2 years alcohol-free

After having a day off alcohol on January 31 2018 and feeling so good about it, I haven’t found any reason to drink alcohol since.

Here are a few highlights from practicing self-awareness and moderation since then.

Trained for and ran a 50km run.

Saved over $4,000. ($40 per week formerly spent on alcohol .)

Been using Duolingo daily for over 16 months to study Greek and French.

Drawing daily since October 2018.

Maintaining my 35kg weight loss from 2015-16.

Continuing to log my daily food intake on My Fitness Pal nearly 5 years.

Continuing to be at a parkrun every Saturday.

Exhibiting and selling my Art.

Writing zenmode.org blog.

Implemented home energy-saving and reduced my cost of living.

No-Spend November.

3 months Slow Fashion Season Challenge (bought no new clothes).

Made investments.

Travelled to visit parkruns further afield.

Saved for and travelled from Australia to Europe and met up with friends.

I see no temptations in alcohol any more.

I’m always happy to be free of its ups and downs and its guilt.

drinking alcohol in moderation

fast weight loss, weight gain, crash diet, yo-yo dieting, binge, serial starter, biggest loser,

Fast weight loss makes you fat again

Crash dieting leads to a crash and burn.

Crash dieting fucks up your Leptin (satiety hormone) and Ghrelin (hunger hormone) for years. There’s lots of good science about this now.  Leptin and Ghrelin are parts of our metabolism. (Fast weight loss also affects other elements of your metabolism, but these are the main ones and are simplest to explain.)

When your satiety (fullness) signals and your hunger signals are out of whack, that is when people can’t control their eating and binge and yo-yo.

All those “serial starters” crash diet, overeat, rinse and repeat.

 

Fast weight loss causes yo-yo weight gain

 

There’s no point doing a crazy diet you hate then going right back to eating the way you used to. Hello yo-yo!

And that’s assuming you can even stick to the crazy diet long enough to lose any weight!

 

Please talk to a doctor and/or dietitian about your health and dietary requirements regularly.

People seem to think “eating healthy” or “losing weight” means punishing yourself.

Kale, steamed chicken, and 6 hours in the gym a week… Sound familiar?

The endless hype about motivation is your weight loss worst enemy.

 

The idea is to learn how to eat sustainably for the rest of your life. 

 

You don’t even need to “eat less and move more” (a saying which causes a lot of extremism). You could just do one or the other.
Eat back your exercise calories!

If you’re already eating less food overall every day, if you fuel the exercise you do, it’s still going to mean you will lose weight.

 

If you don’t eat exercise calories back, that’s when you lose muscle, get weaker, move less, get really hungry, and can end up with an eating disorder, or crashing and burning and failing to reach goal weight.

 

Then when you fail, you go back to your bad habits and gain more weight back than you lost because your hormones and your perception of food can’t regulate your hunger.

You don’t have to count calories to lose weight, but you need an understanding of the body’s general “Energy Equation”. (A calorie is a unit of energy.)

 

  • Small men less than 15 lb overweight should eat at least 1500 calories a day when dieting, plus what they burn in exercise;
  • Small women less than 15 lb overweight should eat a minimum of 1200 calories, plus what they burn in exercise.

 

If you’re taller and/or heavier, you need to eat more because you need more energy to move yourself around.

 

These calorie figures are the bare minimum you need to function normally while still losing weight.

There are a couple of other general guidelines about weight loss rates.

 

One is not to lose more than 1% of your body weight a week.

 

Or:

 

If you are around 10 kg or 20 lb overweight:

  • To lose 1 kg = 28,000 kilojoule deficit: Should not take less than 4 weeks. E.g. 1000 kj or one Mars bar less a day than if you’re maintaining.
  • To lose 1 lb = 3,500 calorie deficit: Should not take less than 2 weeks. E.g. 250 kcal a day less.

If you try to lose it faster, you’ll gain it back fast!

 

I’ve seen this too:

If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal (1,000 calorie daily deficit)

If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal (750 calorie daily deficit)

If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal (500 calorie daily deficit)

If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal (250-500 calorie daily deficit)

If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal (250 calorie daily deficit)

 

 

Crash dieting causes people to crash and burn and regain more than they lost. They get weak and lose muscle mass and hence get a slower metabolism (lower Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)) and lose perspective on how much they need to maintain weight.

 

Losing muscle and feeling weak means less non-exercise activity thermogenesis (N.E.A.T.), so it lowers total daily energy expenditure.  You feel lethargic so you don’t do as many little walks or jobs at home or work.

