The Gin Diaries part three

27 October 2014

The gin for today is No Gin.  I am supposed to be doing a fast day.  But there is nothing fast about a day when the only thing you have to look forward to is 500 calories’ worth of broccoli.

Recently I have been a bit more creative with the 5:2 diet.  For example, I have tried eating for five hours and then fasting for two: this works well if you have, say, a two-hour meeting to distract you, though it is a bit of a faff during the night having to get up after two hours’ sleep and come down for a toasted teacake.  I have tried the 6:1 diet, and the 6½:½ diet.  I have tried doing the 5:2 diet for 5 days and then not doing it for 2: this was very effective at preventing the hunger pangs but not so effective for weight loss.

The most creative things I have tried are the 5:2 gin diets.  For example, there is the one where you are allowed 5 shots of gin but only 2 shots of tonic.  And there is the one where you are allowed gin for 5 days and only a tiny amount of gin for 2 days.  And finally, there is the one where you have nothing except gin for 2 days a week.  This last is my favourite, because I have discovered that there are only 56 calories in a shot of gin, which means I can drink 9 gins (give or take) on a fast day.  And actually that does make the day go faster.  Before you know it the next day’s breakfast has arrived and it is time to eat chocolate again.  Occasionally this diet makes you a ginny-winny bit confused about what day of the week it is, and this is a further plus because the concept of 5:2 becomes meaningless when you can’t remember how many days there are in a traditional week.

The gin for a day when you are doing the 9:9:9 gin diet is absolutely anything you can lay your hands on so long as it is approximately bottle-shaped.  But I can particularly recommend the Portobello Road® No. 171 gin, which is dry and sophisticated.  You drink it with a slice of grapefruit, although you should get someone sober to cut up the grapefruit for you because I believe you are holding the wrong end of the knife there.  It is supposed to taste of liquorice as well as grapefruit, but if you have a numpty palate like mine I have found it helps to drop liquorice allsorts in, just to be sure.