Detox

Having my first cold of the winter already has pushed me into something I've been vaguely considering for a while - I'm going on a health kick. My plan is to try this out for 3 months or so to give it time to kick in and then see how I'm finding it.

So, my plan is

• Cut down on tea. One cup in the morning and one cup in the evening. It occurs to me that in winter I also drink tea for warming purposes. What could I have which would be good for that but still healthy and not fruit tea (or at the very least, fruit tea that tastes of something)?
• Cut down on alcohol. One glass a day in social situations (e.g. pub, dinner party). Cooking purposes allowed.
• Eat more fruit. I'm not doing too badly on this front as it stands because I have free fruit for breakfast from work but I don't think I have the 5 portions of fruit and veg a day and I don't have any at weekends. Not sure if fruit juice would count for this. Anyone?
• Drink more water. This one should be easy because I'll be drinking less tea.
• Get fit. No more than hazy ideas about how I'm going to go about this one yet. I'll get back to you.
• Stop snacking. I have a sneaking suspicion that when I'm only having one glass of wine at the pub I'll find it much easier not to demand crisps as well. I'm also including here things like adding unnecessary quantities of cheese to my pasta and things like that.
• Think about my diet. Bit more hazy, this one. I do eat fairly healthily but I have a suspicion that I may not be having a balanced diet. I'm particularly at risk from being low in calcium I think, especially if I cut down my cheese intake but I'm not sure about protein either. So, the plan is to get a book out of the library/search the magical interweb to refresh my memory on how much of these things I need and then pour over my recipe books and find things to make up my lack. This is also going to involve me trying to plan out a little more what I'm going to cook.

I admit that I'm also hoping that doing this will help me lose weight but it's genuinely not the primary aim. If when I get to Christmas I'm getting ill less often and have more energy but haven't lost any weight that'll be a success. If I put on then I'd have to adjust things but that’s a slightly separate issue.

Tableless?

Is it giving in if I use tables on my friends page to prevent formatting spilling over from one entry to another? Is there any better way to do this? (In fact strictly speaking, it is giving in anyway but if there's no other way to achieve this then it counts as acceptable giving in).

(no subject)

I *will* become a geek. I've just ordered Debian CDs (I need an always on internet connection).