I'm in shock. I am not who I thought I was. For all my adult
life I have thought of myself as a reasonably tall man - certainly not short. I
was 5ft 10 or 178 cm.
Now I'm a different person. This is how it happened:
A few days ago Hannah lent me the "The Fast Diet"
by Michael Moseley based on a Horizon programme which I had watched with
interest last year. I was convinced fasting was not for me. I have a rapid
metabolism and need to eat regularly to avoid low blood sugar and exhaustion.
Well, perhaps not. A much greater problem for me is nervous stomach ache. This can be triggered by ill
fitting trousers or bad posture and again lasts for hours.Because it's mainly in my head it's very resistant to drug treatments.
There are probably many reasons why I have been so troublesome lately, but if I could get trousers to fit at least I
could remove one of the most potent triggers. The root cause is that my waist
is larger than my hips, but since I'm not overweight I've preferred to get my
trousers altered until they fit exactly round my hips. It's not really working
though, and I've never heard of anyone else having this problem, so it's time for drastic
action - Intermittent Fasting as recommended by Michael M.
I'm convinced by the science because it's based on the dietary
conditions we evolved to cope with: an irregular supply of fibrous plant food
with seeds, fruit and occasional meat. The new discovery is that the
irregularity is also important to us: our bodies are programmed to adapt to
period without food, and switch to, as Moseley puts it, "repair mode".
Surely a day with very little food could not be any worse
than a day of belly ache? I decided to try it but first I had to do the metrics
- weight, height, waist circumference and Body Mass Index.
I knew my height and my smart scales did the BMI calculation
- 22.5, comfortably withing the healthy area. I also thought I knew my waist
size - 36" or 91.5 cm . Dear Micahel however points out that the waist is
where the naval is. When I measured here it turns out my waist size is
37.5" or 95cm. Since it was a long
time since I'd last checked my height I thought I'd better do this too.
This was the big shock. Shoes off I stood against a still
unpainted door , Thelma lowered a set square until it rested on my head and
made a mark on the door.
"Seventeen twenty? (I think in millimetres) That can't
be right, do it again." There was no mistake. My height is 172 cm or 5ft
8". I'm two inches shorter than I
have always believed. Surely I can't have shrunk that much?
It's profoundly disturbing. Just thinking about it brings on
the belly ache. The "Michelin Tyre" I knew about really, but I was
reluctant to call it my waist. Evidently
the waist to height ration is a key indicator of health problems. Your waist
should be less than half your height. 91
to 178 is not too bad, but 95 to 172 is decidedly unhealthy.
All this is on top of rapidly worsening cataracts, terrible
hearing, enlarged prostate and keratosis!
Quite enough to indulge in a bout of depression, and I duly woke up
feeling depressed. Writing it all down is good therapy: know your enemy and
prepare to fight back. The cataracts will eventually be cured and I can
restore my waist size. I'm used to being deaf, the prostatitis is under control
and the keratosis manageable.
Decent vision and comfortable trousers are quite enough to
enable me to live a good life. Perhaps
today the postman will bring a message from the hospital which will start the
clock ticking towards my cataract operation.
