28 Days of Pain - Day 11

By Jamie Hill

You know you're fat when.... your feet don't get wet in the shower.

Right. So we have another fasting day. Another day of hunger. Another day of stomach emptiness when I'm only allowed to consume 1,000 calories for the whole 24 hour period.

It's always pure torture.

I'm just going to have to think of other things for the day. I've got to say I much prefer the running days to the fasting days.

Right, here's what I've heard about 'fasting' and why it might be good. Although the person I heard it from said I should only have a total of 600 calories for the day but I just knew that would be asking too much of me at the moment so my totally unscientific version is 1,000 calories.

Apparently in August there was a Horizon programme on the Beeb where they did just what I'm doing. And it's called 'intermittent' fasting - where you eat normally one day and have a very restricted 'fasting' day the next. The guy on the programme didn't do alternate days but fasted for two out of every seven days - just like I'm doing.

The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access to food they switch from "growth mode" to "repair mode". Apparently, as well as dieting, it will greatly reduce the risk of contracting age-related diseases like cancer and diabetes.

None of this is proven and there's loads of tests still being carried out. Current medical opinion is that the benefits of fasting are unproven and until there are more human studies it's better to eat at least 2000 calories a day.

Anyway here's the article so you can decide for yourself....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549

I'm just using it for the purposes of this 28 Days of Pain as it seemed like a good idea at the time. Although now that I'm sitting here starving hungry I'm beginning to think it was a very bad idea.

As I mentioned I'm not exactly doing this thing scientifically and am kind of making it up as I go along but I suppose we're going to have to see what the results are by the end of the challenge to see whether it works or not. So far, having only lost one pound in one week, I'm inclined to believe it isn't working. But I've now got to see it out to the bitter end.

To see the rules of the challenge and previous entries visit http://www.theocelot.co.uk

Only 17 days to go until my 10,000 metre killer run!