Six Weeks of Intermittent Fasting, Five Days of Chinese New Year: A Cautionary Tale About Holiday Weight Gain

We welcomed the Year of the Horse this Tuesday, 17 February 2026.

Chinese New Year (CNY) – or Lunar New Year, as it's increasingly known – is one of the most important holidays in Asia, celebrated by the Chinese diaspora as well as Vietnamese and Korean communities worldwide. It's a time for family reunions, traditional rituals, and enough food to make your arteries file for early retirement.

This year, we didn't manage to return home to Singapore to celebrate with the extended family as we did last year, when CNY fell in late January before the new school term started. Nevertheless, we tried to honour the traditions: spring cleaning (which confirmed that yes, we do own that much stuff), putting up CNY decorations (mostly straight, some less so), Reunion Dinner, and the giving of Red Packets (the only expense that doesn't feel like spending money because it's tradition).

As with most holidays and festivities, food is a big part of the celebrations. So I "allowed myself" to indulge a little.

Context: At the turn of the new year, the Wife declared a 30-day challenge of no snacks after dinner. And I was signed up to it as well. We shall not discuss free will or the democratic processes that were conspicuously absent from this household policy decision.

To her credit, we've been pretty disciplined about it.

To take it further, I decided to be strict with the 16-8 intermittent fasting protocol as well. In fact, on most days, I stretched it to 17-18 hours of fasting. It was kind of like payback for the extra food over the year-end Christmas and New Year holidays, during which I'd put on a few kilos. Hashtag aging. Hashtag lower metabolism. Hashtag regretting that second box of macadamia shortbread.

Over the course of about six weeks, I managed to lose the weight I'd gained. It wasn't particularly difficult for me since I do intermittent fasting regularly. Well, somewhat. Like, not very strictly. But consistently enough that my body grudgingly cooperates when I actually enforce the rules.

So with CNY approaching, I figured I'd "earned it." Six weeks of disciplined eating surely bought me five days of festive indulgence, right? That's basic mathematics. Or possibly hubris disguised as mathematics.

From last weekend through CNY Eve and CNY Day 1, we feasted a little more than usual. Nothing extravagant – it's very different compared to Singapore where CNY goodies are everywhere in abundance, plus the endless visitations where you're socially obligated to indulge in high-calorie cookies and snacks while catching up with relatives you see once a year and pretending you remember their children's names.

I didn't think we ate all that much, to be honest.

The bathroom scale disagreed. Vehemently.

After just five days of "festivities," I'd gained back about 50% of what I'd lost in six weeks.

Cue shocking sound effect. Cue existential crisis. Cue me staring at the scale wondering if it was broken.

I was shocked, to say the least. Also mildly betrayed. Mostly by my metabolism, but also by the fundamental unfairness of thermodynamics.

Six weeks to lose it. Five days to reclaim half of it. If this were an investment strategy, I'd be filing for bankruptcy. If this were a business model, the regulator would shut it down for fraud. But because it's my middle-aged metabolism during a food-centric holiday, it's apparently just... normal.

The Year of the Horse was supposed to represent energy, speed, and forward momentum. My body apparently interpreted that as "sprint directly back to your previous weight as efficiently as possible."

So here I am, staring down another six weeks of slightly-more-disciplined intermittent fasting to undo five days of tradition and joy. The Wife's no-snacks-after-dinner challenge suddenly feels less like an arbitrary household decree and more like essential damage control.

The lesson? I'm not entirely sure yet. Maybe it's that festive eating compounds faster than festive exercise burns it off. Maybe it's that the bathroom scale has a better memory than I do. Maybe it's that "earning it" is a financial concept that doesn't translate well to calories.

Or maybe – and I'm just spitballing here – it's that the Year of the Horse is great for everyone except people whose metabolism has already retired to the pace of a particularly lazy tortoise.

Either way, I've got three weeks (at least) of fasting ahead of me. Again. The CNY pineapple tarts were good, though.

Worth it? Ask me in March.

Your Turn:
Have you ever spent weeks losing weight only to watch a single holiday weekend undo most of your progress – and if so, did you also stand on the bathroom scale multiple times hoping it was broken?
Do you have a festive season or cultural celebration where the food is so central that "moderation" feels like a betrayal of tradition, and how do you actually navigate that without gaining half your bodyweight back?
When you do intermittent fasting or any eating discipline, do you genuinely "earn" indulgences through prior restriction, or is that just elaborate mental accounting we use to justify the third serving of whatever we know we shouldn't be eating?

👉 Hit reply and share your thoughts – I’d love to hear what’s resonating with you.

☕ If this weekend musing made you feel slightly better about your own post-holiday bathroom scale confrontations – or if you're just relieved to know someone else's metabolism also operates on spite and poor mathematics – consider buying L-Plate Retiree a coffee on Ko-fi. Your support helps me keep confessing my dietary failures with questionable humour.

Your Investment Constitution – The IPS

We've talked about the what and the how of portfolio management. Now, let's talk about the most important document you will ever create as an investor: the Investment Policy Statement (IPS). Think of your IPS as the Constitution for your investment life – it's the supreme law that governs all your financial decisions.

An IPS is a formal document that clearly outlines your objectives, constraints, and investment guidelines. It is the blueprint for your entire investment process, and it serves two crucial purposes:

1. Clarity and Discipline: It forces you to think rationally about your goals and risk tolerance before the market gets emotional. When the market crashes, you don't panic; you look at your IPS, which tells you exactly what to do (usually, rebalance and buy low!). It's a behavioral guardrail against making impulsive, costly mistakes.

2. Accountability: It provides a clear benchmark against which to measure your portfolio's success. Did you meet your return objective? Did you stay within your risk limits?

Key Components of Your IPS:

• Objectives: What is your return requirement (e.g., 5% real return)? What is your risk tolerance (e.g., maximum acceptable loss)? This is directly informed by your Personal Financial Assessment and Risk and Return Fundamentals.

• Constraints: What are your time horizon, liquidity needs, and tax situation? Do you have any unique circumstances (e.g., ethical investing preferences)?

• Guidelines: This is the practical part. It includes your target Asset Allocation, the permissible investment vehicles, and your rebalancing rules.

For L-Plate Retirees, your IPS doesn't need to be a 50-page legal document. It can be a simple, one-page summary that clearly states your long-term plan. The act of writing it down is what matters most. It's the ultimate tool for disciplined, long-term investing.

L-Plate Takeaways:

• The IPS is Your Blueprint: It's the formal document that outlines your investment objectives, constraints, and guidelines.

• Behavioral Guardrail: It prevents you from making emotional decisions during market volatility.

• Objectives & Constraints: Clearly define your return goals, risk tolerance, time horizon, and liquidity needs.

• Guidelines are Actionable: Include your target asset allocation and rebalancing rules.

• It's a Living Document: Review and reaffirm your IPS at least annually, or when your life circumstances change significantly.