed… but only when drunk!

What is it about having a few beers that leads to eating some gross fast food late at night? I’m sure that there is a conspiracy between the brewers and the fast food joints!

As I get older I am trying to eat healthily, drink less and exercise more. A regime started a couple of years ago after a bit a health scare.

Most evening meals consist of loads of fresh veggies, brown rice, baked potatoes, very little in the way of red meat with more tofu, TVP and lentils on the menu. This is washed down with sparkling water, or the occasional glass of red wine or a beer.

On top of this I have started walking the 2 miles to work every day – well apart from when it’s raining cats and dogs, like today.

Result: 30lb lose in weight over the past 18months, and 4 inches off my waistline. I’m not quite svelte like, but getting there!

But Saturday evenings everything seems to go pear shaped (or should that be kebab shaped!)

This is the evening when I let what little hair I have down. A day of doing the house chores means that I have ‘earned’ a night out with the gang – usually just the four of us partaking in some teatime refreshment at the café bar we are regulars at.

Generally we will meet at 6pm for a couple of hours, than wend our merry ways home before the throngs of youngsters descend on Worcester city centre like a pack of hyenas.

I say ‘generally’ because occasionally the plan goes slightly astray. On those evenings I decide that I will walk the mile or so home, rather than get a taxi. Bad move!!

Within 200 yards of leaving the pub you can guarantee that I bump into old friends I haven’t seen for a while and join them for a drink – which invariably leads to 3!

Making my excuses after about an hour, I start the remainder of the walk home, only to get half way before the weight of several pints starts to become worrying. Rather than find an alley – which I would have done as a teen – I think: Pub=Toilet! And another pint. And bumping into more old friends!

Finally I leave, but only when they pour me out of the door at past midnight. And with that the smell of the fast food emporia start to work their evil magic! Past Maccies; past BK; past Subway; even past the wonderful aromas emanating from the long line of Curry houses. I’m nearly home, dodging the dodgy food all the way.

But hold on! There is a really good kebab shop at the end of my street. Only 50 yards from home and the damage to my liver is compounded with the prospect of Salmonella Doner Kebab! There is no way in a million years that a sober person would eat such a monstrosity and admit to enjoying it. But after a skin full of beer we will eat anything!