Toby Young
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One advantage I had back then was a good deal of free time thanks to the loss of all those jobs, which meant I could exercise regularly. I became a fixture in the basement gym at White City House, sometimes spending two hours down there. At one point, I even started running to the gym and back, a three-and-a-half mile round trip. Losing the weight and getting fit became an obsession and I threw myself into it with the same energy that I’d previously devoted to opening schools and running charities. I never quite managed a six-pack, but I felt better than I had in years. Aches and pains that I’d resigned myself to living with for the rest of my days began to fade away.
Since then, I’ve rebuilt my career, which means I don’t have time to go to the gym. Even squeezing in a run is difficult. The most I can manage is a brisk walk to Acton Town tube — about a mile away — instead of cycling there on my Brompton. So the entire focus of my weight-loss programme is on eating less, which I’m finding incredibly difficult. I’m doing a healthy version of the Atkins diet — good carbs rather than no carbs, as well as plenty of fish and white meat — and ‘intermittent fasting’, which means I don’t eat between 9 p.m. and 1 p.m. Skipping breakfast is a doddle, but I often work till about 3 a.m. and the hours after midnight are proving tough. Occasionally, packets of biltong are consumed.
My first weigh-in was due last Sunday, a week into my diet. But on Saturday night Caroline and I joined some friends at a fancy new restaurant in King’s Cross called Hicce and after a couple of cocktails my resolve went out the window and I insisted we all have the tasting menu. Three of the people at the table were women and they began to flag after the third course, so I gallantly helped them out by hoovering up whatever they couldn’t eat. I was dimly conscious that my body was trying to get back to its ‘set point’, i.e. compensate for all the calories I’d been depriving it of, but my superego had been bound and gagged with alcohol. I was like a junkie let loose in the back of a chemist after a bout of cold turkey.
I’m now back in the Priory, as it were, making do with the methadone of poached salmon, boiled eggs and green salad. I didn’t weigh myself in the end — I couldn’t face the bad news — but am determined to do so this Sunday. It’ll be a miracle if I’ve lost more than a pound. It’s going to be a long haul.
Because you read about diet
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