In this series of articles, I have reproduced my Lent diary from 2021. During Lent I followed a simple set of rules:

  • One Meal a Day (OMAD) - usually without starchy or sugary carbs, but relaxed on Sunday
  • No alcoholic drink
  • No Facebook or Twitter
  • No unnecessary eBay or Amazon purchases
  • Get out into the fresh air daily. If in doubt, use legs!

This was supposed to be a chapter of a book, but things took a different direction. I dedicate these articles to my friend Neil, who unfortunately died in hospital during the times of COVID.

Shrove Tuesday, 16th February

I’ve never really paid Lent much attention. We would talk about it at school, discuss what we would be giving up, have the pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and promptly forget all about it by Ash Wednesday. When I was at university, I attended an interdenominational service on Ash Wednesday and spent the day with an ash spot on my forehead, placed there by a lay preacher who reminded me that I was mortal. But I’ve never really done much else since.

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. – Luke 4:1-2

Lent is a period of fasting and abstinence, primarily to remember the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, but yet fasting and eating nothing. He would have to overcome his weaknesses. Lent is usually performed by confessing one’s sins (to be shriven) and consuming pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, a symbolic way of using up the rich food before the period of fasting. In some countries, the day is called Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) due to the richness of the food. In recent times, it has simply become Pancake Day.

The following day, Ash Wednesday, is when Lent really starts. The period is used to prepare for Easter in solemn religious observance where many followers practice fasting or giving up on luxuries. Lent either ends on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday) or on Holy Saturday (the day after Good Friday) depending on local custom but usually, the practices of Lent are observed until Holy Saturday. If you count the days on the calendar, there will be 46, but you get Sundays off from the proceedings making 40 days.

Because Easter is a moveable feast, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and Lent will be at different dates depending on the year. There have been moves to unify the date to sometime in April, but it is unlikely that we will break a convention of thousands of years. Easter is the third Sunday in the paschal lunar month which can fall anywhere between 21st March and 18th April. This year Easter weekend will be 2nd April meaning that Shrove Tuesday is 16th February.

Up until recently, food was not as available and communities would fast as a practical necessity. Many religious people fast at various times of the year. Jews fast on Yom Kippur. The Mormons fast once a month and give the money they save to a charitable caused. Ramadan is celebrated widely by Muslims. I have friends who would not necessarily describe themselves as practising Muslims but who keep the tradition of Ramadan quite strictly. Like Lent, Ramadan is a period of fasting, prayer and reflection. During the daylight hours, no food or water can be consumed.

This year we are stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve had a good year to date in terms of dieting. I stopped drinking on 2nd January and didn’t drink until 5th February, achieving a month off. I have mostly had a low-carb diet, usually eating one meal a day with a cheat day on Saturday. But if anything I haven’t exercised enough or got enough fresh air. This year I decided to do something for Lent. I am unlikely to go to church to be shriven, particularly given the current pandemic lock, but I’m going to be a bit stricter about certain things. It’s really to put a bit of structure on hopefully the last period of the COVID lockdown.

I will have a cheat day today, have pancakes and possibly a beer. From Ash Wednesday until 2nd April (Holy Saturday), I will observe the following:

  • Absolutely no alcohol
  • One meal a day fasting, usually towards the end of the day, with a meal consisting of meat or fish with salad and vegetables.
  • On Sunday I may allow myself some starchy carbs (bread, potatoes, rice)
  • No Facebook or Twitter. I do not have the apps on my phone. I will block them on my computer.
  • No unnecessary purchases particularly from eBay and Amazon. I will block them during the day.
  • Ensure that I get out of the house at least once a day for a Deep Work walk – take a problem I need to solve and think about it out in the air

In addition to this, I will continue to do my daily practices – I read Stoic texts and write a diary in both English and Russian. It isn’t much of a change really but I intend to be strict about it. If I mess up one day, I will just start again. Am I making any sacrifices? Well, yes but they are small really compared to the hardship some in the world face. I will be attending meetings about beer and usually we all drink during the meeting. I will have to drink water if anything. It’s relatively easy to diet if you are home-based.

