Diet bores

 There is nothing more tedious than someone banging on and on about their diets

It is a truth universally acknowledged that January is the month when everyone begins to regret their excesses over the Christmas-New Year period. And as surely as night follows day, those periods of extreme feasting are followed by rigorous fasting. Which is just a fancy way of saying that January finds almost everyone following some sort of diet regime to get back into shape (or, at the very least, into the trousers they were happily wearing until November of the previous year!).

So, like everyone else on this planet, these days I find myself surrounded by people who are not only on a diet, but are prone to aggressively announcing their new eating plans, with the unspoken assumption that I am the only Greedy Gretel, who is still stuffing her face at the beginning of the New Year. Honestly, there is nothing more annoying than the self-satisfaction of these dieters as they munch on lettuce while looking superior when I order a burger and fries.

Sadly, there are as many types of dieters as there are diets these days; and each one of them is annoying in their own peculiar way. Allow me the luxury of listing just some of them:

• First up is the no-gluten, no-dairy brigade. Members of this group turn up at a restaurant – or, God forbid, your home – with a list of items that they are simply not allowed to eat. Then, follows an entirely joyless meal in which they pick at their food listlessly, while everyone else feels vaguely guilty about enjoying their own deep-fried delights. More often than not, their resolution breaks by the time dessert comes around. Then, having virtuously turned down every fattening offer, they order the most calorific thing on the menu, which has every ingredient they just proudly announced that they have renounced. Er, sorry, what happened to that no-gluten, no-lactose rule? And no, a sheepish look is not a good answer.

• Far worse are those dieters who seem to think that calories don’t count if they eat them off someone else’s plate. These are probably the most irritating people to share a restaurant meal with. They will order salad (dressing on the side, obviously) and then steal the French fries you ordered, while sneaking bits of someone else’s pizza or pakoras for good measure. They will put on a saintly expression as they refuse dessert. And then – yes, you guessed it – it will be open season on everyone else’s pudding. Honestly, darling, who do you think you’re kidding?

• And then, there are the Diet Bores. You know the ones I am talking about. Yes, those people whose only conversation is about the calorific value of every dish, the benefits of every diet they have ever been on – all the way from Atkins to the Zone diet, taking in General Motors along the way – and how much weight they have lost on each of them. Tellingly, they never tell you how much weight they put back on; or they wouldn’t need to be on another diet in the first place, right? And that, quite frankly, tells me all I need to know about diets – and dieters.

Happy New Year

In case you haven’t made your list of resolutions as yet; here, for easy reference, are some of mine

Yes, it’s that time of year again. The time when we chalk up a long list of resolutions, all the stuff that we absolutely must (or must not) do in the spanking New Year that stretches out before us. Odds are the list will be abandoned by the time February rolls around, but for what it’s worth, here’s my own list of New Year resolutions, in no particular order of importance.

De-cluttering my life:

This starts from the very basics. The closets bursting with clothes that I will never wear (i.e. fit into) again. The shelves groaning under books that I barely got through the first time and will never re-read. The CDs I never listen to now that all the tracks have been downloaded on to my Ipod. The magazines that lie piled up in a corner (and are still untouched after several months). The shoes that have been retired from active duty now that my back (and increasingly, my knees) has given up on me. The solitary bottle of barbeque sauce that lies forlorn and ignored on the back shelf of my larder. The ficus plant that stubbornly refuses to flourish on my balcony. All junk must go.

Trimming my friend list:

Over the years, we all end up adding friends to our extended circle. There are those we bump into at parties; those we discover through the social media; those we meet in the new neighbourhood we move to; those we acquire by marriage; and those that acquire us. But as social research indicates, it is really not possible to keep up with more than a 100-odd people (especially if some of them are very odd indeed). So, maybe this is as good a time as any to get rid of all those who add nothing to my life; those who are unremittingly negative; those who take a particular pride in running everyone else down; and those who are legends in their own lunchtime. (FYI, if you need to ask, “Don’t you know I’m famous?’ you’re probably not.)

Making time for those who matter:

Once I’ve got rid of the flotsam and jetsam of my world, it will be that much easier to work on my next resolution: spending time with those people who really matter to me. Long conversations on Skype with old school friends I haven’t seen in years. Making time for a cousin who has flown into town for a couple of days. Touching base with extended family. Long, lazy lunches with my girl gang. Bonding over boozy dinners with my favourite Smug Marrieds. Ah well, you get the picture.

Swearing off all diets:

Yes, yes, I know you’ve got this absolutely fantabulous diet. And yes, I can see that you have oodles of weight on it. But you know what? I don’t want to hear about it. Yes, you got that right. I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. About. It. I don’t want to know how carbs mustn’t be mixed with proteins. I don’t want to be lectured about how I need to finish dinner by 7 pm at the latest. And I certainly have no interest in the glycemic index of various food items. So, be a dear, and shut up about your diet already. (Because, in any case, I can’t hear you above the siren call of that chocolate fondant.)

Rationing my time on the Internet:

Sadly, my search for a Net connection that automatically times out when it senses I am wasting time has come to naught. So, I guess I will have to do this the old-fashioned way: by exercising some self-control. That means not spending more than an hour on the Net every day, no matter how tempting the cyber trail that leads me away from the topic I type into the Google search box. And, of course, resisting the temptation to refresh my Twitter timeline every half hour.

