TTBD 3
[TTBD 1 and TTBD 2 give the background to this post. Check 'em out if you get a bit confused!]
Well, it’s day 25 of the June project; apart from Saturday 16 when I had a planned day-off to help celebrate a friend’s birthday, I’ve been alcohol free all month. Not a big achievement to some, perhaps, but I have to tell you that today was one of those days when I really felt like I needed a drink (machines not behaving themselves , that sort of thing, always stresses me out and I usually relax with a beer or three when I get home) but I didn’t and it feels good to have developed my willpower to the point where I don’t waver in situations like that.
So, with the end of June fast approaching, it’s time to consider the July project. As I mentioned in TTBD 1, this involves the use of a product called Konjac Fibre to help with weight loss (the ultimate aim of stopping drinking in June). I’m going to continue with the teetotalling and start taking the Konjac and see if I can shed at least some of the extra weight that I’m carrying around.
Since embarking on this project, I’ve been visiting a site called Fat Happens every now and then; it’s a sort of social networking, support site for anyone trying to lose weight. The one thing that comes across from all the stories that are on there is that weight loss is right up with giving up smoking as one of the most difficult things to achieve - and maintain the results. Many smokers backslide - some after a couple of weeks, some after several years - and many slimmers also backslide. I’ve done it myself. The only way to do it is to make a permanent change to your lifestyle; I’m hoping that this time I’ll be able to achieve that.
I’ll keep you posted.
TTBD 2
You should probably read my post, Taking Those Big Decisions, before reading this one - at least if you want to see where this started. You don’t, like, have to though.
So, today is day 14. Two weeks since I made my pledge and climbed up on the wagon. Up to now it hasn’t been too hard, really. As only a weekend drinker (albeit a fairly heavy one), I haven’t had to change too much. Couple this with the fact that for one of the two weekends so far I was working on Saturday, avoiding drinking has been pretty easy.
I will be falling off the wagon to a degree this coming Saturday, though. It’s a friends birthday and she’s having the traditional all-afternoon barbecue get-together type-thing. You know, lots of friends and family, kids, maybe even a dog or two, with lots of food and lots of drink. It would be churlish - nay, insulting - to not raise a celebratory glass or two at such an occasion.
I promise, though, that I will try to exercise some moderation and this will be the only hiccup in the June Project. Honest.
- - -
Actually, the other thing I was going to talk about was people’s attitude when you tell them that you’re not drinking at the moment. I suppose some people find it hard to believe that someone who is known for liking a drink, would just suddenly want to give it up. The fact that I might be thinking of my health for a change - or even just thinking of my pocket - doesn’t seem to quite sit with them.
The major factor that seems to cause the problem is the complete stop, rather than a cutting down, a moderation. I agree that it might seem an extreme way to go about it, and perhaps that is bound to fail, but I know what I’m like. I backslide easily if the possibility is there; if there’s beer in the house, I’ll drink it in the shortest time possible. None of this making a six-pack last three or four nights - one night, it’s gone.
But if I completely cut myself off, there’s no beer in the fridge and I won’t drink (because I’m too lazy to go to the shop and buy any). So, abstinence works for me. And anyway, I’ve been doing moderation by just drinking at the weekends, but my intake was creeping up to levels that I wasn’t happy with.
Their attitude seems to be that they expect me to fail, and maybe I will, but let me try, OK? Rather than trying to make me go in a pub on a Saturday lunchtime, or trying to get me to buy beer when I go shopping, why not go along with my decision? Now is the time to say “Yeah, it’s about time. You’re a complete dick when you drink, so don’t do it for a while. Good choice.!” Or is that too much to ask?
Taking those big decisions
I’ve mentioned on my And this is me page in the past that my weight is “more than it should be, less than it has been”; meaning, I suppose, that like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I’m never really at the weight that all the diet books and weight loss guru’s say I should be.
That’s never really been an issue for me, as I’m well over six feet tall and the weight is fairly evenly spread, so I just look ‘filled out’ rather than morbidly obese. But I’ve noticed over the last few months that my weight is starting to creep up again and I think it’s time to try and do something about it again.
