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Have a happy, healthy, limitless New Year

"Those who live life in the past limit their future."

— A teabag tag

I resolve to… and to… and so with renewed determination, we sashay forth into the New Year, aspiring to wipe the slate clean, or at least part of it, and start anew. In so doing, we give a nod to the above cutesy aphorism I found on my tea bag tag this morning. It underscores an annoying and potentially exhausting urge I usually succeed in holding at bay, or at least relegating to background noise – that if only we tried a little harder we could do a little better, be a little better, make a better, seemingly limitless future.

As kids, my sister and I treated New Year’s with a child’s notion of reverence and innocence. We would make predictable childlike resolutions – I resolve not to hit my sister in the New Year, I resolve to do better in school, I resolve to eat chocolate once a day were popular ones – that were forgotten or overruled by Jan. 3.

During the countdown leading up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, we were so excited that we almost vibrated. (What were our parents thinking letting us stay up that late? We must have been orangutans the next day.) Then, after the bouncing roly-poly New Year’s baby had pushed aside the thin old bearded man, who always looked sort of like death, except he wore a white robe instead of black and didn’t carry a wicked looking scythe, we treated each new act of the New Year with solemnity and a ritualized reverence, especially any act of eating.

We would literally run around the house looking for something to eat or drink which would suddenly, magically take on an aura of something extraordinary because it was the "first" of the New Year.

This is my first mandarin orange of the New Year, we would declare to each other like we were exchanging vows. Then we would peel and eat our oranges with a singular attention I usually only give to food now when I’ve paid a lot for it. This is my first sip of ginger ale. This is my first nigger’s toe, not knowing what a nigger, let alone a nigger’s toe was – it was simply the name of our favourite nut. (We call them Brazil nuts now.) Ribbon candy, cheese Ritz crackers, gherkin pickles, bits of cold turkey or garlic sausage all became fetishized in our New Year’s ritual.

We took the whole thing quite seriously. I suppose we felt the moral weight of New Year’s, and fresh leaves, and brighter futures even at that early age. In fact, I’m sure it was my mother who prompted us on what appropriate resolutions were in the first place, ones that would make us better citizens (the chocolate once a day was our own invention).

And I’m sure our young impulse to ritualize food came from all the adult resolutions we heard around us. Most of them had something to do with ingesting or not ingesting food or drink or various other substances taken in though the mouth, usually restricting the amounts of same: I’m going to lose 10 pounds. No more desserts. I’ll quite smoking. Eight glasses of water every day. I’ll only drink wine on Sundays, with dinner.

Seeking better health, more balance, more self-discipline, the resolutions were dutifully trotted out. I’m not sure how long those adult ones lasted. I don’t think I ever made a New Year’s resolution beyond those childhood years.

But if you’re tempted to throw off some of those nasty shackles from your past, I thought as a New Year’s gesture in that direction, I’d round up a few tidbits on eating, and living, healthier from a few trusted sources.

Happy New Year and good luck with that future.

SUBHEAD: [run items as bullets with bold face on sources]

I will be healthier, I will be healthier

• "Moderate alcohol consumption is at least as effective as, and probably more effective than diet, drugs or any other protective mechanisms you can name in protecting your heart, with the exceptions of giving up cigarettes and perhaps exercise." This is good news from Dr. Hister. But the next question always is, what is moderate consumption? According to a health professionals study, one drink three to four days a week was the optimal level for lowering the risk of heart attacks.

Dr. Art Hister’s Guide to Living a Long & Healthy Life

• A survey of 32,000 dieters by Consumer Reports found that the great majority of people who kept their weight off for more than a year considered exercise the key to their weight loss and didn’t use any special diet or diet gimmick. Another study in the U.S. of 3,000 people who each lost a considerable amount of weight (30 kg) and kept it off for an average of five-plus years found that most of them did lots of exercise – in the range of one hour a day nearly every day of the week. They also never skipped meals and tended to eat healthy and hearty breakfasts. They also obsessively watched portion sizes.

Dr. Art Hister’s Guide to Living a Long & Healthy Life

• Can the pop. One study done by Harvard found that women who drink more than one can or bottle of pop a day were 85 per cent more likely to get type 2 diabetes than those who average less than one soft drink a day. Another study from the University of Maryland has proven that pop really does rot your teeth – malic and tartaric acids in non-cola soft drinks damaged dental enamel. Caffeine, carbonation and sugar substitutes can irritate your bladder and keep you running to the bathroom.

Prevention Magazine, November 2004

• Andrew Weil is a BIG proponent of the mind and body working together to keep you healthy. He’s also a big advocate of what he calls breath work, also known as relaxation or meditation. Here’s a simple way to get started. Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight and your eyes lightly closed. Loosen any tight clothing. Focus your attention on your breathing, following your inhalation and exhalation, noting, if you can, the point where one phase changes into the other. Do it for five minutes once a day. That’s all. Just follow your breath.

8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Andrew Weil, M.D.