The Health Nut

I’ve just come back from a few days in De Hoop nature reserve. We stayed in Lekkerwater, which is the most luxurious of the huts, having once hosted Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk.

There’s minimal electricity for lights only, but gas provides for hot water and fridges. Luxury perhaps isn’t the right word, as that calls up images of overly expensive hotels. The real attraction is the view – the house is on the cliffs, and every morning you wake up the roar of the sea, and 5 or 6 whales cavorting. The beach is almost entirely private (in the morning hikers on the whale trail walk past), but it’s miles from anywhere.

The timing was perfect – the gravel roads held up against the heavy rains, just (at one point we were told the trip was off), and my slightly too low for comfort Golf GTI got itself a mudbath.

But this post isn’t about the holiday, the whales, or the location.

It’s about the fact that minutes after arriving, somebody, who I hadn’t met before, asked so who’s the health nut?. Of course it was me, with my organic everything, and the absence of caffeine, wheat.

It’s the second holiday in a row, whereupon meeting someone new I’ve had the term health nut banded at at me. Last time in a fit of rebellion I quickly finished a packet of Niknaks (of course feeling disgusting afterwards). This time I just grinned and bore it.

So why am I a health nut?

I’d love not to be. I love the idea of abandonment, excess, consuming whatever I want, whenever I want. My reasons for not eating meat are hardly about personal health, even if that’s a welcome side effect. Unfortunately my body doesn’t play along with my desire for excess. The first 25 or so years I mostly ate junk, white bread, chips, coke, meat, no vegetables. The next ten or so were meat free, but a diet of pizza and pasta perhaps wasn’t the answer, and now my body is finally making itself heard. I get serious migraines if I drink coffee (and a miserable restaurant served me normal instead of decaf on Monday, leaving me writhing in agony on Tuesday), and minor ones if I have too much chocolate. Wheat has all sorts of horrible side-effects I don’t need to go into here.

So, I’m health nut not because I want to live to be 200, but because it makes me feel better right now. There’s no way I’d avoid the vices any other way 🙂