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Dieting Under Stress

Towards the end of last year, Susan Murray gave the group an excellent talk on Sports Nutrition. For those who missed the talk she emphasised the need for regular intake of carbohydrate i.e. pasta, bread, rice, as this helps to maintain a steady level of energy. Her advice has obviously been appreciated, as over the last few months I have noticed several members of the group munching an extra sandwich or cereal bar, rather than the usual Mars bar.

Given the apparent interest in food generally and hopefully healthy food in particular, I thought I’d draw your attention to the following diet, which appeared in a recent edition of a Library staff newsletter. It is allegedly designed to help combat the stress that can so easily build up during a day’s work. As I’m no dietician, I’ll leave Susan to comment on its nutritional value, but perhaps if we can combine it with her high energy regime, we’ll all be fit enough and laid back enough to take on anything.

Breakfast

1/2 grapefruit
1 slice wholemeal toast
3oz skimmed milk

Lunch

4 oz lean grilled chicken breast
1 cup steamed spinach
1 chocolate chip cookie

Mid - afternoon snack

Rest of chocolate chip cookies in packet
2 pints double choc chip ice cream
1 jar hot fudge sauce with nuts & cherries
Whipped cream

Dinner

2 loaves garlic bread with cheese
1 large sausage pizza
4 cans lager
3 Mars or Snickers bars

Late evening snack

1 frozen Black Forest Gateau (eaten directly from freezer)

Rules of this diet

  1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
  2. If you drink a Diet Coke with a Mars bar, the calories in the Mars bar are cancelled out by the Diet Coke.
  3. When you eat with someone else, calories don’t count if you don’t eat more than they do.
  4. Food taken for medicinal purposes never counts, such as toast, brandy, hot chocolate, Sara Lee cheesecake.
  5. Movie - related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the entire entertainment package, such as popcorn, ice cream, Mars bars.
  6. Broken biscuits contain no calories; the process of breaking causes calorie leakage.
  7. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something.
  8. Foods of the same colour have the same number of calories, eg. pistachio ice cream and spinach, white chocolate and mushrooms.

Note: Chocolate is a universal colour and can be substituted for any other colour.

Happy Eating!!

Caroline Lunny


Copyright (c) 2009 St. Albans Adventure Group. This article was first published in the group magazine Stagger in October 1996.