 

To keep losing weight they eat even less, and so it spirals downward towards hormone disruption & bingeing it back, and/or developing an eating disorder.

 

The massive and aggressive competition in the diet industry is a huge cause of so much yo-yo dieting, obesity, and eating disorders.

The diet industry feeds itself on the harmful goal of fast weight loss, offering fad diets, diet scams, quick fixes, and crash diets.

Cutting out all fat, carbohydrates, vegetables, or sugar, can lead to deprivation that is unsustainable.

 

Fast weight loss is bad.

 

Extreme diets are bad.

 

All those “Biggest Loser” contestants gaining all the weight back weren’t learning anything about weight maintenance being on the show.

 

Sustainable eating does not mean punishing yourself.

 

It takes quite a while to think this through.

 

It can be very hard to switch to having a mindset of sustainable eating when all around are advertisements offering fast and extremist solutions.  

 

Once you notice this you see it everywhere.

 

We can’t change our mind about this easily, especially when society, family, and media teach us this mindset.  Also genetics, biology and evolution.

 

Eat what sustains you as long as possible.

Here’s what’s sustaining me:

 

  • Volume Eating. Fruit and veg have fibre which makes you feel full, and they bulk up the size of your meal and add very few calories.
  • Protein and fat (and fibre) can make you feel fuller.
  • My macronutrients are usually around 50% carbohydrates, 30% fat, 20% protein, and that keeps me very healthy, active, and happy.
  • Most days lately, I love eating Greek yoghurt, cereal biscuits, fruit, vegetable and pasta Napolitano, vegetable protein/seafood/chicken with rice/noodles/potato, more veg, and dessert or chocolate depending on my day’s exercise.
  • Some days (after a big sweat, perhaps), I need some salty chips, and maybe a chocolate protein drink.
  • Some days, I like pizza (which can have all the micro and macronutrients you need AND not have too many calories).

 

If I deprived myself of things I love, I would never have lasted the distance.

 

What sustains you?

 

Again, see a doctor and/or dietitian about your health and dietary requirements regularly.

 

“Cheat days?”

 

When you are maintaining your weight and tracking calorie intake, you can’t get the maths exactly right. Some days your intake will be higher than your energy intake.

 

I go by my weekly calorie limit, and make sure I stick to it, and also track my weight daily so I get data for the weight trend.  If you can tweak smaller fluctuations, you don’t need to make larger changes.

 

Having a higher calorie day here and there balances out over the week if you have some lower calorie days. That’s how Intermittent Fasting works, in all its varying personas.

 

You can also gauge your calorie deficit by your weight loss via the scale and tweak that way.

Just don’t be a “Biggest Loser” wannabe because they gained it all back!

 

Diet breaks

The slower you lose as you get close to your goal, the higher the chances of having hormones and habits that mean you can handle maintaining your goal weight for longer.  This process is also aided by regular week-long diet breaks / refeeds of eating at maintenance calories, which let your hunger hormones settle down.

People set a weight loss goal deadline, and starve themselves to get there, not realising that they want to get there so quickly because starving themselves is so awful. A snake eating its tail.

fast weight loss, weight gain, crash diet, yo-yo dieting, binge, serial starter, biggest loser,

“If I lose weight fast, the sooner I can go back to eating too much.” – Pretty much everyone dieting ever.

 

Someone had to tell me something similar after I’d been using My Fitness Pal to track calorie intake for about 6 months and not eating my exercise calories back.  A hard lesson to learn. But I really appreciate what he said now so much.

 

If you enjoy the process you can stick to the process.

Sustainability in eating, running, living

I lost 35 kg and have kept it off 3 years 3 months so far. This is what I’m loving doing currently.

I did a 2 day 60 km bushwalking event (with about 5 km of running at the end) a few weeks ago, rested A LOT, and last Friday I ran a half marathon. That means I’ve now run at least one half marathon distance run (21.1 km or longer) every month for 2 years. Longest run was 50 km. Happy! Practicing not running too much or too hard so I can keep running without injury.

I’m currently busy being a coach/run leader for our Running Club (I’m also Secretary), one of our parkrun Run Directors (my third year doing that), and happy being involved as an artist & volunteer at a gallery for local artists. And working in a financial planning office 4 days a week.

