Recipes for disaster: Rishi's fasting
3 min read
“It’s a testament to the discipline, focus and determination he shows in all aspects of his life and work.”
That was how one aide to Rishi Sunak, speaking to The Sunday Times, described the former prime minister’s practice of fasting once a week. From 5pm on a Sunday evening to 5am on a Tuesday, Sunak will have only water, tea or black coffee. And eventually, having run out of other political meals to recreate, I knew I would have to do the same.
Well, not quite the same, because we were having burgers the night before my fasting period began, and it would have been rude for me to refuse them. But then I’m easily a foot taller than Sunak, so I probably need more calories to keep going. So, my fast was planned to begin at 8pm Sunday and run until 8am Tuesday.
The first couple of hours were pretty good. Indeed, the first 12 hours went swimmingly. It helped that I was asleep for quite a few of them. I woke, rose, made coffee, remembered not to eat breakfast, and got on with my day. This would be fine, I told myself. Though I did start to notice the empty stomach around 10am.
At 11.30am, the weekly supermarket order arrived, apparently to taunt me. As I unpacked it, I spilled coffee across the kitchen and swore loudly. I considered the possibility that hunger was affecting my usual even temper, then rejected that. The problem, I realised, was that my teenage son who ought to have been putting the food away was still in bed. Like Sunak, I began to see the appeal of bringing back National Service.
An hour after that, I was back at my desk, listening to people eating lunch in the kitchen. My wife asked when I was going to fix the garden fence, and I replied that I was frankly sick of being blamed for everything that was broken in the house. “Tetchy,” she muttered, and I stamped away. Frankly, I was ready to call a surprise general election just to annoy Oliver Dowden.
At 1pm, I remembered there was a piece of fudge left in the tin on my desk. It was a testament to the discipline, focus and determination I show in all aspects of my work that I resisted it.
By 4pm, I had decided I would now just live with the gnawing sensation in my stomach. And then, two hours after that, it was gone! It was a miracle! It turns out you don’t need food to live! I began to feel so light-headed that I seriously considered giving Grant Shapps a role in national security.
Around 7pm, I stood up, then had a dizzy spell and had to sit down again. I considered whether I would feel better if I went outside to stand in the rain. Instead, I ate the fudge.
At 9pm I went to bed, just as a way to pass the empty hours without food. But when I rose the next morning, I was a new man, full of energy: 8am came and went without anything more than a cup of coffee. I simply wasn’t hungry anymore.
I walked the dog with a spring in my step. This was a new day, and I was a new, food-free man. Truly I believed I might be able to negotiate the narrow path to getting all my work done. I was going to turn my life around. I was going to turn my country around. And then at 10.30am I sat down in a café and ordered a large eggs benedict.
