The folly of living healthy

By Ted Malanda

The last time I tried jogging, I gave up after ten metres. A shower was eminent and I thought I would sprint the 100 metres to my office before it become a downpour.

But after huffing and panting for some seconds, and after listening carefully to the damage I was doing to my knees and chest, I decided I would be better off getting drenched and dying of pneumonia.

I get amazed when anyone claims that they enjoy exercising. How would anyone derive pleasure out of punishing their bodies? I have tried dancing, too — mostly when I’m not very sober and middle life crisis cheats me that I’m still young enough to shake a leg. But the next day, I always wake up feeling half dead with every bone in my body aching.

Rabbit food

Exercise aside, one thing I just won’t stomach is healthy food. I read lots of stuff about gout, cholesterol and heart failure but for heaven’s sake, there is nothing as tasteless as vegetables. In fact, any food cooked without fat, spices and salt is severe punishment to the taste buds.

I have also heard that it’s unhealthy to smoke and drink alcohol, especially in the amounts that I partake. But how would one while away long, lonely Friday evenings? And don’t you dare mention exercise. We have already been through that.

You see, I would hate to live healthy – eat rabbit food, jog every morning, shun booze and smokes only to be run over and killed by a fat drunken driver who then proceeds to live happily ever after, his gout notwithstanding.

Curiously, my grandfather died at 79, in the arms of his youngest wife who was all of 30. He had smoked cheap acrid cigarettes and drank illicit liquor since he was 20. He only went to hospital once, when his bull Jomo gored him in the groin. So what’s all this nonsense about healthy living?