I have survived my first day of fasting.
My husband has survived my first day of fasting. Spoiler alert – fasting does not bring inner peace, it brings outer crotchetiness.
At the morning weigh-in, I was startled into realising there will be no early quitting. Initially, I thought it would be something a bit different. I could lose a few lardy pounds and maybe not stand out quite so much amongst all bronzed, bikini-clad lovelies when I jet off to the south of France in the summer. As for being the colour of lard, well there isn’t much I can do about that.
These calorie things are pesky little blighters. You try and count a few and they start multiplying everywhere, like amoeba on Viagra.
It took a while for the measurements on the scales to sink in. Namely because I have purchased the world’s cheapest weighing device so that if you are more than a wee slip of a thing, the dial spins round and you have the added ignominy of contorting your body to try and make out the upside down reading. There is no digital age in this house.
The reading itself was the real problem though. Twelve and a half stone. That’s 79kg in new money. As I’m no towering giantess, the NHS’ online Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator was blunt in its summing up: “Go for a run fatty.” So I did. What it actually said was, if anything, worse. I am at the very top of the overweight section. Heading towards obesity. I need to lose at least seven kilograms in order to squeeze back into the healthy weight section. As for squeezing back into those jeans, probably a lot more.
It’s a good job I’ve stocked up on all that Ryvita. Having never bothered much with rabbit food before, I assumed it would taste like cardboard. What a revelation – it was actually quite nice. So good I had four of them for brunch, smothered in smoked salmon and low fat cream cheese.
Salmon And Ryvita
These calorie things are pesky little blighters. You try and count a few and they start multiplying everywhere, like amoeba on Viagra. 500 calories is not a lot. I’d managed to get through more than 400 before dinner.
As a fast, my first attempt was a bit of a failure. I couldn’t stick to 500 calories but I still felt restricted. I had a headache for most of the day and couldn’t stop thinking about the chocolate bunnies frolicking on the bookshelf. I spend a large part of each day thinking about food, but today, I could barely think about anything else.
Fasting, just like feasting, forms a major part of many world religions: Lent in the Christian calendar; the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur; the Muslim season of Ramadan. Fasting for religious reasons is often supposed to be a humbling process – by suppressing bodily appetites, your mind becomes clearer and more contemplative, so you can focus on your relationship with God.
I wondered if having a real reason to fast would make it any easier but after speaking to Aasia Jadakara who is used to fasting for Ramadan, food deprivation still seems pretty tough.
Keep Out Of KitchenAasia admitted to sharing my food obsession and making lists of all of the forbidden delights she was going to eat as soon as she had broken her fast – when you can’t eat, everything is more tempting. She did have some tips for me though: don’t go in or anywhere near the kitchen; find something to do to occupy your mind and keep busy; and my favourite - have a lie in so the fasting doesn’t last so long. Despite her tips, Aasia confessed, “Belief makes me continue. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be able to fast.”
I must admit that this diet has not brought me closer to any sort of religious experience, in fact with all the bad-tempered blasphemy and cursing, I’m probably about as far away as it is possible to be.
However, it is clear that I need something other than Yorkshire puddings and gravy to focus on in order to distract me from the gnawing hunger.
After a brief trawl of the internet for a nugget of hope or a titbit of advice, I found out that skipping is recommended as a way of banishing those diet demons.
Now last time I tried skipping (which wasn’t actually that long ago), I landed on an apple core and managed to fall over and twist both my ankles which swelled up like footballs. Skipping also makes me need a wee so perhaps this isn’t the food avoidance tactic for me. I do, however, have a hula hoop…
Chocolate Bunnies