As I write this, I am weighing in at 80.7kg at 19.6% fat. On Saturday I was 79kg at 18.3% and so I’m carrying a kilo of something that I should not be, probably due to the excesses of the weekend. It will be interesting to see what effects Lent has on my weight.

Ash Wednesday, 17th February

I didn’t end Shrove Tuesday particularly well. I have a cough and although I could get it to settle down eventually, I think it’s time to get a precautionary COVID test. We had an excessive number of pancakes for lunch and fish and chips for dinner. I finished the day with two pints of a beer that I brewed myself last year. I’m feeling rather bloated as a result and so the first two days of the diet will be required to eradicate that feeling.

Of course, having the test will mean that I can’t get out into the fresh air, but I will give myself a bit of slack on my rule – there’s nothing I can do about it until I get the result.

After going to bed relatively early, I slept well and slept in late to give myself a bit of a break. I have a meeting at 10 and then I will go to get a test. Other than this I’ve started working to rule. Facebook and Twitter are blocked on my PC. I’ve added entries to my computer’s host lookup table. Any attempt to connect to Facebook or Twitter will be impossible unless I override it. I use a program called Self-Control to block other sites less permanently.

# Lent /etc/hosts entries
127.0.0.1       www.facebook.com
::1             www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1       www.twitter.com
::1             www.twitter.com

Further to the day’s start, I received news that an old school friend died yesterday and I have to say it’s put me one gear short of where I should be. Live goes on, but sometimes it is good to pause and reflect.

Thursday 18th February

I do not have much to write today, other than I have been successful in following the diet. The COVID results came in last night and they were negative, which meant I could legitimately start the day by walking the dog and thus getting some fresh air. I am however quite ratty and I think I’m drinking too much coffee. I typically drink 4 mugs a day and this is possibly too much.

On Wednesday, hunger struck in the afternoon. When I follow a low-carb diet, I don’t often get hungry. I suspect my body was sorting out the starches and sugars we had on Tuesday. This morning my weight had dropped half a kilo. After reducing carbs, the body burns out the glycogen store and there is an immediate weight dip.

I didn’t sleep well because of the bad news I had during the day. Really there is no difference so far except that I’m being strict. It will be interesting to see how I get through the weekend. The weekend is normally when I relax on the diet. This weekend we will not be drinking or having any heavy carbs.

Friday 19th February

Our dog kindly woke us up at 1:30am to be let out of the house. She’s not usually in the habit of doing this but unfortunately giving her a set of keys is not an option. Other than that, I slept relatively well. I find it difficult to get going sometimes when dieting. Today was an exception. One coffee and I was ready to go. I’m going to spend the day writing. Now, one of my many roles is writing for a Homebrewing magazine and I have a deadline of next week to get an article finished. The article is based on the Conservation Law of Energy and will involve some basic algebra. I know what I want to write – the trick is making it accessible to the readers who mostly will have abandoned such things at school.

I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I accidentally ended up on Twitter briefly. The rules I used to block Twitter weren’t good enough. I was watching one of the London Go club’s videos about the Go programming language. Lorna Mitchell gave the talk and I accidentally ended up on her Twitter page for a couple of seconds. She’s written four books and they all look good. Once the self-inflicted purchasing curfew is over, I will probably buy her PHP Web Services book. It is 150 pages. I like books under 200 pages on a topic – it’s easy to commit a small portion of time knowing that you will get something out the other end. I find it difficult to read books over 300 pages, particularly if they are non-fiction books without splitting them up into digestible sections.

My weight dropped significantly overnight. I will start to include statistics over the weekend. The main thing today is to be a writer and get on with the job in hand.

Saturday 20th February

On a Saturday I would usually be eating doughnuts and generally taking a break from dieting. Today I will be having just one meal later in the day. It doesn’t feel particularly weird today not having the starchy and sugary carbs, but to be fair I had plenty of these on Tuesday. I suspect I will get cravings next week.