Finishing my book:

If I can stick to the resolution listed above, this one will be so much easier to fulfil. If I could just check which Tube line went from Westbourne Grove to Camden Town; read an article on the Lashkar-e-Taiba network in Bradford; research the new Beretta models on the market; and get right back to my writing, I would have finished my first draft by now. Instead, I go flying off on a tangent, clicking link after link until I’ve clean forgotten what I was searching for. Well, no more procrastination, starting right now. It’s full steam ahead with the writing.

Staying positive:

I am tired of indulging the prophets of doom and gloom in the world. I no longer want to be told that a, b, c is impossible to achieve – well, at least not in our lifetime. I don’t need that kind of negative energy in my life. So, I am going to say nay to the naysayers. This year, as far as I am concerned, nothing is impossible. Or better still, my motto is going to be: The impossible? There’s nothing to it.

Men are the new Women

They diet and work out to stay in shape; they use anti-ageing products; and yes, they love fashion

There was a time when the only people on special diets or with wide-ranging allergies (yeah, right!) as you sat down to eat at the table were the ladies. Some were ‘gluten-intolerant’ and could not eat either wheat or rice – or, in fact, pretty much anything else. Others were ‘lactose-intolerant’ and steered clear of anything which had even a whiff of dairy about it. There were those who were vegetarian or, in extreme cases, vegan. Others were on a high-protein diet. Some insisted they could not mix their carbohydrates with their proteins. And yet others stuck to soup because they could not eat solids after 7 pm. In fact, there seemed to be as many diet regimens (and, of course, allergies) as there were women on the table.

But now, men are muscling in on what was earlier a female preserve. These days, it is almost a given that the men will also be on some sort of special diet. Of course they take care to give it a suitable macho name to differentiate themselves from the ladies. But even if you call it a ‘caveman diet’ (what cavemen would eat, as in meat, fruit, etc., rather than the cereals that came with civilisation) or ‘dude food’ (the kind that the boys take so much pride in rustling up at a barbeque) there is no getting away from the fact that men are now intruding on what was once an exclusively female territory: fad diets.

Whereas earlier men restricted themselves to dreaming up whacky diet regimens for the ladies – meet Messrs Montignac, Atkins, Dukan – now the lads are also subjecting themselves to everything from deprivation to starvation to lose those pesky extra pounds.

Ditto, with the exercise regimes. There was a time when the only men you saw pounding away on the treadmill or pumping iron at the gym were putative models/actors who wanted to develop a body like Salman Khan or Hrithik Roshan. No longer. Now the middle-aged are also huffing and puffing through cardio workouts to get rid of their much-too-prosperous middles. They go for walks early morning, jog every evening, get personal trainers in to build up their physiques, and take as much pride in every pound lost as they do on every zero added to their bank accounts.

And if Pilates is on the plate, then can pedicures be far behind? Perish the thought. Beauty treatments are pretty much de rigueur for the men these days. They want their facials and face masks as much as the ladies. They too want their nails buffed to perfection with weekly manicures. And their bathroom shelves are heaving with as many face care products – exfoliating scrubs, moisturising creams, anti-ageing serums, revitalising night creams – as the women in their lives.

Fashion, too, is as much a preoccupation with men these days as it is with women. Gone are the days when they were happy to have a couple of suits in the wardrobe for office wear, and grimy jeans and sweatshirts for their days off. Now, they follow trends closely, keeping an eye out for the latest styles in tailoring.

It is not a coincidence that FTV shows as many men’s fashion shows on prime time as it does women’s collections. Or, that such magazines as GQ have found a ready niche in the marketplace, providing style tips for men who want to look trendy. International menswear brands like Canali and Armani are doing great business in India, even in the uber-expensive, made-to-measure segment. And designer jeans like Seven for Mankind and Diesel are selling as much to men as they are to women.

This new interest in fashion is not restricted to clothes either. Men have become as obsessed with shoes as women have been down the decades. Two pairs each of brown and black shoes will no longer do. Nor will one tatty pair of keds which can be pressed into duty at the family picnic. Now, the man of taste and style wants British brogues to go with his formals, Italian loafers for casual dressing, designer sneakers for the gym, patent leather to play dress up, open-toed sandals for the Indian summer. In short, he needs as many shoes as his wife (okay, I exaggerate, but only a little).

If you want to take a good look at just how much the unreconstructed man has changed, just get a load of the poster boy for the New Man: Shane Warne. Yes, good old Warnie. Remember him, the cheerfully podgy spinner on the Australian cricket team, with a weather-beaten complexion and straw-like hair that flopped down untidily every time he came in to bowl?

Well, if you do, you certainly won’t recognise him in his new incarnation. His forehead looks Botox-smooth, though he insists (as you do) that it is all down to his anti-wrinkle cream. His hair is subtly highlighted, conditioned to within an inch of its life, and perfectly styled to frame his suspiciously-taut face. His whitened teeth gleam maniacally as he gives a rictus-grin to the camera. And his toned abs and pert bum is shown off to perfection in his new designer togs.

Shane Warne, they tell us, is the New Man, for whom the term ‘metrosexual’ was minted. But if you ask me, he is representative of a new breed: Men who are the New Women.