Opinion – If Only I had a Washboard Stomach…
Like most people, I make a bunch of alcohol fuelled resolutions at about quarter to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Unlike most people, my resolutions tend to include things like spending more time asleep and going to the pub more often. However, The big news for 2012 was that was granted permission by the powers that be (‘er indoors) to hold a New Year’s Eve party. Not only that, I was allowed to make cocktails – possibly with disastrous consequences – and, more amazingly still, had a special dispensation to let off fireworks at midnight. When you consider that this was the first New Year’s party we’d thrown in thirteen years, you can understand why I was so excited.
Obviously, when you throw a party you want all the coolest forty something parents in town to come along – and what kind of cool forty something parent would want to go to a party that is being hosted by a man who looks like he’s just swallowed a cantaloupe melon… whole! For this reason I embarked on one of my more predictable New Year’s resolutions, trying to acquire a six pack like Daniel Craig, a couple of months early. The problem was that the last couple of times I tried to shed a few pounds ready for my summer holiday I failed miserably. It began to look like my typical weight loss program (drinking wine instead of beer, forsaking cream cakes and pulling my crunch trainer from under the bed) no longer cut the mustard. I hated to say it, but I needed to go on a proper diet.
There are, of course, lots of diets I could have tried. The Atkins diet seems to have worked for many people but the prospect of tiredness, bad breath and spots did not appeal – I didn’t want to turn into some kind of teenager with a toothbrush phobia. My brother in law has had spectacular success with the Dukan diet but, when I heard that he existed on a staple diet of poached eggs and grilled chicken breasts for eight months, I went right off the idea. Then there are the various diets that are all about restricting calorie intake while eating a fairly normal diet. These sound pretty reasonable until you think about the reality; you’re in a nice restaurant and the waitress comes up and asks if you’d like to see the dessert menu. You would love to see the dessert menu, you want to eat every last thing on it, but you can’t, even though you skipped the starter and had a salad for your main, and all because you put butter on the toast you had for breakfast.
That left me with the latest must-do diet, the Intermittent Fasting (IF) diet. This really is a simple concept; for two days a week you eat practically nothing and the rest of the time you can eat what you damn well like. The health benefits claimed for this diet are incredible; you won’t get cancer or die from a heart attack and it makes you smarter. Better still, you lose weight quickly and consistently. I felt I really must give it a try. On the fasting days you’re allowed 500 calories, equivalent to… err… a grilled chicken breast and a poached egg – not much fun but doable; I’m on my third week of the IF diet and I’ve yet to have a relapse. The most remarkable thing is that it does actually work. So far I’ve lost a steady 3 pounds per week; at that rate I’ll weigh nothing at all by 2014!
Some people say that no diet works; you lose the weight and then you promptly put it back on and more besides. This may be true but, so what, I was still slim and sylphlike for my party and, when my summer holiday appears on the horizon in a few months’ time, I can just do the same thing all over again.
Related Posts
Tom Tugendhat lends support to Lifestyle Health Foundation →
Put a spring in your step at Penshurst Place ‘Fit for a Queen’ events programme for 2022 →
Letter from California →
Comments