When I woke up I had a mild headache which has passed. I took a ketosis sample. You can buy the strips easily from chemists or online. They are not particularly accurate but give an indication of the presence of ketones in the system. If your body is producing ketones, it is likely to be in a fat-burning state. The test strip showed some traces of ketones. My weight had dropped again and I suspect I have burnt out my glycogen store. So I’m in a good position to start burning some fat this week.

We went for a long-overdue walk with our dog yesterday too. I suspect dog walking duties will fall to me today, so I will have a walk later. It’s rather a pleasant day.

I’ve got plenty of other things to do. I need to finish an article for a homebrewing magazine, I’ve got a meeting this afternoon about a new venture and I always have Russian homework to do. It’s good to keep busy when dieting, but I’m not particularly hungry as I write this.

Saturday will be the day that I put the statistics here. The measurements this week:

I also measured my waist. My lower waist (below the tire) is 92.5cm (36”6) and my upper waist is 96.9cm (38”2). I comfortably fit into my 36” jeans but if I had my way, I’d lose some weight around my centre. It is a sign of a sedentary lifestyle, being sat in front of computers all day.

We will publish the statistics daily with a summary on Saturdays. The ketosis statistics measure the ketones in urine by mmol/l.

  -ve Trace Small Moderate Large
mmol/L 0 0.5 1.5 4 8

Sunday 21st February

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
  78.9 0.0 15.5 -0.1

Saturday got tougher as the day went on. We accidentally have a glut of decaffeinated beans and so we are using them up. I’m not sure if I’m having caffeine withdrawal symptoms but after a long walk with my dog yesterday, I was good for nothing. I found it difficult to concentrate. I had a video meeting with a friend in the afternoon and we were planning to get something done on the call. I don’t think we quite achieved what we wanted. I didn’t have much planned today. Unfortunately, I need to do some of the things I didn’t get to yesterday.

That said the walk was good. The temperature hit 16 degrees and I had to find my lighter coat. We walked all the way to the river, into the town and then back home through the quiet streets.

At 5 o’clock I made dinner – steak in a peppercorn sauce with three eggs, green beans and broccoli, supplemented by some cheese afterwards. Then I basically vegetated in front of the TV watching YouTube videos about computing. I’m currently following the 8-Bit Guy, Retro Recipes and Noel’s Retro Labs, videocasts about nostalgic computing with lots of details and soldering. I transferred to bed and read for a bit before sleeping at the usual time. I had to get up once in the night but I slept well otherwise.

But this morning I don’t feel quite right. I still have a slight cough and sore throat. None of this has anything to do with the diet. The slight fatigue may be caused by the lack of caffeine. When I have deliberately given up caffeine, it has been hard. Day 3 is the toughest, but by day 4 there is a clarity of mind that comes. The thing is I like coffee.

Anyway, we need to keep going. It’s only day 5. Normally the momentum of the week would sweep me through to the weekend in a heartbeat, but we are locked down at home. There are benefits – it is easy to prepare food and stick to a diet.

Monday 22nd February

I’m allowed to have starchy carbs on a Sunday. In fact, in Lent Sundays don’t seem to be included in the fasting days. There are 46 days and 6 are Sundays. My intention was not to have carbs, but I went to the supermarket and for under £8 bought the ingredients for a Roast Chicken dinner. The stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy are the things that I would not normally be able to eat. The gravy was made in the roasting tin with vegetable stock, a bit of port (the alcohol will have been cooked out), some cranberry sauce, cornflour and a touch of marmite. I made both roast and mashed potatoes. We finished everything and the chicken carcass was used to make soup afterwards. Soups like this are good to have when dieting.

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
0.5 78.7 -0.2 15.3 -0.1

The good news is it hasn’t affected my weight loss at all. The figures continue to go in the right direction and the reason for this is I’m eating in a window of one hour a day. I have to say that I doubt I’d get through this week without some starch, so I’ve probably set myself up for the week.

