In the Gripper Lunchtime

I've slipped back into bad habits in the last couple of weeks. No, not two-kebabs-a-night-and-a-crate-of-Coke habits, thankfully – but things are beginning to worry me nontheless.

In short: it's lunchtime. How do YOU cope with it? I have breakfast (Special K and toast) at around 8AM, to coincide with taking my heart pills, but by the time 1PM comes (or even worse 2PM) my body is rebelling. Little lights are going off inside my head. And I start behaving like John Mills in “Ice Cold in Alex”. I know some of this can be blamed on my diabetes, but the urge to gorge is overpowering some lunchtimes. So … I have started eating “diet” ready meals again. Three for a fiver, so that's three lunches with tweleve collective minutes cooking time – result!

Of course, there's the worry about the salt content, the fats and the sat fat. We all know supermarkets can parade words like “DIET” in huge letter on a packet that – on investigation – are actually nothing of the sort. But a nice hot microwaveable plastic tray keeps my cravings for sweets and crisps at bay all afternoon. Now, that's got to be a good thing. Hasn't it? Being bullied by your belly at lunchtime is a discomfiting experience - like having Gripper Stebson in your colon.

I really wish I'd kept a food diary back in 2004 (when I was 128kg, 40 kilos less than I am now) to check what I was eating then, particularly at lunchtime. Was it a sandwich and crisps? Soup and pudding? A biscuit and a ten mile hike … I honestly can't remember. But whatever it was, seemed to work – even if only for a short time.

Above is a photo of Deirdre and me at the Glasgow Transport Museum in January 2004, seven years ago. The change in me is quite remarkable in that time: especially when it seems like all my other friends have physically stayed pretty much the same in the last half-decade or so. Maybe a few more grey hairs, but no more pounds or kilos.

I feel a lot of sympathy for Tommy Sheridan at the moment. He too must be looking back at early 2004 and thinking … if only I'd done things different afterwards …