My plot to skip breakfast // take over the world!

When I tell people that I’m fasting they often look at me like I’ve just explained my plan to overthrow the government with a can of deodorant and a cigarette lighter.

“So you just skip breakfast?” Yeah! And sometimes lunch or even dinner if I feel like it, to which there’s always the age-old retort of “But won’t that make you fat?” Well, I don’t know. You tell me! (Kellogg’s tell us that skipping breakfast is unhealthy. I wonder why a breakfast cereal company would tell us that?)

Once they’ve got their head around the idea that skipping the odd meal isn’t that big of a deal, that you get used to it and that it really doesn’t matter when you eat your calories, they start questioning your motives, as if your choice of feeding habits has to be justified before the world; and of course it’s widely assumed that it’s to lose weight and have a shit hot body for when you take your shirt of. Because that’s why anybody does anything?

Then they seem to get hung up on the details. What can you drink? Can you exercise whilst fasted? When should you eat? For how long should you fast?

Fasting is simple. Really simple. You just don’t eat for a while; 16, 18, 23, 46 hours. Whatever suits you best. And that’s the beauty of it. It fits around you or, at least, you make it fit around you. Then you eat for a while; eight hours, six hours, some people just eat once per day. During that time, you can mostly eat what you like. Of course, after the effort and hunger of not eating for 18 hours, you don’t what to mess it all up with pizza and ice-cream. Okay, maybe you do but why would you? Maybe just once a week.

A great thing is that you don’t have too long to eat, so you can’t eat that much. If you do a 16:8 fast, then you have time maybe for two meals and a snack. Six hours allows you even less and if you go for a 23:1 fast, you eat until you get your fill then it’s a strict diet of willpower until tomorrow. For this reason you have to make sure you get all your protein, fats, carbs and micronutrients when you can.

When you’re not eating, life is even simpler. Just drink plenty of water, black coffee, teas (no milk, sugar or honey - no calories!) and focus on not eating – you’d be surprised how many office birthdays, breakfasts or free samples get sprung on you when you’re fasting. Just suck it up, be strong and don’t eat. One of the key things is to get plenty of liquids in. Ideally some good mineral water, rather than tap stuff. This helps. Trust me.


The thing I love about fasting is that it resets your relationship with food and eating. When I spend half my waking hours feeling hungry and looking forward to that sweet, sweet first bite of food, I try to savour the feeling, so that when I do come to eat I’m not going to blow all that effort on junk. Also, you learn to live with the hunger. Delayed gratification, I’m sure we can mostly agree, is mentally empowering and overcoming struggle (like being hungry for a few hours) is quite satisfying. Plus, there’s nothing better than turning up hungry for a good meal – you enjoy it even more.

On this note, skipping meals is something of a money saver. Way to turn poverty into a dietary lifestyle choice! As a result, we can focus more on the quality of the nutrition. The money you save on cornflakes, cereal bars and pasta, you can use to buy good ingredients, like good oils, fresh fruit and veg and even a grass-fed juicy steak bred just for you after your 23 god-forsaken hours of fasting.

But it’s not just money you save! The time you save by drinking coffee instead of preparing and eating breakfast. And drinking coffee instead of preparing eating lunch. And drinking coffee instead of shopping for snacks. (I think you get it, you’ll be drinking a lot of coffee – black, no sugar, no shit!) You can use your time to make yourself one damn good meal, that you’ll enjoy even more because you’ve endured 23 hours of not eating.

Honestly, there’s probably plenty of science to back up the benefits of fasting – or maybe not. Who knows these days. But all I can tell you is that, once I got a bit used to being hungry, fasting has changed the way I think about food and eating, and leading a healthy lifestyle in general. Mentally I fell stronger. Hell, if I can overcome hunger for 23 hours, I can take on anything!

Try it for a week. You literally have nothing to lose. 

Training in Lockdown: an Expert Guide


"Most of you have read about me or heard of my feats of strength... all on prison swill!"
proclaims Charles Bronson (now known as Charles Salvador) in his 2002 book 'Solitary Fitness’, before going on to promise that the book is “designed to give you maximum strength while helping you maintain maximum agility and speed.”

And we know the book contains no lies, after all Her Majesty’s Prison Service and the Home Office of the United Kingdom are witnesses as to what Bronson has done, “they monitor me 24/365” he says, “No one could take me to court and say this is all a load of lies - I’d call 10,000 prison officers as my witnesses”.

Britain’s most notorious prisoner knows all about isolation. He’s spend almost his entire adult life in prison, and a large amount of that in solitary confinement. It made sense, then, when I considered my fitness options during the coronavirus lockdown, that I’d go to the wisdom of possibly the only man on earth who knows so much about both fitness and confinement. “I’m in solitary confinement,” he writes “locked up in a room 12 x 8ft. This is my life!”

“I pick up a muscle mag, I start to laugh and I wipe my arse with it - it’s a joke and a big con, and they call me a CRIMINAL!” he declares, advising his readers to avoid protein shakes, diets, pills and steroids. He even goes on to tell us not to waste money on expensive trainers or gym memberships. “Once you’ve read my fitness routine you’ll never be ripped off again”.

So, what exactly are Bronson’s secrets, allegedly “legendary throughout the penal system”?

First, Bronson talks us through a simple stretching routine, limbering up the legs, back and shoulders, before moving on to Solitary Basics.

The eight basic but important exercises which Bronson swears by are the presss-up, sit-up, squat, squat-thrusts, burpees, star jumps, step-ups and the handstand press-up; nothing that any half-decent personal trainer could criticise.

On top of that, Bronson adapts many typical gym exercises to the conditions of solitary confinement, using resistance from opposite arms for bicep curls, lifting chairs and other small items of furniture as well as towels or t-shirts to create resistance. All of it’s logical and all of it’s explained well - and the photos of Storm and Bronson’s doodles obviously help.

The book, however, does include some other more outlandish exercises. Dan Lurie, on his GoodReads review, gives it five stars writing “The most bizarre fitness book I've ever read. Covers exercises for every part of a man. And I mean EVERY part”.

one user on Redditor notes “It’s the only exercise book I’ve ever seen with dick exercise in.”

What’s more, the book includes illustrations by Bronson himself and ‘90s fitness model and TV Gladiator Storm appears demonstrating many of the exercises.

As bizarre and absurd as the book may be, including Bronson’s strange philosophies on health and fitness, the feats of strength he boasts (knocking out a cow, punching through bulletproof glass, 172 press-ups in 60 seconds) are far from shoddy and why not listen to the nearest thing we’ll probably ever have as a Confinement Trainer.

If you want to get into all the minutiae and day-long fitness routines, as well as an insight into the mind of the Britain’s most dangerous criminal (plus those dick exercises), then the book’s worth a go. If not, perhaps stick to the eight basics and do PE with Joe Wicks…