I didn’t get outside as much as I should but I did go out. I didn’t feel particularly well in the evening. I’m not sure why but with an early night and for once a good night’s sleep, I seem to be better today. I’m not missing alcohol particularly, but we are all stuck at home and it is difficult to socialise. It is usually the social events that suffer when abstaining from drink.

I’m attending a funeral today for a former teacher of mine and that will take up most of the day. In normal circumstances, we’d go to the funeral, let the family do their thing and the rest of us would probably go and get a drink somewhere. The lockdown prevents us from doing this. We will be lining the street 1-2 metres apart just for the procession into the crematorium. With the travel, this will take most of the afternoon and I will have my meal when I get in afterwards.

Tuesday 23rd February

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
4 78.7 0.0 15.2 -0.2

It was a somewhat disjointed day yesterday. I got up early and did all the usual things. Then I started working on a bug fix to some software. It got to 11:20 and I realised I should be heading out to a funeral. I went by train and as a result had a 30-minute walk from the station to the crematorium, letting my mind wander on the problem with the software. I intend to do this daily – pick something and go and ponder it in the fresh air.

I attended the funeral with three school friends and it was for a former teacher of ours. We attended to show support but did not enter the crematorium. We held up books and stood on either side of the procession to see off our teacher. We watched the ceremony outside on video. He had unfortunately died of COVID. He went into hospital in January and didn’t come out again. The service had been planned five years ago when he thought he was going to die of something else.

On my return home, I managed to fix the bug. Pondering obviously helps. I’d tried to do the same on Friday without the pondering and hadn’t got anywhere. We had a light dinner early and I spent the evening working and watching videos on computer programming. I’m not noticing the fasting as much but keeping the mind active is good.

This morning I awoke at 5:30 and didn’t really get back to sleep. I got up just before 7, let our dog out and went out into the garden for 30 minutes to do some gardening. I’ve made a small dent in the weeding, but you wouldn’t know the difference. It got me out in the air before a very busy day.

I could not decide if the ketosis reading was a 4 or an 8. It’s somewhere in between so I’ve been conservative and recorded it as a 4. It means that I’m in a fat-burning state. I’m never in ketosis on Tuesdays – I usually must wait until Wednesday or Thursday after a weekend. Clearly keeping an OMAD schedule has helped keep me in a fat-burning state. Full steam ahead I guess.

We will eat early this afternoon. My wife will make some keto pancakes and I will have a steak and bacon with them.

Wednesday 24th February

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
4 78.7 0.0 15.1 -0.1

The light in the bathroom this morning was less intense and I could compare the ketosis strip to the key much more easily. The measurement is 4mmol/l and I’m still in ketosis. Furthermore, I’m not hungry. I’m feeling quite energetic. After letting our dog out, feeding her and having a coffee, I took a flask of coffee out and walked for over an hour to the nearest post office to return a parcel. During the walk, I dictated some notes for a new project I’m working on. It was a productive walk and delivered what I needed – some thinking time away from the keyboard. For the rest of the day, I won’t be working. I’ll be studying Russian.

There’s not much else to write, other than that I’m in full swing of the one meal a day diet and I’m getting into the fresh air away from the computer. The numbers are going in the right direction. Although there is no overall weight-loss, the scales say I’m burning fat.

Thursday 25th February

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
4 78.5 -0.2 15.1 0.0

Normally on a Thursday, I’m tired from a late finish on Wednesdays from Russian lessons. This morning I’m up as normal. I don’t feel hungry – not in the slightest. If you put a plate of food in front of me and it was within parameters (no potatoes, bread, rice, etc) I would be able to happily demolish it but I’m not sitting here writing this with hunger cravings. I’ve settled into the eating window diet.

Not surprisingly, the ketosis reading remains steady and I could tell from the smell when I took the reading this morning. There is a definite aroma to urine when one is producing ketones. Once in ketosis, people generally feel more energetic. We were designed to go and get our food under extremely difficult conditions. Not so long ago our species would have to work hard to stay alive and find food.

