The FastDay Forum

Hi all! I am a heavy coffee drinker (I literally drink it sun up to sun down). Today is my first fast day, but I completely neglected to remember that the powdered Coffee Mate creamer is 10 calories per teaspoon!!! I am a bit distraught as I use a lot of this in my coffee all the time. Do you count these sorts of things towards everything, and how do you cope as a coffee drinker who LOVES their creamer on fasting days? Also, what about a piece of Trident Gum? The label says >5 calories per piece, but is that something you would also worry about or am I being too "anal?"

Advice much appreciated!!

A calorie is a calorie. You choose which (and how many) you consume.

I have my coffee with just a splash of skimmed milk.
Nescafe Azera is quite a creamy coffee anyway, you could give it a try!

You count everything that passes your lips! At least that is what I do on a fast day although a few calories either way won't make much difference because it is the great difference between a fast day & eating day calories that triggers the benefits. I'm sure some better informed nerdy type will be along to add to this information!

I would count milk/creamer/sugar if I drank it often on a fast day, and the same with chewing gum if I had more than a couple of pieces daily. Generally I don't think I'm anal about calorie counting and I only really count how many calories I have roughly, but if you have say 5 coffees with creamer in that's 50 calories, or 10% of your total allowance, which soon adds up. I drink my coffee black, but I know a lot of fasters measure out milk etc on fast days, how about measuring out say 50 cals worth of creamer for use on fast days that you count?

I drink two coffees with a splash of fat'free milk daily and I don't count their calories. But if I was drinking 10 of them and used full fat milk then I certainly would.

Two cups a day for me too

In the early days of fasting I would sometimes go over the 500 calories,I would have 590 , it didnt make any difference to me but now I am more incline to have less about 380 calories on average so dont worry too much,remember this WOE is for life, you have plenty of time to get it right

[Tracieknits]

A calorie is a calorie - count them!

A few side notes, even though you didn't ask: chewing gum can stimulate gastric juices and makes the stomach think food is coming. It makes me very hungry! I avoid it now. Yes, I have stinky breath on fast days, but it's just the price one pays

I have moved toward black coffee on fast days and less stuff in my coffee on regular days. I used to love half and half and sugar in my coffee. Now, even on normal days, I only have a splash of regular whole milk. I cut it out little by little over the course of a few weeks. Also, Coffee mate powder is a boatload of icknast. Have you read the ingredients? I would try cutting it out altogether, gradually and slowly.

Heck, if you really have been having "a lot" of it every day, all day long, just cutting out the Coffeemate in your coffee might lead to a really surprising weight loss!! Think about it, if you have a tablespoon (30 calories) in every cup, and a cup every waking hour (say 12 cups a day), that's 360 calories a day in Coffee Mate. that's 2520 calories a week from Coffee mate! Since 1 pound is 3500 calories, that's basically 3/4 of a pound you could lose every week from ONLY cutting out the Coffee Mate in your coffee!!!

Thank you all! Guess I've blown it for some of my daily calories today, but luckily it hasn't thrown me over yet. I can still enjoy my crab cake for dinner tonight (190 calories). I will keep this in mind from now on. Maybe it's time I learn to either drink it black or just skip it altogether on fast days, which I think will be VERY hard for me to do...

I was the same a few months back but it became hard to justify so many fast day calories just for coffee. Try to alternate coffee and a glass of water to tame the shrew. Soon you won't want so much coffee.

on my first few fasts I used a lot of milk in tea as I am a tea jenny, but now I have switched to redbush tea, didn't like it much, but doesn't need milk, and no caffeine is a bonus. now I actually prefer it!

Very topical as I was just counting up my calories for today and saw that I had wasted 90 on three coffees. Because of that, I can only have 1/2 the portion of hummus I set out for lunch.

I guess as you go along this gets easier. It certainly is an education.

Zasha

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It is an acquired taste but one can learn to drink black coffee and then never go back. I drink only italian espresso (one shot at a time) of very good quality. I find that if the brew is very good one does not need to "kill" its taste with cream, milk and sugar.