Not Drinking

[sobrique]

I've been 'not drinking' since new years day. And ... well, I mean 'mostly not' and made a couple of exceptions for weekends away.

I think I've given up now. It has dismally failed and so all I've managed to do is just end up not drinking beer when I've wanted to.

Now the weather has warmed up, I think pub beer gardens, with nice beer is in order, more than my faffing about trying to do something that clearly just doesn't work.

The only real thing that I've felt it 'worthwhile' is that I got to write '0' units on my form at a new dentist.

Comments

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

1/ Yes, have shifted what I've been eating a great deal whilst at work. Reduced overall calorie intake, more veg/fruit. Cereal bar type breakfast, occasionally branflakes. Lunch has been light, soup, yoghurt, fruit. Sometimes prepacked 'tuna light lunch'. Evening has, barring the occasional pizza, been similar, although sometime including canned tuna thingies.

2/ Up until recently, it's been twice or three times a week. Have really pushed hard on the workout, but not varied it particularly much - been mostly focussed on the rowing, and doing 2500m in 500m sprints, and the remainder of 10km at a steadier pace.

*shrug*. Net result has been that over 4 months, the difference has been negligable, to the point that weight difference in morning vs evening is more significant than the shift.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

although to add, I have lost _some_ weight. This morning the scales said 128kg, which is down from the 135kg over christmas. But essentially find that the keeping the diet going, is almost incompatible with making a good workout at the gym, because the general weariness just means getting the 10km rowing in is that much harder. (And I believe that when your hands start shaking, it's probably time to stop).

*shrug*. So if I continue at this rate, to my target weight of 100kg, it'll take me another 2 years.

Whilst I don't mind sacrifices for a gain, I'm not sure that the life balance that implies is necessarily what I want to accept. I've not given up entirely on the losing weight, it's just the perceptible difference that drinking vs. not drinking has made, has been negligable.

But basically, I'm just a bit depressed at the whole idea, and would rather enjoy living life.

[hedya.livejournal.com]

Just a quick note to say that weigh loss is non -linear. You shift a bit, than in spite of your continued efforts, you stay at that plateau for a while, and only after persisting you start shifting some more again, when you'll loose another chunk in a comparatively short term until you reach your body's next plateau, then you'll stuck with that for a while, and so on...

Especially if it's body mass that has been there for a while, it'sl ike our bodies need to adjust by stages, and the longer that mass has been there the longer the plateau stages will be. Don't desist, 7kg in 4 months is not bad at all, and having been slow and steady you are more likely to keep it off! it has taken me nearly 10 months to shift 14Kg,so similar rate really, don't desist!

[malal.livejournal.com]

but not varied it particularly much

Worth varying it a bit more, your body seems to "optimise" to a particular activity if you do it too much. Throwing it now & then apparently gets a better work out.

[dj-rws.livejournal.com]

I believe they call it "cross training". E.g. if you like just doing weights as I do then eventually your cardio-vascular system will start to let your muscles down as you can't deliver enough blood etc. to keep pushing your muscles through harder workouts. The solution is therefore to train in some cardio-vascular stuff such as running, ergs, swimming.

Running is supposedly the best for cardio and I know it's a no no for you due to the ankle so I'd suggest swimming or maybe the low impact striders which do look like assisted moon walking devices but with variable slope and difficulty settings are much more flexible than just running in a straight line. Or if you feel you're just not getting out of breath any more on an erg then maybe go to weights to build more muscle and increase your metabolism.

All round training is generally the best. Maybe start a "session" with a 5 minute slow warm up on an erg followed by 30 mins of weights and then do some hard cardio on the ergs again for 10-30 mins. You could even round it off with a gentle swim at the end and you could probably fit that into an hour and a half, maybe less.