The FastDay Forum

There seems to be something going round - maybe it's just post-holiday blues. My weigh-in before my holiday (2 weeks ago) I was up 1.1 kg and I was appalled. I have had my first weigh-in this morning since coming back from holiday and I am up ANOTHER 700 g. Past appalled now to just depressed. I'm overweight again.

I didn't fast on holiday or do my workout video but I did 16:8 every single day (skipping breakfast) and went on 6 mile+ walks on very steep hills (we're talking cliffs really) again, every single day for a week. I do wonder what the skipping breakfast was for (my husband was a little irritated with me because it meant I would be begging for lunch earlier than he wanted) if I was actually going to gain weight.

However, I do think I know what caused it - the wine. There wasn't a single day on my holiday I didn't have any. I almost always have wine on non-fast days, and since I never fasted, every day was wine day. I have been needing a wake up call and I believe the shock of the weight gain is it. There is no point putting myself through the pain of fasting (because that's what it really is much of the time - I can't be the only one who thinks that, can I?) only to blow all its benefits with the empty calories of booze.

I would like to get myself in the habit of having wine only on weekends. I don't want to go cold turkey unless I have to but need to get back to some moderation. I am going to try it for a month and see what it does for my weight (and my tolerance!). Today was my first non-fast, non-wine day and of course it was fine. I thought a little about how nice it would have been to have some to sip while I was having dinner but it soon passed - much like the hunger of fasting. I just hope I can keep this up. Wish me luck.

Good luck! I reckon you'll soon lose that weight and be back on track.

Good luck with the weekend only wine. I am suffering the same fate and already only have wine at weekends. I am so fed up with it that I have decided to not have any at all for a few weeks to see if it puts me back on track. Enjoy your weekend quaffing and let us know how it goes.

I'm the same and trying not to have any at least 3 days a week Mon-Wed and preferably not on Thursdays.
It's difficult but good luck.
Lil

I too am so fond of wine! It's just so yummy. I don't drink two of my fast days, and the other days I do!

I was thinking I had to stop, but it's just such a pleasure that I don't really want to. Like other things I enjoy, olive oil, butter, cake, and chocolate... those things just make life so much more joyful for me! I just know, those are my things... those are the things I enjoy the most.

I'm becoming more of a lightweight though in how much I can drink, so maybe that will help. I know fasting has helped with the other goodies, because there just isn't the time to eat or drink all the goodies you want when you are fasting so often!

Hang in there Mommy Bunny! And to you.

For what it is worth, the 16-8 is not my friend either. I tried it over our Easter holiday vacation (only a long weekend, really) and gained 9lbs. I can eat a lot of stuff that is not good for me in 8 hours. It wasn't wine or beverages that did me in. It was sugar. I don't eat sugar on fast days. Not ever. But, I had more than my share on 16/8 which is why I had the problem.

Oops. Double post.

Hi MummyBunny, keep going - you know it works! We had a week in a hotel where we paid for the buffet breakfast - and made damn sure we got value for money... What we did not do was eat lunch, preferring to bake in the sun/swim/walk etc. Evening meals were not huge but involved wine or beer every night...
This was such a change in eating habits we had no idea what the outcome was going to be but I put on 3 ounces, then lost a pound the next day, and again the next day. Can't really explain why - it must take lots of energy to keep cool in 30 degrees I suppose?

Hi mummybunny
I too love my wine but of late came to realize that either I was loving it just a bit too much, or it wasn't loving me. Either way it was sabotaging my weight loss efforts.
So I've taken a complete break. It's only my second week but so far I feel great.
Ive been making better choices, food wise. So hopefully it will turn the tables in my favour.

You're just back fom hol which is always a bit tough so don't be too hard on yourself.

It's been easier than I thought to abstain.
And I find I've more get up and go. Sometimes after a few glasses I don't feel like doing anything much.

Good luck to you and keep us posted. We're fighting the same battle

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement. Without this forum it would have been so easy to just give up and fall back on bad old habits!

Today, after two days' straight of no wine, I feel much better. I think I slept better last night too. I had a really good feed day yesterday (no breakfast, a normal lunch and dinner and no snacks apart from a small amount of dark chocolate after dinner) and I'm fasting today and I'm really motivated.

