Friday, February 08, 2013

The Fast Show

I'm now into week 2 of the intermittent fast diet.
I know I've lost a fair bit of poundage, but I'm avoiding getting into the realms of scales neuroticism,
(going to weigh myself after a month).
All I know is that my trousers nearly fell down when I ran to catch a number 26 bus yesterday.
Fantastic!
That signifies progress.
I caught the bus as well.
Can life get any better?
The downsides of the fasting are experiencing lack of physical energy on the fast days, coupled with
some  difficulty in getting to sleep in a hungry state.
The positive aspects are , as well as the apparent weight loss, that it forces me to abstain from alcohol completely for at least 2 days a week, (alcohol while fasting makes the hunger uncontrollable, ie "kebab syndrome"),
I feel a heightened sense of mental sharpness on the fast days for some reason, and as a result I 've got a loads of shit done I'd normally avoid, (making myself really busy diverts my mind from thinking about food).
 Also, I'm less prone to snacking in general now, as having survived the fasting seems to have given me a new discipline in terms of refueling.
Of course, this is unlikely to last.
I expected to wake up the next day after a fast absolutely ravenous, but this has not been the case.
The fast seems to trick the body into assuming that you had your normal calorific intake, and it just resets the next day to the normal level of craving...although food tastes great after a fast day, and I haven't held back.
Can I sustain it?
That is the question...
I'd say there's more chance of succeeding with this regime rather than intermittently quitting alcohol or getting into all these shitty, overpriced "weightwatcher" products.

I'm enjoying not watching football, and don't miss my football gambling/Sky Sports regime.
The novelty of live football has finally worn off for me.
I've gorged on it because my childhood years were marked by football-on-tv deprivation.
But now I'm fasting on it as well, (do you see what I did there?).

As a football mad kid, there were only 2 opportunities a year to watch football live on tv....
The European Cup Final and the Home Nations Scotland v England game.
That was your lot.
I remember that if the FA Cup Final went to extra time, we were allowed to see that...
Imagine the excitement.

Like many of my generation, hearing the phrase "except for viewers in Scotland" (announced as English viewers were getting information about an upcoming  live match), still makes me want to punch someone.
The SFA bigwigs Ernie Walker and Jim Farry and their Stalinist principles drove me mental.
They are now a "Spinners" tribute band.

I've deserted the football betting punters, and instead have bought shares in "William Hill Ltd" and some smaller gambling companies with my ill-gotten gains.
It's a classic case of poacher turned gamekeeper.
It's going well so far...   (famous last words)
However, I've made more cash buying and selling these shares in the last week than I have in 6 months of football betting.
The William Hill shareprice in particular has almost doubled in the last year.
Of course, for all this to work, you need to exercise "discipline", ie take the profits regularly, and sell if the share drops to a pre-determined price.
And, I may well have missed most of the action as the price is possible peaking before an inevitable correction.
I don't know though...it seems to me that people hardly go out any more, and a night in watching sports whilst making a couple of bets "to make it interesting" is becoming more mainstream.
I've heard a lot of rationalising about this practice that "it's still cheaper than a night on the town".