DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional in any sense, and I strongly recommend seeking professional advice before you or anyone else thinks to try anything similar to what I have done, especially if you have any underlying medical conditions.
Recently I decided to see how long I could maintain a fast (including from wine and all other alcohol).
Truth be told, I had been overweight for quite some time and I felt it was having an impact on my mental health, eventually bleeding into everything else, from work to family.
The most common method of fasting is probably Intermittent Fasting, which recommends eating during specific hours of the day, and fasting for the rest (for example, with 18:6 you would fast for 18 hours and eat for 6 hours each day; others include 19:5, 20:4, 22:2, even 23:1).
However, I aimed for days of complete fasting: no food (or wine and any other alcohol) at all.
On complete fasting days I would drink only water, coffee, and a blend of sparkling mineral water with a pinch of sea salt and a dash of apple cider vinegar (ACV) mixed in. The sea salt was to prevent headaches and losing minerals too quickly, and the ACV was mainly for flavour (though there are some health benefits touted on the label).
Here’s a look at my first 30 days:
- Thu 25 Jan – All day fast
- Fri 26 Jan – All day fast
- Sat 27 Jan – Small lunch
- Sun 28 Jan – All day fast
- Mon 29 Jan – All day fast
- Tue 30 Jan – All day fast
- Wed 31 Jan – All day fast
- Thu 1 Feb – Big lunch with a friend
- Fri 2 Feb – All day fast
- Sat 3 Feb – Small plate of cheese before bed
- Mon 4 Feb – All day fast
- Tue 6 Feb – All day fast
- Wed 7 Feb – All day fast
- Thu 8 Feb – Lunch date with my wife, homemade pizza for dinner
- Fri 9 Feb – Chinese New Year’s Eve big dinner feast + Champagne
- Sat 10 Feb – Another big feast for Chinese New Year + Champagne
- Sun 11 Feb – All day fast
- Mon 12 Feb – All day fast
- Tue 13 Feb – Korean BBQ dinner with friends + Red Wine, Soju, Beer
- Wed 14 Feb – Valentine’s Day lunch with my wife + Champagne, Pad Thai for dinner + Beer
- Thu 15 Feb – All day fast
- Fri 16 Feb – Family member’s birthday, big dinner + Champagne, Red Wine
- Sat 17 Feb – Big steak for lunch + leftover Red Wine
- Sun 18 Feb – Thai dinner with former colleagues + Champagne, Wine, Beer
- Mon 19 Feb – All day fast
- Tue 20 Feb – All day fast
- Wed 21 Feb – All day fast
- Thu 22 Feb – Lunch with a friend
- Fri 23 Feb – All day fast
- Sat 24 Feb – All day fast
In summary, out of 30 days:
- I maintained a complete fast for 18 days,
- one meal for 10 days,
- and two meals for 2 days.
As you can see from my timeline above, life gets in the way and there are meals and occasions that could not be politely avoided.
As a wine professional, I was surprised at how long I was able to abstain from alcohol – two whole weeks from the beginning! (Unless otherwise indicated with an underline, absolutely no alcohol was taken.)
Details
Perhaps after the first week I came across the concept of dry fasting, as opposed to wet, or water, fasting. In the latter you would constantly drink water, whereas with dry fasting you would reduce fluid intake to the bare minimum. This would at least mitigate the feeling of bloating.
My armchair research turned up other benefits to prolonged fasting, including anti-cancer effects and body recomposition through a process called Autophagy, where the body seems to clean up it’s own dead or unused cells to rebuild them into more useful components.
My understanding was that much of this processing is done via the liver. Knowing that alcohol (ethanol) can only be processed by the liver, this further encouraged me to abstain from drinking to avoid interfering with my body’s natural cleaning process.
Results
After 30 days:
- My weight went down from 78.6 kg to 68.6 kg, a difference of 10 kg
- My wife reports that I no longer snore
- Greater motivation to exercise; pullups are easier without having to carry an extra 10 kg
- I fit into clothes I haven’t worn since before COVID
- Greater appreciation of food and wine; I never suffered from withdrawals, but definitely felt cravings, which became easier to ignore over time. I thought more about what I wanted to cook, what I wanted to eat, and what wines I might pair with my meal when I break my fast.
- Greater emotional calm; I don’t know if there’s a physiological explanation, but at the very least I have a greater appreciation of what my mind and body are capable of.
Just in case, I visited a GP and took a blood test to see if there was anything abnormal to look out for, and I’m happy to report that everything looks good. Things I tested for include:
- Blood pressure
- Haemoglobin
- White Cell Count
- Platelets
- Cholesterol
- Liver and Kidney function
- Vitamin D
- Thyroid function
- Iron studies
- Glucose (perhaps barely below guidelines, but was explained by my fast and I was not symptomatic)
Future
For now I plan to keep this going on for as long as I feel it’s safe, but this 30-day snapshot should be the most informative period. I expect the law of diminishing returns to come into play, slowing down my weight loss. Most likely I will revert to some form of Intermittent Fasting.
I have an aspirational goal of 64 kg, purely because I’m a fan of Bruce Lee and this was his weight during his prime, but in the future it’s likely I’ll decide that it isn’t worth putting myself through more misery.
(Self-reported weight is 140 pounds [~63.5 kg], editor adjusted for this book to 135 pounds [~61 kg])
I hope my experience will give you something to think about. Again, especially if you have a medical condition, you would be wise to seek out medical advice before trying anything similar.
Read more: How You Can Learn About Wine (and Life) By Tasting Purposefully
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