Generally, I feel as if I’m sleeping better, but last night I woke up at 2:30am with a slight headache. I’d been dreaming about solving something and the headache seemed to be caused by that. It was stopping me from getting back to sleep, but I eventually dropped off and slept through to around 7.

Yesterday we had a keto-compliant Chicken Caesar salad with plenty of chicken, a sauce made from mayonnaise and anchovies, crispy bacon, lettuce and croutons made from dried keto-cheese snacks. Mayonnaise usually has sugar in it from the shop but you can find no sugar or low sugar alternatives. You can also make it yourself.

After a week of this, I feel like I have a good cadence going and I should be able to last the full run of the diet. We are planning to have pasta on Sunday. I will make it from scratch hopefully.

Friday 26th February

Ketosis Weight Variance Fat Variance
4 78.3 -0.2 15.0 -0.1

It’s not clear to me where February has disappeared, but I guess it is a sign that I’ve been busy and that must be good. Yesterday I managed to get most of my work done in the morning and clear the decks. By the afternoon, I had mowed the lawn, taken the dog for a walk and cooked dinner. Despite the forecast of cold weather in the next couple of weeks, I decided to tackle the lawn now. It is already growing and where it isn’t, it is full of moss. I suspect it will take my time up this spring.

We had salmon with cauliflower mash, asparagus and a salad for dinner. I also had some cheese. I thought I’d overdone it but clearly from this morning’s statistics, things are going in the right direction. After dinner, I felt uncomfortable. Basically, I have mild constipation. You don’t need to know the details other than that, but I’m surprised because I’m well hydrated and I’m eating plenty of vegetables and salad. I suspect things will sort themselves out today or tomorrow.

I do have a slight ketosis headache this morning, but it is completely manageable. I’m feeling energetic and positive. I’ve got a morning of work ahead and then an afternoon of writing.

I did buy some things on Amazon yesterday, but they were for other people – a printer for my parents, a book for a colleague who is 60 today and a kindle book for a friend’s birthday.

I’m not missing alcohol or rather, I’m not missing it to the extent that I feel I’m missing something big. A glass of wine would be nice, but the feeling of equilibrium I have now is nice. I’m not particularly missing my cheat day either. On a Saturday I would normally be eating cakes, potatoes and bread. Tomorrow will be the same as today. Saturday 27th Feb It’s day 11 and I’m making good progress. I thought I may have blown it last night. I stayed up until 1 o’clock coding. I was rewriting a Perl script in the Go language because I need something that treats Russian characters sensibly. I got there in the end but I shouldn’t have stayed up too late. I ended up not sleeping properly until after 2 because I was feeling wired. Despite not sleeping enough, I still feel energetic at 9:50 and I’ve already finished the work I left open from last night.

There are no detrimental effects. I’m still in ketosis between 4mmol/l and 8mmol/l, and the overall weight is still descending. This is the longest I can remember being in ketosis. When I allow myself a full cheat day, this usually takes me out of ketosis and it takes a couple of days to recover.

The weather is now good enough that I can work in the garden and that is what I did yesterday to get into the air. Later today I will go out and re-edge the lawn. It’s easier to do this whilst the ground is moist.

Here are my statistics this week. My weight has dropped by nearly a kilogram and my fat weight has dropped by 600g. If I stopped now, I would destroy this progress. Over the next couple of weeks, I expect to see these numbers go down, but perhaps plateau. Additionally, my lower waist measures 91.7cm (36”1) and my upper waist measures 96cm. It’s difficult to get a consistent measurement of the girth around the waist. I might stop recording it.

I’ve slept relatively well this week. Here are the statistics from the FitBit:

It really is a matter of keeping going. I’m not even one quarter through the Lent period yet. Normally I would be craving cakes and other carby food, but today I feel in an equilibrium. We will have a meal this afternoon and will follow the diet.