Writing regularly about running, weight loss, logic, self-care, the joys of freedom from alcohol, and more on zenmode.org

I’m obsessed with sustainability, and doing a 3-month “Slow Fashion Challenge” and not buying any new clothes, and involved in groups and arranging a mending/swap event.

Studying a course on The Fashion Revolution & the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 2030, and devouring information on The Circular Economy, and on recycling in Australia/globally. Sharing what I’m discovering in our local War on Waste group and page, and pretty much everywhere.

I created a spreadsheet/pic of all the types of recycling and their collection points in town that’s being shared around.

Sustainability in eating, running, living. Perhaps obsessiveness about moderation, hahaha.

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate your interest. Hope you’re thriving and loving life too.

Current interests helping me thrive

“Whole of Life” list of cool things I’m enjoying doing and exploring.

1. Circular economy.

2. Recycling industry boom.

3. Local recycling collection points.

4. Did a CPR course.

5. 2 Day hiking event in the mountains last weekend. Superlatives are lacking.

6. Not getting distracted by other subjects when I go to look up something online.

7. Prudence.
Classics, minimalist, style, linen, bargain, Prudence, white shirt,

Linen shirts from Target marked down after summer. $10 and $5. Amazing what classics you can pick up if you walk around a lot patiently and see so many things you can choose the best bargains for a style you’re after. Plus, I used $10 worth of flybuys points!

8. Been making and bringing my lunches to work for months like I’m a proper grown-up.

9. Running regularly for joy not kudos.

10. Researching before buying things.

11. Tax planning.

12. Using Scholl Eulactol balm twice daily which has fixed my heels after they became dry and cracked from wearing Birkenstocks all summer.

13. Not replying in anger when someone makes an extremist comment.

14. Not checking the news outlets as often to avoid joining angry mobs or giving extremist clickbait articles any ad revenue.

15. Duolingo Greek lesson daily for 263 days so far.

16. Drawing daily for 10 months now.

17. Sewing pockets on things.

Also, some thoughts I haven’t had time to put into a separate blog post:

A. Fear of guilt or regret as a driver for action can help with:

B. Caterpillars in the stomach that people get when faced with doing something new.

C. People’s cognitive dissonance between:

Guilt about being unfit and overweight; and

Wanting to feel fit and healthy.

D. A can help us by being able to recognise when we’re doing B and C.

What’s got you thinking lately?

Is protein more satiating than carbohydrates or fat?

“A review of 38 studies concluded protein is more satiating than carbs and fats in the 10-20% of energy intake range but not above that, indicating the average satiety sweet spot is a protein intake of 20% of energy intake, corresponding to about 1.2 g/kg/d for non-strength training individuals. The effect was far stronger for self-reported satiety than actual eating behavior: ad libitum energy intake didn’t reliably decrease even at lower protein intakes. The optimum protein intake for satiety was closely in line with the optimal protein intake for body recomposition and health (1.2 – 1.6 g/kg/d).”

Menno Henselmans

Haha, that fascinating article pretty much sums my protein percentage up!

I have no medical conditions.

Please see a dietitian if you require advice on eating to assist management of illness.

I’ve been logging everything in My Fitness Pal over 4 years, (lost 35 kg and have maintained 3 years) and never really pay any attention to trying to achieve any particular macronutrient percentage.

My macros have consistently been an average of 20% protein, 30% fat, 50% carbs the whole time. This seems to coincide with the general recommendation from most national health departments.

I love how I was about to say through most of Henselman’s article, but what about fibre? Yep, at the end, he says how fruit and veg are good at filling you up.

You can use them to bulk up your plate and stomach with volume for very few calories.

And I find now that a 300 kilojoule piece of fruit is satiating and lets me stop eating whereas an 800 kilojoule biscuit/cookie makes me want another.

Sometimes, of course, I’m happy to use my calorie limit on a couple of biscuits. That’s a form of satiation too.

Other days, too, I’ll have a 400 kilojoule choc protein bar if I can feel I need it.

I learned a good word last week:

Interoception

“Research has begun to explore how our [lack of] awareness and perception of our body signals (known as interoception) contribute to disordered eating. Interoception includes perceiving various internal sensations from the body. It means noticing things like how quickly your heart is beating, how heavily you are breathing, how hot or cold you are, and whether you are feeling hungry or full.”

Melissa Barker and Rebecca Brewer

It’s risky just following the “intuitive eating” idea if you’re trying to watch your weight – but I’ve found it helps if you have some understanding of yourself and the caloric content of food you can choose to eat.