Several years ago, I decided that I weighed far too much; I was up to nearly 20 stone and I was creeping up in jeans sizes, to the point where I was having trouble getting clothes that would fit. So, I went on a crash diet (which is never the best way to go about these things), cutting out alcohol, giving up eating bread, having salad’s all the time, etc, and getting more exercise (walking, cycling, that sort of thing).
Over the course of three months, I went from nearly 20 stone, to just a shade under 15 stone; I went from a 42in waist, to a 34in and instead of buying shirts that had XL as a size, I could buy shirts that had M as a size.
[As an aside at this point, I should point out that whilst I was 14 stone 13 pounds, the 'experts' said that my ideal weight was 13 stone 12 pounds; however, if I'd lost that extra stone, I'd have looked like something that escaped from Belsen - as people were already telling me that I looked unwell and gaunt. If the 'experts' say you're overweight, don't believe them!]
I still have all those clothes, but I can’t get into them anymore and haven’t been able to for a while. The backsliding started within about two months of me saying that I wasn’t technically on a diet anymore. Because of the way I’d done it, I hadn’t changed my lifestyle permanently - which is the only way to do it - and so as all the bad habits returned, so did the weight. Since then, I haven’t made another serious attempt to do anything about it.
Until today.
But this time, I’m going to do it differently and I’m going to do it in stages. The first stage starts today and is the one that is probably going to be the hardest initially - no alcohol during June.
I say this one will be the hardest, but in a way it will also be quite easy, as I will have the financial incentive to keep me going. Most of my drinking is done on a Friday night and a Saturday afternoon. The rest of the week, I tend to stay off it so that I can be in better shape for work.
But during those weekend sessions, I can sometimes put quite a bit away; on a Friday night possibly not more than three or four pints, but on a Saturday, it might be three or four with lunch at one pub; move on to another for a couple more; and then perhaps three or four more at a third, during dinner. All-in-all, I probably end up spending £30 to £40 across the weekend that is on drink, or on drink-related items (pub lunches, etc). Now, whilst not every weekend, this does add up in terms of finance and alcohol units across a month to a total that neither my bank balance or my health can afford anymore. I’ve been wanting to buy a new computer for months (this one keeps locking unexpectedly, the CD doesn’t work properly anymore) and the money I’m spending two or three weekends a month could pay for a nice, shiny new 20in iMac!
So the alcohol’s gone as from today. (Well, actually as from Tuesday of this week which is when I finished up a can that was in the fridge, but today is Resolution Day!).
So that’s the first stage. That’s going to be June’s project, and I’ll probably make lots of posts about how easy or how difficult I’m finding it, or how rich I suddenly feel. Of course, I’ll have to find something else to do with my Saturday afternoons.
The second stage is to try something that we’ve been talking about at work. The company I work for sells nutritional supplements, and I take the products myself. But there’s one I’ve never tried, called Konjac Fibre. This is a product, derived from a Japanese plant, that is supposed to aid weight-loss, at the same time as balancing blood sugar levels and aiding proper digestion by giving the body a decent supply of fibre.
What we’ve been talking about is developing a project whereby we invite customers to take part in a three month programme of changing their diet and exercise regimes (permanently) to enable them to lose weight healthily and keep it off. The target weight loss for the three months is one stone.
Before launching the project on an unsuspecting nation (probably around January next year), a couple of us thought that we’d try it ourselves and this is what I intend to do from July.
For me there will be two major changes involved to successfully complete the three months. Firstly, to take more exercise (or, indeed, any exercise); hopefully, with summer coming up, I’ll be able to get out on my bike a lot, do plenty of walking, etc. The second will be to improve my diet. Whilst I eat a lot of fruit, I don’t eat as much fresh produce as I really should, and I do still fall back on convenience cooking (Birds Eye Chicken Grill, anyone?). This needs to change.
Hopefully, with the added support of the supplements I’ll be able to lose that bit of weight; I think a stone to a stone-and-a-half would be enough to make the difference. But that’s for July.. let’s get through June first!
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