I'm also back into working out and feeling a little sore - which I am prepared to register for some time as water weight while the muscles heal. It's a little disheartening because I'd been off working out less then 2 weeks. I hadn't expected to feel so stiff! But no matter, no more looking back. Forward march!

Ha mummybunny - whinges are good!

I think it's very easy for the wine intake to creep up without really realising it - after all, it's only the odd glass on a night and not an all out weekend binge is it? It's just finishing off the weekend's bottle, and then... well Wednesday was hard at work and of course Thursday's practically the weekend and then it's Friday again! I don't drink every night but I've realised that I maybe have a bit more than is good for me. What will help me to cut back to just weekends is a) the cost of booze - September and October definitely need to be tight on food budgets! and b) my husband, who is definitely only a weekend drinker (and then very much in moderation) will be working back near York again so I won't be on my own during the week and tempted to open a bottle. Since I've started my new job I finish on weds lunchtime and am not at work til Friday. Yesterday and last week, I spent the whole afternoon when I got home, vegged out on the sofa, eating a lazy lunch, watching tv and crocheting. This then turned into an evening of more munching and 1/2 bottle wine ('well, it's a fast day tomorrow and I don't have to get up early...') - not healthy! I think it's normal for August to go a bit off the rails - routines, even when at work, seem a bit out of kilter and social things seem to just extend the holiday feeling - which is not a bad thing. Hopefully those of us who have been less than boringly perfect have found that actually, we haven't put on as much weight as we would have done if not fasting, and that we know we can quickly get ourselves back in the zone again. Sometimes I think I almost need to get to that place of 'Right! That's it! I've had enough!' to make me sort things out again. Well, maybe one day I've have it all sorted all the time and won't need to...hmm yeah right!

So like many I am being a bit more mindful during September and cutting out booze Monday to Thursday and not every weekend night either, as well as being more vigilant with food planning, not snacking and restarting a bit of exercise. None of these things should be hard or unsustainable so I hope we can all help each other to keep focussed.

As mummybunny says - onwards!

Yep greenmonster, you've got my consumption patterns fairly spot on! I rarely drink alone in that I won't usually open a bottle if I'm on my own, but that said I have been known (or not known, if you get my drift) to sneak in a little more when my husband wasn't looking, which is kind of what worries me. He's got 7 inches and 5 stone on me, and when we open a bottle of wine I usually insist on matching him at least drop for drop. It's insane! One thing that seems to have done for us is that my husband's sister sold us cheaply a wine fridge she was looking to get rid of - it holds 48 bottles of wine at different temperatures so we always have some in the house! When we had no obvious place to keep it it was much easier to run out.

Hi well I can understand you wondering if it was worth skipping breakfast everyday I would be the same. For me I only drank regular Fri-Sun wine on those days occasionally 1 drink in week but not often.
So I fit my 3 fastdays in before Friday, if I needed to give it up I could do. Good Luck with your new one month plan and I'm pretty sure it will show results then your depression will lift again, then you can plan differently when next holiday is due, ( my holiday earlier in year I never got on scales on my return)not sure how I'm going to face the next one 5 weeks from now still plotting, but not giving up my wine on holiday deffo.
But having said all that think I must have gained more than you did it certainly felt so, but what I didn't know couldn't depress me Lol
Cheating really but whatever it takes I say Sue

A wine fridge! Oh dear. We bought a beautiful carved wood wine rack a few months back (strangely an impulse buy on the part of my husband, who always researches every purchase meticulously beforehand). Of course we then had to get some wine to put in it (thankfully only hold about 6 bottles). And then of course we had plenty of wine in the house. But then 6 bottles goes down quite quickly so then you have an embarrassingly and obviously empty wine rack which then needs filling... which of course then means you have plenty of wine in the house....

I am planning to gradually add some more bottles to the rack and NOT OPEN THEM. This is the plan...

I went grocery shopping today and I didn't follow my normal habit of picking up some wine to fill the holes in the fridge <pat on back>. The shop was a helluva lot cheaper than it usuallyis! Small steps, small steps. Of course I didn't have wine with dinner today as I'm fasting. So that's 3 days straight of no wine. My liver may forgive me yet!