Many of my friends have taken to intermittent fasting (IF) as a way of a) living a fuller life b) losing weight c) showing how clever they are with their ability to spell ‘intermittent’ d) keeping up with the Joneses and Janeses e) saving on groceries.
Many IF (Intermittent Fasters) have asked me to join their movement. One of them even threw Shakespeare at me, quoting thus, “Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side,” whatever that means. If I don’t fast intermittently, I will look like a badly roasted egg? I was sorely tempted to throw Kipling at him. You know where the poet says, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… ”
Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said, “The best of all medicines are resting and fasting.” I regularly observe intermittent resting (IR), doing no work for 16 hours and then sleeping for the other eight. It works for me. Franklin also said, “He that lives upon hope will die fasting,” but that’s for Intermittent Hopers (IH).
To each his own, but I wish IF wouldn’t try to convert me, just like vegans try to (and fail). After all, I don’t try to convert anyone to my system of not shaving in any week that has a Wednesday in it – I am sure I can find some plausible health reasons for this. At the very least it must be environmentally friendly or something.
When you fast for 16 hours out of 24, it does something to you. What you save on weight, you lose on temper, shouting at near and dear ones who eat like normal people. And when you have to pack three meals into eight hours, it means IF is usually followed by BE (binge eating) like in that famous line: If (this) be the food of love…
The argument is that this is how lions and tigers do it. Amazingly, the IF have not stumbled on the flaw in the argument: they are neither tigers nor lions. If they followed the example of these animals, they would have to eat jackals raw, without any sauce. And, if vegetarian, they would make a funny sight running after an innocent loaf of bread or a falling apple.
I can’t understand why intense hunger should make you feel virtuous, going by how some IF behave. “You know, I don’t eat between 8 p.m. and twelve noon the following day,” one of them, too weak to speak, wrote down on a piece of paper and waved it in front of my eyes.
Even on a scrawled piece of paper the self-righteousness and superiority came through. It was as if he was telling me that while he was saving the world, I was neither saving nor shaving, a double sin in his eyes.
Among people to avoid in this world are those who borrow your books and never return them, and intermittent fasters who are always thinking of food. Meanwhile, I need a snack – its nearly two hours since I ate.
